Uganda’s first wildlife vet calls for more gorilla tourism
Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka recalls a cheeky monkey that inspired her younger self to dream big. Today, as the country marks the 30th anniversary of gorilla tourism, she’s a key reason for its success.
A silverback family from the Mubare group of gorillas in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Nick Penny
Uganda’s great apes owe a debt of gratitude to a pet vervet called Poncho. The monkey belonged to the Cuban ambassador to Uganda in the 1970s; he would sit on the gate of the neighbouring house in Kampala, where a young Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka lived with her family.
“I was fascinated by his fingers and fingernails that looked exactly like mine – so human,” she writes in her recently published memoir, Walking with Gorillas: The Journey of an African Wildlife Vet.
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