Unit 2: AP Environmental Science Faculty Lecture with Professor Michele Goldsmith

Summary

In "What Gorillas Teach Us About Biodiversity," Professor Michele Goldsmith delivers an insightful lecture on the importance of biodiversity using gorillas as a fascinating case study. Goldsmith, an accomplished environmental science educator and leader, shares her journey into primate research inspired by the work of Dian Fossey. The lecture covers gorillas' roles in biodiversity, threats they face, and conservation efforts to protect them. Goldsmith emphasizes the significance of biodiversity at genetic, species, and ecosystem levels and discusses the ethical considerations in conservation efforts. Her love for gorillas and their habitats shines through, making this lecture an inspiring call to action for future environmental scientists.

Highlights

• Dian Fossey inspired Michele Goldsmith to study primates 🦧.
• Genetic variation and habitat diversity are crucial for species survival 🌳.
• The bush meat crisis continues to threaten wildlife in Africa 🔫.
• Ecotourism offers a way forward for conservation, but challenges remain 🌐.
• Goldsmith highlights the role of ethics in biodiversity conservation 🤝.
• Understanding gorilla social behavior aids conservation efforts 🎓.
• The lecture culminates with a call to action for future scientists 🚀.

Key Takeaways

• Gorillas serve as a compelling example of biodiversity and its importance 🦍.
• Conservation involves complex ethical and ecological considerations 🌍.
• Active participation in environmental science can lead to impactful careers 🌿.
• Dian Fossey's pioneering work remains a profound inspiration 🕵️‍♀️.
• Biodiversity encompasses genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity 🌱.
• Tourism can aid conservation but must be ethically managed 🌄.
• Human-animal conflicts require balanced approaches to resolve ⚖️.

Overview

Professor Michele Goldsmith opens her lecture by sharing how renowned primatologist Dian Fossey inspired her journey into the realm of environmental science and gorilla research. Using gorillas as a focal point, Goldsmith illustrates the concept of biodiversity through genetic, species, and habitat diversity. Her passion is palpable as she narrates her field experiences and the rewarding yet challenging aspects of gorilla conservation.

Goldsmith delves into the threats gorillas face, such as habitat destruction, disease, and poaching. These challenges are compounded by human activities like mining and deforestation. Yet, there's hope in ecotourism, which Goldsmith presents as a double-edged sword capable of both conserving and harming gorilla populations if not ethically implemented. This insight into the complexity of conservation efforts is both enlightening and sobering.

The lecture concludes with a powerful call to action, urging students to pursue environmental science and participate in ongoing conservation efforts. Goldsmith emphasizes a shift towards a biocentric view that respects the intrinsic worth of wildlife. Her heartfelt message, hopeful and pragmatic, encourages the next generation to engage deeply with environmental and ethical challenges in their scientific endeavors.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:30: Introduction to the Lecture and Speaker The speaker, Michelle Goldsmith, introduces herself and her experience in teaching college for over 30 years, currently at Southern New Hampshire University. She sets the stage for a lecture focused on Unit 2 in Biodiversity, using gorillas as a case study to explore what we can learn about biodiversity from them.
• 01:30 - 07:00: Diane Fossey and Michelle's Journey into Primatology The chapter titled 'Diane Fossey and Michelle's Journey into Primatology' opens with background information about the narrator, who is the coordinator of an environmental science program. The narrator has 14 years of experience with the Educational Testing Service and the College Board, particularly with the AP Environmental Science exam. Over the years, they have served in various roles such as a reader, a table leader, and a question leader, which has significantly contributed to their expertise in environmental science.
• 07:00 - 14:00: Research on Gorillas and Biodiversity The chapter is a motivational discourse for AP Environmental Science students, delivered by a speaker who has served as the chief reader for AP Environmental Science for the past three years. The speaker expresses enthusiasm for the field and encourages students to pursue careers in teaching or researching environmental science.
• 14:00 - 19:00: Types of Gorilla Species The chapter introduces Diane Fossey, a pioneering researcher who was the first to study gorillas in the wild during the late 1960s and predominantly in the 1970s. She was one of the three women supported by Louis Leakey, with Jane Goodall being the most well-known among them.
• 19:00 - 31:00: Challenges Facing Gorilla Conservation The chapter provides an insight into the challenges facing gorilla conservation through the experiences of an individual, Jane. She is depicted as deeply committed to saving gorillas, having lived closely with them and known them intimately. The narrative highlights the dire situation when she commenced her conservation work, with the gorilla population standing at a mere 220. It underscores the urgent need for conservation efforts to protect and preserve these magnificent creatures.
• 31:00 - 38:00: Ecotourism as a Conservation Tool The chapter begins with a personal anecdote from the narrator, who was inspired by a presentation given by someone named Diane during their sophomore year in college. This presentation was a pivotal moment, referred to as an 'aha moment', where the narrator realized their passion and calling related to what Diane was advocating.
• 38:00 - 55:00: Impact of Human Interaction and Habitat Encroachment The speaker reflects on a life-changing epiphany or 'aha moment', hoping that others will experience similar moments during their education. The presentation by Diane, described as dynamic, used captivating photos and narratives. One of the stories highlighted was about Digit, Diane's favorite gorilla, whom she is buried next to.
• 55:00 - 61:00: Ethical Considerations in Conservation The chapter discusses ethical considerations in conservation, focusing on the harsh realities and difficult choices faced by local populations. An example given is of people using brutal methods to create souvenirs and as a means of survival, reflecting the moral dilemmas in balancing economic needs with ethical practices.
• 61:00 - 64:00: Conclusion and Encouragement for Future Environmental Scientists The speaker reflects on a moment of emotional overwhelm due to insufficient resources, motivating a career shift towards primatology. Pursuing a PhD focused on western lowland gorillas, they conducted field research starting with a brief study in 1991 in the Zanga Sanga National Park, Central African Republic.

Unit 2: AP Environmental Science Faculty Lecture with Professor Michele Goldsmith Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hi i'm michelle goldsmith and i'm really honored today to have the opportunity to share with you a lecture on unit 2 in biodiversity and also look at gorillas as a case study for biodiversity in this talk that i've titled what gorillas teach us about biodiversity i've been teaching college for over 30 years now and most recently i've been at southern new hampshire university where i
• 00:30 - 01:00 am the coordinator of the environmental science program i've also have been with the educational testing service and college board for about 14 years being participating in the reading and other aspects of the ap environmental science exam so i was a reader for i don't know maybe eight years or so and then a table leader and a question leader and i don't
• 01:00 - 01:30 know if any of these terms mean anything to you but most recently the past three years i've been the chief reader for the ap environmental science so i am really psyched to be able to have an opportunity to speak to ap environmental science students and to encourage you in the field of environmental science and hopefully see you out teaching environmental science or researching in the field
• 01:30 - 02:00 so before we get started i'm going to just tell you a little bit about my story and my story started with this woman's story this woman is diane fosse she was the first to ever study gorillas in the wild in the late 60s but mostly in the 70s she was one of louis leakey's three women the one you know the best is jane goodall so diane went out and studied the gorillas
• 02:00 - 02:30 um jane went out and studied the chimps and barry galdice went out and studied the orangutans so this is an image of her with poppy who's a very young gorilla in this picture and she knew these gorillas really well she basically lived with them night and day and she did everything in her power to save them when she started looking at the gorillas there were only about 220
• 02:30 - 03:00 and since then the numbers have greatly increased so my story starts with diane's story because when i was a sophomore in college diane came to my school and gave a presentation and it was at that point i had like my aha moment where i realized this is what i'm going to do
• 03:00 - 03:30 for the rest of my life and i hope that you all have your own aha moment whether it's in high school or college or graduate school where something just clicks like this um diane was very dynamic in her presentation she pulled you in with all of these wonderful photos she talked about digit her favorite gorilla who she is buried next to and her last slide which i have a
• 03:30 - 04:00 picture of but i thought was too gory for the lecture was one of digit with his head hands and his feet cut off they would use the head as trophies they would make ashtrays out of the hands and this is how some of the local people had to make a living to save their families so at the end of her lecture i was just
• 04:00 - 04:30 a mess there weren't enough tissues in the room and and that was it for me so um i went out and started studying primates uh and specifically guerrillas and did my phd on western rolling gorillas in the central african republic so i went out to the field to do a brief study in 1991 in the zangasanga national park
• 04:30 - 05:00 and i was there for two years living in the middle of the rain forest a gorgeous rainforest i worked with bayaka pygmies who were my guides and helped me find gorilla tracks every day the gorillas were very wild they were not used to people and so i was always following like a day before them the day after them and i was really
• 05:00 - 05:30 interested to see how their environment influenced their behavior so you um [Music] can guess that i'm a behavioral ecologist right and that's uh someone who looks at the importance of biodiversity and besides any great behavioral ecologists i've also become interested in their conservation it's very hard to study a species in the wild and not become passionate about saving them
• 05:30 - 06:00 one of my favorite times in the forest was when my dad a mechanic from brooklyn came to visit me in the middle of the rainforest um and here we are pictured sitting on elephant mandibles which came in really handy you know it's the lower jaw i used the mandibles as magazine racks because i lived in the middle of the jungle um i turned them over and sat on them
• 06:00 - 06:30 in my cabinet which is a very french way of toilet which was a hole in the ground but you get very creative when you're out there and it was a wonderful time it turns out that the year i graduated college was the year that dianne fossey was killed and um some say she was killed by poachers and um so my
• 06:30 - 07:00 my love for studying gorillas became that much more intense so a little bit about how they fit in with biodiversity you know there are three levels of diversity or definitions of biodiversity and whenever we think of biodiversity we
• 07:00 - 07:30 always think about species diversity you know the number of different species that are out there and species diversity is looking at the number of different species and their abundance in a particular area and we know that species diversity tends to be much greater and more stable in rain forests tropical rainforests than in other areas so the gorillas live
• 07:30 - 08:00 in differing forests depending on which gorilla you're looking at which and i'll introduce you to them in a few minutes genetic diversity is another kind of diversity where we're looking at genetic variation within a population or even genetic variation between populations so the gorillas that i study live in a national park that's only 331 kilometers and one-third of it they don't use it
• 08:00 - 08:30 all as a road goes through it and there is possibility of reducing the gene pool and there could be issues with inbreeding with a population that is living in a habitat too small to introduce new genetic information there is no movement outside the park or movement inside the park of any other gorillas
• 08:30 - 09:00 habitat diversity this is really interesting because this is also related to one thing i studied with gorillas was for my phd i wanted to study lowland gorillas and how they differed from mountain gorillas and so at the lowland um forest it's so dense it's it's so dense when i was in central african republic and in the congo basin an elephant a forest elephant can be like five feet away from you
• 09:00 - 09:30 and you wouldn't know it that's how dense the forest was so you can imagine it had a lot of habitat diversity and therefore a lot of species diversity and it was there where gorillas also lived sympatrically meaning together sharing the same resources etc um in the western language in western rural and gorillas they don't overlap with chimpanzees in their other range
• 09:30 - 10:00 so there are actually three kinds of gorillas originally gorillas were all considered the same species so they were all gorilla gorilla something so they were subspecies of each other but as you can see from this map they are geographically isolated from each other the western gorillas and the eastern gorillas and you know there's not going to be any
• 10:00 - 10:30 movement of genes across all of the democratic republic of congo so um they they did finally change i don't know who they are but change the gorillas from a subspecies to two different species and so i studied the western woman gorilla for my phd i like to say gorilla gorilla gorilla so nice they named it thrice
• 10:30 - 11:00 and they are the most um numerous of all the gorillas and you can see them in red here and also interestingly when you go to the zoo you will see a western lolan gorilla they're the only gorillas that are in captivity in zoos they're the smallest um and they have the shortest hair right um and they live in a very
• 11:00 - 11:30 different environment with specializing in fruits when fruits are available and this greatly affects their behavior and ranging and therefore also affects their social behavior and that was pretty much what i did for my phd there were that's not too far in the distance um about 150 000 that we kind of
• 11:30 - 12:00 estimated and now maybe only about a hundred thousand left and if you look at this uh the yellow dots right above the red there's two small populations in the affe mountains that are considered a different subspecies than guerrilla gorilla gorilla and there's only about 200 individuals in that forest there so a lot of conservation efforts in [Music]
• 12:00 - 12:30 saving those populations and including local communities and helping them to do that eastern lowland gorillas are in the green um i remember when i started lecturing on gorillas i think uh there were like 30 000 eastern lowland gorillas um all in they only live in the democratic republic of congo which formerly was zaire and that's the only country they're in
• 12:30 - 13:00 and there's been a lot of warfare in the democratic republic of congo or drc and as a result guerrillas are killed sometimes for food sometimes they're killed for other reasons illegal trade and just about eight years ago an entire gorilla family was was killed execution style it was the best known
• 13:00 - 13:30 tourist family in kahusi biega national park in drc so we're still not sure about their numbers their numbers can be as low as eight thousand some have said maybe even three thousand the mountain gorillas are the least numerous and um they occur in two separate populations which i'll introduce you to in a little bit and if um you've done some ecology it's
• 13:30 - 14:00 related to biodiversity and following berg bergman's rule these mountain gorillas can live up to ten thousand feet and because they live in colder climates like the temperature actually varies more within the day than it does between any other day and there have been i've been there and there have been hail storms so they have much longer hair they're
• 14:00 - 14:30 shaggier you know they have shorter snouts shorter limbs to conserve heat and there are presently about a thousand um or they just did us i think the most recent census was in 2018 and so in the two different populations 400 estimated in bundy and um about another 800 or so estimated in the
• 14:30 - 15:00 verongos so my colleague andrea taylor and i in 2003 released this book on gorilla biology a multidisciplinary approach where we looked at genetic variation and we looked at anatomical variation behavioral variation and a little bit on conservation and it was soon after the book was
• 15:00 - 15:30 published and the the book is a a collection of research by ten different gorilla researchers at the time so but it was after this book that we really started to notice that there were two different species and i know it doesn't sound like there's a big difference but when you're talking about just one species of gorilla gorilla and there's over 130 of them then the conservation
• 15:30 - 16:00 need doesn't sound that great but when you start talking about different gorilla species with different numbers so gorilla gorilla gorilla hundred thousand gorilla baringie which is the mountain gorilla baringi iboringi a thousand so um and those again they're relative numbers but i think it gets a little dire when you can actually go out and count individuals then you know you're
• 16:00 - 16:30 you know you're in trouble but this population the amount in the mountain girls have also been the one that have become the most healthiest because they are monitored basically on a daily basis so gorillas are also [Music] k-selected species right so if they have a lot of disturbance in their habitat they can't really react that well when it comes to
• 16:30 - 17:00 adaptations right unlike our selected species that do okay in unstable environments you know they have a quick generation overturn overturned generations and they can adapt a lot quicker gorillas and other large-bodied case-selected animals can't do that so threats to them are very serious and it could and it has caused the decrease
• 17:00 - 17:30 in a number of gorilla populations so some of these threats i mean the main threat to gorillas of course are us and we're the ones that affect all other aspects their survival now this is a photo i took when i was soon uh just after getting to buindy uganda in 1996 when we were just kind of
• 17:30 - 18:00 habituating this group and i was sitting there with one of my students from dartmouth and we were she named the one on the bottom grease lightning because she thought it looked like one of the greasers like with his hair from greece the movie or play and i named the one on top curious george after my dad who you saw in that picture who had the guts to come visit me in the middle of nowhere
• 18:00 - 18:30 um which was a gorgeous paradise so curious george and greece lightning we often wondered who was watching whom like so unfortunately the threats to gorillas are many as they are to all wildlife and habitat destruction in my conservation biology course just last week we were talking about the
• 18:30 - 19:00 top threats and habitat destruction and fragmentation is the top threat for gorillas and for all wildlife and habitat is destroyed for expanding agriculture expanding um [Music] areas to mine um and to live and then also they're fragmented so i was on a train this was a photo i took while i was on a train
• 19:00 - 19:30 in gabon going to visit some other gorilla researchers and i saw this for about six hours the whole way on the train and it made me wonder how there could still be any trees left in the forest but there are and but what happens with logging is that they come in and they build these roads right through pristine forest that hadn't really been accessible before and when
• 19:30 - 20:00 they build these roads it creates edge effects in the forest it reduces ranging of animals and it introduces the area to people so they could go they could go in and hunt so um the bush meat crisis which is happening over in with the western lolan gorillas has been going on a long time this is not just killing gorillas for sustenance for food but the killing of wildlife
• 20:00 - 20:30 for international trade national trade and international trade and um here's a picture of a snare so this the snare is not set for gorillas the snare is set for dikers which are like african antelopes and um they're set up around the forest like i found them in my research site all over the place thankfully none of us ever got caught in
• 20:30 - 21:00 them but gorillas and chimpanzees do get caught in them and they can lose their fingers and they could even lose their hand and they could end up um dying from that there's also ebola and other diseases that have affected populations just as it has affected human populations and i'll talk about this later when we look at impacts of tourism
• 21:00 - 21:30 but it's very possible for us to give guerrillas diseases and very easy for them to give us diseases so the local people that were hunting gorillas and chimps in central africa were getting infected with ebola and then bringing the ebola back to their village so we lost a lot of western lola and gorillas actually to ebola besides
• 21:30 - 22:00 disease uh transmission to and from gorillas and humans gorillas are also impacted by mining and in this picture here all those little dots are people and you can see that there's actually illegal mining going on here for coltan which is the combination of two raw ores that when illegally mined um happens in places kind of remote
• 22:00 - 22:30 and it also leads to hunting because these people have to eat so there's a lot of pressure from mining that you wouldn't think would affect the gorillas indirectly or directly and this coltan ore is then sold to a middle person and then sold to larger companies for a lot lots of money and this coltan unfortunately you may not want to hear this
• 22:30 - 23:00 is used in electronics like our cell phones and playstations it is legally mined in areas like australia but a lot of illegal mining still happens for coal tan in africa as well as cobalt for electric vehicles and then the pet trade i didn't have any photos of gorillas to share there are certainly a lot out there um but these are monkeys and um
• 23:00 - 23:30 wildlife is often taken from the forest um to keep these animals as pets and what happens with gorillas unfortunately and chimpanzees as well to get a gorilla baby you pretty much have to go through the gorilla family to get the baby so often when you see one gorilla baby that's on the black market or being sold on a street corner which
• 23:30 - 24:00 has happened in the past at least four or five or six gorillas were probably killed in that instant and what's really sad is you know what do you do with these babies and um because of that now we have a lot of sanctuaries so there's in africa we have a lot of gorilla sanctuaries and a lot of chimpanzee sanctuaries where you know gorillas can live till they're 40 50 years old that's a long time it's a lot of money and
• 24:00 - 24:30 um but that's a way of conserving and protecting the species when they're being impacted like this so what i hope i've demonstrated which is another principle in biodiversity and ecology is competitive exclusion right no two species can share the exact same niche um and we know when non-human animals and human animals
• 24:30 - 25:00 interact with each other that the human animals always win so here i am swinging in on my vine to save the and um there have been a lot of conservation efforts you know especially to reduce the bush meat crisis and um and to reduce poaching and one of those conservation efforts
• 25:00 - 25:30 is ecotourism and a lot of ecotourism programs have been starting throughout the world where the animals basically become more valuable alive than um than dead in as in poaching in fact one of the amazing things that dianne fossey did was she introduced tourism to the government in rwanda
• 25:30 - 26:00 and was able to start bringing tourists to see the groups and as a result she was able to to train some of the poachers the actual people that went out and were killing the animals for food or for for trophy and have them be the guides because they knew the best they knew the gorillas the best right if they had to hunt them they definitely knew how to find them and
• 26:00 - 26:30 she basically solved poaching i mean poaching still happens a lot today but you know ecotourism became a conservation tool poaching was reduced money was coming in and for ecotourism to be true ecotourism instead of adventure tourism or wildlife tourism the money that comes in has to go back to protecting the species itself and it also has to go to funding local populations that live around the region
• 26:30 - 27:00 so local development of hospitals and schools and so forth so there are impacts of ecotourism there's good impacts um and benefits and then there are some costs and here i am actually showing one of the costs where the gorillas get so habituated you know meaning they lose their their fear of humans
• 27:00 - 27:30 um that they can approach really close and sometimes it's even hard to get out of their way but the benefits of tourism are many um it brings in a lot of money and this is one of the little babies that was in my group um i caught a picture of of her she's much older now um but to come and see these gorillas people pay between 500 and 750 dollars
• 27:30 - 28:00 for a permit sometimes they're waiting a year year and a half to get those permits too and they go in groups of eight to each of the tourist groups every day of which now there's about 11 groups right now in windy in peninsula national park which totals about 16 million dollars a year and this money does go to help local people it goes back into the park to protect
• 28:00 - 28:30 the animals all the animals really not just the gorillas but most importantly in uganda this money is used to support all the other national parks in the country that can't be visited because of um war war issues or um aren't visited for other reasons there's no tourism and so it's really important to have this money to protect the rest of the parks
• 28:30 - 29:00 it also means that the animals are monitored daily so you can keep track of births and deaths and sickness and there are cases when the gorillas get sick where the gorilla doctors come in and that was a project that i was involved in when i was at tufts school of tufts school of veterinary medicine and they go out and can help with guerrillas that are injured
• 29:00 - 29:30 i think most importantly tourism is really great for increasing awareness of the species and also appreciation for their livelihood and my hope is that the tourists go home with this appreciation and do something about it some of the costs of ecotourism are what i ultimately ended up teach um researching when i
• 29:30 - 30:00 went to uganda you know i had originally gone to look at the comparison of western lola and gorilla behavior to mountain gorilla behavior given the differences in lowland habitat versus mountain habitat where you know mountain girls wake up and they are living in a salad bowl you know they don't even have to move to eat um whereas the western lowland gorillas were traveling um maybe just one quarter of the
• 30:00 - 30:30 distance that a mountain gorilla would which then affects all their other behaviors so in the bottom you could see where i was studying the windy gorillas they hadn't been studied before they're a separate subpopulation of mountain gorillas and you could see the varuna mountains in the background that's where diane fosse worked and um so again no genetic information is getting across at
• 30:30 - 31:00 25 kilometers anytime soon and in the picture in the right if you see that little white dot down there that is my um camp and it was in a buffer zone outside the park and it was very different from the central african republic and so i was there from 1996 until 2014
• 31:00 - 31:30 not constant but had a program going on there looking at the impacts of ecotourism as a national geographic researcher so this is what i started studying i trying to compare the low lane gorilla with the mountain gorilla was really hard because the gorillas were spending so much time outside of the park and you can see the lush park here on the left and it just abuts directly
• 31:30 - 32:00 with agricultural land all the way even into the distance you can see agriculture in the mountains here they practice terracing so i know you're you haven't learned that yet you will be learning that when you talk about and the terraces are beautiful and they work really well but they do go right up against the forest and when the gorillas lose their fear of humans it's very easy for them to come outside of the park
• 32:00 - 32:30 so this is just a small amount of my data that i use gps following the gorillas i'm usually staying like a half a day behind them because i don't want to influence them i'm an ecologist not a social behavioral a social behaviorist like jane and and diane were so i'm interested in how their environment influences them and you can see here these are nest sites where the gorillas might sleep at night
• 32:30 - 33:00 this is where they're feeding this is where they're traveling and it's all outside of the park boundary and what's outside the park boundary people's fields so they actually you wouldn't think of that think about guerrillas as pests but they are pests and um gorillas along with baboons come out of the forest and they basically raid local farmers crops um they don't necessarily eat corn like this
• 33:00 - 33:30 guy is doing in hanging out in a corn field but they will strip the bark off of eucalyptus so eucalyptus is not native to africa it's endemic only to australia but it's used all over the world because it grows really fast and you can use it for timber and um the gorillas come and they strip the trees of their bark um not sure if it's toxic or not which we know the leaves are
• 33:30 - 34:00 right because the koalas are specialists when it comes to eating eucalyptus leaves and the tree dies so um these trees and these trees are expensive for local farmers and as you expected they also eat banana plants and these are planted right along the park boundary as well you would think they come out and pick the bananas off the tree but they don't they actually leave the bananas on the ground they don't eat the bananas
• 34:00 - 34:30 very unlike magilla gorilla but they will rip open the bark of the banana tree and eat the really soft pith inside and you can see some of the pith in kind of coming out of the inside of the plant so it's very juicy and even if i am a half a day behind the gorillas i always know when they've raided someone's banana field because it gives them really bad diarrhea so
• 34:30 - 35:00 um but that's what you get for tracking animals so this is really it you know affects human gorilla conflict right so humans living around the park gorillas coming out of the park and devastating the livelihood of some of these farmers so when the gorillas come outside of the park not only are they pests but
• 35:00 - 35:30 they can also transmit diseases and as i mentioned before we can give diseases to them so believe it or not this is a pile of gorilla dung and you can see in the dung some worms and parasites and some pretty big parasites and when i uh took one of my students from tufts to the field she was very interested in looking at shared parasites
• 35:30 - 36:00 among the gorillas the baboons and the local people because they're all overlapping right outside the park you know people are farming there gorillas are coming in there baboons are coming in there and it turns out that all three of these species share um common parasites that are all originally from bovines which are the cattle that they also have that are ranging in
• 36:00 - 36:30 the area so that was a really interesting find um it makes them sick you know parasites it doesn't kill them because you don't want to kill the host but they also get scabies um which is an ectoparasite and they get get that from local animals and from local people sometimes it's like a skin lice and at one point um in the varungas a large group of gorillas got measles
• 36:30 - 37:00 from a tourist or researcher and gorillas don't get measles but humans introduce that disease to them and i think they lost like six i don't remember the exact number but i know that the guerrilla doctors came in and vaccinated as much of the population as they could against measles and then respiratory illness that's the one that scares me the most and i'll talk about that in a little while but when you have you know small populations
• 37:00 - 37:30 that are isolated and you introduce a contagious disease you can wipe out a population pretty quickly that's one of my fears so given that's one of my fears and given there are some costs to the gorillas themselves from tourism we need to find a balance yes tourism can be
• 37:30 - 38:00 a conservation tool and can protect the animals and i believe that it could happen without the guerrillas being impacted but in uganda when i first started working there um or when the park was first gazetted sorry in uh 1993 only two groups were habituated for tourism and that was less than 20 gorillas of the whole population in buendi and then
• 38:00 - 38:30 um i came in 1996 i have still just two groups and then by 2018 11 groups within windy were habituated for tourism like almost all around the park and unfortunately a lot on the edge of the park and this is one of the reasons they come out of the forest now with approximately 200 gorillas habituated for tourism or research that's over half
• 38:30 - 39:00 the population of gorillas that are not fearful of humans and sorry in the varungas where dianne fossey worked it's close to 75 to 78 percent of all the gorillas are habituated visited by humans almost on a daily basis so i start to wonder you know is this ecotourism really i mean this is the local town this is the incaringo town that my
• 39:00 - 39:30 research group was named after the incaringa group which is now very popular tourist group and they have no running water they have no electricity they have no sanitation and yet their crops are you know being impacted so i think there has to be a little bit more of a give and take and that has led me to really think about ethics and the interaction between
• 39:30 - 40:00 biodiversity conservation and ethics and at what point does ethics alone matter so do gorillas really need to sacrifice themselves to save themselves you know that's a very anthropocentric way of looking at something you know um right now in conservation and ecotourism humans are willing to come and pay money to go see the guerrillas because that's
• 40:00 - 40:30 worth something to us and instead of sacrificing themselves we should have a biocentric approach which is a different ethos so bio meaning life and centric meaning around and really look at the gorillas for their intrinsic value or their inherent worth not what they're worth to us but
• 40:30 - 41:00 their ability to exist for themselves and this should be true with all humans and wildlife and i'm hoping that one day we'll be able to approach that a little bit closer so this is poshu one of my favorite gorillas from my group in uganda it's kind of looking over the village um and i just thought it was kind of sad i know um that humans keep encroaching
• 41:00 - 41:30 on the habitats of wildlife so as ap environmental students i hope you go on to college for environmental science or some field of wildlife and you can get out there and you can make a difference you can be a teacher you can go out and study the animals in their wild habitats but take a little bit of this lecture with
• 41:30 - 42:00 you so thank you so much i really appreciate the opportunity from college board to share this presentation