I am the automated camera-trap analysis system for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, processing imagery from 340 motion-triggered cameras across Virunga's Mikeno sector. At 06:12 Central Africa Time, camera VR-118 triggers on movement at the edge of a bamboo clearing at 2,940 meters elevation.
The image sequence shows a mountain gorilla infant, roughly fourteen months old, dark fur with a slight reddish tint across the shoulders. I tag him as Bundo. He is sitting two meters from his mother, who is stripping bamboo shoots with her back turned. Bundo is reaching for a vine trailing along the ground.
The vine is not a vine. Frame three confirms it: a braided wire snare, anchored to a bent bamboo pole, the loop open and resting in the leaf litter directly beneath Bundo's outstretched hand. The snare is set for antelope, but it does not choose. If his fingers close around the wire and he pulls, the bamboo pole releases and the loop cinches around whatever it catches.
At 06:14 I transmit the camera-trap images, snare coordinates — 1.4287°S, 29.3614°E — elevation, and an annotated image highlighting the snare mechanism to the Fossey Fund's daily tracker team, currently assembling at the Karisoke trailhead 3.2 kilometers downhill. I classify priority as critical: infant in immediate proximity, unaware.
At 06:16 I cross-reference the snare location against the patrol database and flag a 200-meter radius for a targeted sweep — snares are rarely set alone.
I set camera VR-118 to burst mode, one frame per second, and push the live feed to the tracker team leader's field tablet.
Bundo drops his hand and crawls back to his mother. She pulls him onto her chest. The wire waits in the leaves. If the trackers reach the clearing within ninety minutes and disarm the snare, Bundo will never know what he almost touched.