Episode 10: Grand Gorillas: Meet the doctors mending the magnificent guardians of Africa’s rainforests

Deep in Africa’s wild, rainforest-covered volcanic mountains is one of planet earth’s greatest conservation success stories. For the last forty years a group of dedicated veterinarians has brought one of our most iconic beasts, the mountain gorilla, back from the brink of extinction. In this episode you will meet Dr. Kirsten Gilardi, the former Executive Director (recently retired) and Chief Veterinary Officer of Gorilla Doctors. Based at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, she led this incredible international team for 16 years, who provide hands-on veterinary care to ill and injured mountain and Grauer's gorillas in Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Dr. Gilardi explains the sheer delight of visiting these gentle forest giants in their mountain homes, and what we can all learn from the successful conservation and preservation of our closest living relatives and the places they live.  So grab a leafy green snack, make a comfy night nest and be delighted by this expedition with National Geographic writers Jeffrey Barbee and Laurel Neme as we explore a wilderness protected by some of the fiercest, and fragile, vegetarians the world has ever known. Get involved: Gorilla Doctors is the only organisation in the world providing hands-on veterinary care to wild mountain and grauers gorillas, and every donation directly funds the field teams who race into the forest when a gorilla is ill, injured, or caught in a snare.  Give here: https://www.gorilladoctors.org/donations/  Follow the work case by case on their blog, where the field vets write up real interventions from Rwanda, Uganda, and the DRC: https://www.gorilladoctors.org/category/blog/  Learn more about the team, the science, and the One Health approach behind it all at the main site: https://www.gorilladoctors.org/ Because these are our closest living relatives, keeping them healthy protects people and habitat too, and your support keeps the doctors on call 365 days a year. You can also back the wider effort to protect gorillas and their forests through the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, which continues the daily protection and research work Fossey began: https://gorillafund.org/ And through the International Gorilla Conservation Programme, a coalition working across the Virunga and Bwindi landscapes to safeguard gorilla habitat and the communities who share it: https://igcp.org/ The Wildlife Podcast is produced by Jeffrey Barbee and Laurel Neme.  It is directed and edited by Jeffrey Barbee.  Find out more on our websites: www.laurelneme.com and www.jeffreybarbee.com The podcast is supported by the US based nonprofit www.allianceearth.org   Our theme music was produced just for our show by the amazing Joey Morra, check him out on his website at: www.joeymorra.com