Review: "Walking with Gorillas" by Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka

Walking with Gorillas" by Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka
Published March 2023 via Arcade
★★★

Kalema-Zikusoka can best be described as a trailblazer: born and raised in Uganda, she knew relatively early that she wanted to work with animals...but in taking a job as a wildlife veterinarian, she more or less created that role in Uganda—as a Black, African woman in a field historically dominated by white (often Western) men. She notes late in the book that media sometimes refer to her as the "first female wildlife veterinarian in Uganda" (loc. 3890*), and while this is technically true, it implies that a man or men had come before her—when in fact it's a path that she started blazing alone in the 90s.

In <i>Walking with Gorillas</i>, Kalema-Zikusoka describes a career spent working with, and advocating for, animals, but a much more complicated career path than you might think. She grew up with a fair amount of privilege, educated in Kenya and the UK, but also in the shadow of tragedy—her parents were politically involved, and her father was murdered when Kalema-Zikusoka was a toddler. And her own work was, at times, uncharted territory. Her conservation work with primates meant learning what the surrounding communities needed and how they viewed the gorillas living near them, and then working with those communities to find ways for human and animal to coexist sustainably. To that end, the book ends up focusing much less on direct work with animals and much more on what amounts to politics and diplomacy and the struggles of small businesses: raising funds, and convincing different groups to work together, and setting up programs to improve both human and animal health, and developing a coffee brand to both raise funds and support local coffee farmers, and working on family planning strategies, and on and on it goes. (And jeepers creepers: the amount of racism and sexism involved must have been staggering; Kalema-Zikusoka treats instances of those relatively matter-of-factly and never dwells on it, but it's...it's there.)

A lot of it is fascinating work (I'm not actually much of an animal person, but for whatever reason I love reading about veterinary work, and also work out in the wild—any wild), though it helps to go into it knowing how much of it is about...the work around the work, I guess. This is not a memoir of a singular experience, or of a year or two of working with animals; it's about decades of learning and advocacy and inspiring change. It's a futile wish, but I did find myself wishing that Kalema-Zikusoka had written a book much much earlier, and then perhaps another and another over the span of however many years, to allow more space for full scenes and direct work with animals.

One thing that's really interesting to note is the circular, or at least constantly shifting, face of conservation: Kalema-Zikusoka notes towards the end that before tourism, threats to gorillas came from local communities who resented conservation efforts because they impacted locals' ability to source wood, etc.; with the advent of tourism, those threats subsided but new threats came in the shape of disease transmission and retaliatory killings when habituated animals get too comfortable in the human sphere (and, e.g., eat crops). Definitely a job that will never truly be done.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*I read an ARC, so quotes may not be final.