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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1163991/Bamboozled-Amazing-pictures-30-stone-Silverback-gorilla--ends-sore-head.html

Bamboozled! Amazing pictures of a 30 stone Silverback gorilla who has
one too many - and ends up with a sore head

By Bill Mouland

Last updated at 8:00 AM on 23rd March 2009

When wildlife photographer Andy Rouse was told he would find a family
of endangered gorillas high on the mountain, he did not expect to find
them this high.

Sitting back in the foliage as if it was a cocktail bar, the mountain
gorillas had been gorging on alcoholic sap from fresh bamboo shoots
and were looking distinctly the worse for wear.

Some were propping up the bar with a bleary air, while others
staggered to their feet obviously hoping the mountain police would not
ask them to walk in a straight line.

'It was not exactly Gorillas In The Mist, more like gorillas who were
p*****,' said Rouse, 43, who was on his fourth trip to see the animals
in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda, Central Africa.

'I had heard they sometimes get like this, but I had never actually
seen it. It was just like any family party when one or two members
have a little bit too much to drink.

'The boss of the group, a huge silverback called Kwitonda, and some of
the younger males were completely out of it.

'Some were running round cackling to each other, others were going mad
swinging through the trees, some were just lying on the ground in an
inebriated state.

'Normally, they eat handfuls of other vegetation, like a sort of salad
to soak up the sap, but this time they were just enjoying a drink.'

The bam-boozled family lives between 8,000 and 13,000 ft up the
mountain and are some of the 380 gorillas still living in Rwanda, an
area made famous after Dian Fossey's conservation work there.

The book and film, Gorillas In The Mist, told how the animals were
threatened by loss of habitat, poachers and disease. Miss Fossey was
murdered by poachers in 1985.

To protect the gorillas, photographers and safari groups are not
allowed to go within 21ft of them.

Mr Rouse said: 'I was allowed to stay with them for only an hour each
day and it was difficult taking photographs of them at their party
because I was laughing so much. It was hilarious.'

As these remarkable pictures show, 30-stone Kwitonda could hold his
liquor - up to a point.

'When I went back the next day, it was all very quiet, as if they were
nursing gorilla-sized hangovers.'