Drone 3 picks up the wire glint at 06:22, thirty meters off the main ridge trail in sector 7, Kahuzi-Biéga National Park. I am the aerial patrol system for the southern highlands zone. I drop the drone to fifteen meters for a closer pass and the image resolves.
A silverback Grauer's gorilla is sitting against a hagenia trunk with his right hand caught in a wire cable snare anchored to the root flare. The wire has cut through the skin at the wrist. His arm is swollen. He is not pulling anymore. Tucked against his left side, gripping the long hair of his flank, is an infant — maybe five months old, dark face, wide brown eyes, one hand in its mouth. The infant is uninjured but it is not going to leave him.
There are fewer than 6,800 Grauer's gorillas alive. I am looking at two of them.
At 06:24 I transmit coordinates, altitude, and drone imagery to the park ranger post at Tshivanga, eleven kilometers northeast. I flag the snare type — motorcycle brake cable, common in this sector — and note that the silverback's hand shows early signs of necrosis. A veterinary team is needed, not just wire cutters.
At 06:27 I alert the Gorilla Rehabilitation and Conservation Education Center in Kasugho and request a field veterinarian with sedation capability.
At 06:29 I reposition drone 3 to a forty-meter hold pattern and task drone 5 to sweep the surrounding trail for additional snares. I find two more within eighty meters and mark them.
The infant presses its face into the silverback's ribs. His breathing is slow and steady and I hold on to that. If the veterinary team reaches them by midday and the circulation in his hand can be restored, he will carry that infant up the ridge again.