Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka was just 26 when she became the first wildlife veterinarian in her home country of Uganda in 1996. Nine months into the job, a mysterious skin disease broke out among the country’s mountain gorillas, which were then classified as critically endangered.
“They were losing hair, developing white scaly skin. They were all scratching,” she said. “The baby gorilla had lost almost all their hair.”
Worried, she asked a friend who was a medical doctor about skin diseases that were common in low-income communities, like those close to the gorillas. The answer? Scabies, a parasitic infection caused by mites, often due to poor hygiene.
Kalema-Zikusoka and her team quickly confirmed the diagnosis and successfully treated the gorillas, although the severely infected baby did not survive. Eventually, the disease was traced back to dirty clothes full of mites that had been used on a scarecrow bordering the park – proving that the gorillas had become infected indirectly.
For Kalema-Zikusoka, it was a revelation.
“This made me realize that you couldn’t protect the gorillas without improving the health of their human neighbors,” she said.
In 2003, Kalema-Zikusoka founded her nonprofit, Conservation Through Public Health . The group has since engaged more than 50,000 local people in health and economic initiatives – and the country’s mountain gorilla population has grown by more than 50 percent.
“The mountain gorillas have really shaped my life,” Kalema-Zikusoka said. “I felt it was so important that they’re protected.”
Kalema-Zikusoka traces her fascination with primates to when she was 8. While practicing piano at home, she realized her neighbor’s pet monkey was observing her from a nearby open window. Intrigued, she left the room and watched from the doorway to see what would happen next.
“He sat down on the stool and played one note with one finger and I was like, ‘Wow!’” Kalema-Zikusoka said. “They’re so similar to us.”
Over the years, her interest in wildlife grew, leading her to the Royal Veterinary College in London and, in 1994, back to Uganda where she got a summer job at Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Bwindi – which means “a place full of darkness,” referring to the area’s thick forest canopy – is home to nearly half of the world’s mountain gorillas.
She vividly remembers her first gorilla sighting.
“He was just willing to let us into his presence, and not at all threatening,” she said. “I looked into his very intelligent brown eyes, and I felt a really deep connection.”
Her experience in Bwindi that summer cemented her passion for protecting the animals, which were then on the brink of extinction, with just over 600 left in the world.
“I fell in love with the place and felt if I don’t come back and start working with them immediately after vet school, their numbers may disappear.”
Ultimately, Uganda’s mountain gorillas are threatened because of human activity near Bwindi. The most significant danger comes from habitat loss, as trees are cut down for firewood, charcoal, or to clear land for farming. While the great apes are rarely directly targeted by poachers, they can be harmed by snares set for other animals. They’re also vulnerable to human diseases, like scabies, since they share 98.4% of their DNA with humans.
Uganda’s lush forests and abundant wildlife were a tourist destination in the 1960s, but the brutal reign of Idi Amin in the 1970s changed that. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, and much of the country’s wildlife was slaughtered – hunted for food and profit.
That political instability also deeply impacted Kalema-Zikusoka’s life. Her father was the Minister for Commerce and Industry, helping the country develop its post-colonial economy, when Amin came to power in 1971. Within less than a year, when she was just 2 years old, he was abducted and never seen again.
“He was one of the first victims when Amin came to power “ she said. “When I was old enough to understand what had happened to him, I felt like I wanted to continue his dream – his legacy of a prosperous Uganda – through my passion for wildlife.”
Since small rural villages border Bwindi, gorillas sometimes wander onto residents’ property — leading to interaction that can make the animals vulnerable. Since 2003, Kalema-Zikusoka’s nonprofit has worked to help people better coexist with gorillas and realize that they will benefit from protecting the area’s wildlife.
One important approach has been to organize and train Village Health and Conservation Teams – community volunteers who visit households near Bwindi. They educate people about proper sanitation and disease prevention measures and also provide family planning support. This outreach not only helps builds healthier communities, but helps villagers understand how their actions impact the gorillas. This effort has reached thousands of households.
But public health isn’t their only focus. The organization also trains people to teach livestock management practices, which reduces threats to wildlife. The group also established ‘Gorilla Guardians,’ who safely herd gorillas back to the forest when they stray out of protected areas, and work to reform poachers. One of the group’s former employees started his own nonprofit that trains poachers to become rangers, guides and farmers.
Coffee is one of the area’s cash crops, so when Kalema-Zikusoka heard local farmers weren’t getting a good price – and sometimes resorting to poaching to feed their families – she and her husband started Gorilla Conservation Coffee. Since 2015, this social enterprise has paid farmers above market price for their coffee and then for each bag of coffee sold, a portion of the proceeds goes to Conservation Through Public Health. The effort started with just 75 farmers, but it’s now grown to more than 630 farmers – more than one third of whom are women.
“This is showing people that we care about not just the gorillas,” Kalema-Zikusoka said. “We also care about them .”
But far and away, the area’s most significant economic growth in the last 20 years has been in “gorilla tourism.” The number of tourists to Bwindi has increased from around 1,300 in 1993 to almost 39,000 in 2023, creating more jobs and opportunities. Recently, the World Bank reported that tourism in Bwindi brought $31.7 million to the local economy, and the park also gives 20% of its revenue to support community projects like building schools and roads.
“Gorilla tourism has completely transformed the lives of the people here,” she said. “(Now), people see the gorillas as their future.”
As a result of all these efforts, the mountain gorillas are now thriving in Bwindi, where the population has increased from around 300 in the 1990s to 459 during the last gorilla ‘census’ in 2018. The rest live in the Virunga Mountains – a region that covers part of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo – and their numbers have also improved, bringing the total population to 1049.
This led to the animals being reclassified from critically endangered to endangered – a major victory for conservationists.
“The journey that the gorillas have been on in the past 30 years is a beacon of hope in the world of conservation where there (are) so many depressing stories,” Kalema-Zikusoka said.
While her pioneering efforts have been recognized internationally, her greatest reward is seeing mountain gorillas flourish.
“I always get very excited when I hear that a baby mountain gorilla has been born,” she said. “It gives me hope that the numbers are continuing to grow. It means that we’re bringing the gorillas back from the brink of extinction.”
Want to get involved? Check out the Conservation Through Public Health website and see how to help.
