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Titus Group Sleeps Outside of Park Again

November 8, 2011

Titus Group Sleeps Outside of Park Again

Last night, the Titus group of gorillas slept outside of the Volcanoes National Park for the second time in the history of the Fossey Fund’s Karisoke Research Center monitoring. The group was persistent in their desire to range outside of park borders yesterday and trackers organized to “push” the gorillas back into the park twice during the day. The first “push” occurred at 10 a.m. and took 45 minutes to successfully guide them back into the forest. But, the gorillas quickly came back out into the surrounding farm land and were again herded back into the park at 12 p.m. Fortunately, the group went more willingly and it took the trackers only 20 minutes to guide them back across the park border. (See blog post from Oct. 20 to learn about the tracker’s herding method.)

Titus group out of parkHowever, Fossey Fund field staff were dismayed to find the gorilla’s night nests in a bamboo patch about 200 meters outside of the park boundaries this morning. The gorillas had clearly slept outside of their protected forest. Today, the field staff is organizing a rotation of tracker teams to monitor the group both day and night.

Jessica Burbridge, Field Communications Officer