Scientists at Oxford Brookes University in England analyzed hundreds of Instagram posts from people visiting animals in East Africa and found that most tourists were close enough to gorillas to spread viruses and diseases, according to a press release from the university on Tuesday.
“The risk of disease transmission between visitors and gorillas is very worrying,” said study lead author Gaspard Van Hamme, a former student at Oxford Brookes University who started working on the study during his master’s program.
“It is vital to strengthen and enforce tourism regulations to ensure that gorilla trekking practices do not further threaten these already endangered great apes.”
Mountain gorillas are listed as endangered, with about 1,063 of them left in the wild, according to the statement.
They live in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Virunga National Park), Uganda (Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park) and Rwanda (Volcanoes National Park).
The researchers analyzed 858 photos posted on Instagram from 2013-2019 under two hasthags – #gorillatrekking and #gorillatracking, the study said. Of that number, 86% showed people within four meters (13.1 feet) of gorillas, and 25 of those photos showed tourists touching gorillas.
The researchers found that tourists were close enough to East African primates to allow transmission.
“We found that face masks are rarely used by tourists who visit gorillas and this has the potential for disease transmission between people and the gorillas they visit,” said Magdalena Svensson, professor of biological anthropology at Oxford Brookes University, in a statement.
Visitors to wild gorillas were asked to wear masks even before the pandemic, Svensson told CNN, as part of the “Great Ape Best Practice Guidelines for Tourism” developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
“They are so close to us genetically that they can get most of the things we can get” – like the flu, Ebola and the common cold, she said.
Now that we know that gorillas can capture Covid-19, it is even more important for visitors to wear a mask, added Svensson.
Svensson told CNN that visitors should also be at least seven meters (23 feet) away from the animals, but the analysis of the images shows that the average distance has decreased over time.
“It’s a big risk to their health,” she said, explaining that even at four meters (13.1 feet) diseases can be transmitted.
Social media ‘expectations’
Social media and the desire to get a good photo to post online could be one explanation, said Svensson. “We know how effective social media is to change people’s attitudes and behaviors,” she said.
Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka of Conservation Through Public Health, a non-profit organization working to protect gorillas in Uganda, said: “This research provides a valuable perspective on how much tourists are willing to share their very close encounters with gorillas in Uganda. mountain through Instagram, which creates expectations for future tourists. “
“This highlights the great need for responsible tourism to provide adequate protection while minimizing disease transmission, especially now during the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Kalema-Zikusoka in the press release.
Svensson emphasized that visitors provide valuable financial support for conservation efforts and local communities. The solution is not to stop tourism, but to better educate people about the risks, she said.
Although there is no evidence that wild gorillas have developed Covid-19 so far, the researchers will continue to monitor visitor behavior, added Svensson.
The research was published in the journal People and Nature.
In January, eight western lowland gorillas that lived at the San Diego Zoo were found to have Covid-19. The zoo said on Tuesday that the gorilla troop was back in public view after fully recovering.