Has anybody here seen African forest elephants or lowland gorillas in the wild?

Has anybody here seen African forest elephants or lowland gorillas in the wild?
26-04-2012

Has anybody here visited West and/or Central Africa and seen wild forest elephants and/or lowland gorillas? If you have, was it on some kind of safari?

Seeing African savanna elephants and mountain gorillas is fairly straightforward (albeit expensive), as many Eastern and Southern African countries have entire economies built around savanna safaris and Rwanda and Uganda have tourist infrastructure for mountain gorilla visits.

In contrast it seems very unclear where one could go to see African forest elephants or lowland gorillas if one wanted to go see them. I was curious if anyone here has made the trek to go see them and what that was like.

Bonus question: Has anybody here ever seen an otter-shrew in the wild (or in captivity for that matter)?

26-04-2012

yes at Dzanga Baï/Baï Hokou in Sangha National Park, Central African Republic. Great trip but not cheap. Stayed at Sangha Lodge. Of all holidays I have been on, only Papua New Guinea was more expensive. If you are willing to arranged more things youself (easier if you speak french) and can do with less time it could probably be done cheaper. Our entire 3½ week trip (Cameroon and Sangha) was arranged from leaving home to arriving back home again. If our trip was typical of how it is, you have a near-zero risk of missing lowland gorilla, forest elephant, red river hog, forest buffalo and bongo. We also had forest hog but I think that is more a matter of luck. It was also great for smaller animals like monkeys and birds.

No otter shrews for me and I can't imagine many people have seen those.