[monkeywire] Baby mountain gorilla found clinging to dead mother
Carrie McLaren
temporary181 at stayfreemagazine.org
Mon Jun 11 22:49:54 EDT 2007
Baby mountain gorilla found clinging to body of mother 'executed' by
rebels in Congo
11th June 2007
Photos here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=461248&in_page_id=1811
(if link doesn't work, use: http://tinyurl.com/2hteqq )
Wildlife rangers are battling to save an orphaned baby mountain
gorilla found clinging to her dead mother in the Congo. The adult
gorilla had been shot a point-blank range in the back of the head.
The two-month-old, who has been named Ndakasi by conservationists
looking after her in Goma, is taking baby formula from a feeding
bottle.
"She's more or less OK. It is certainly a worrying situation, but not
hopeless," Paulin Ngobobo, senior warden in eastern Congo's Virunga
National Park.
Ndakasi, who was born on April 15, would normally have suckled for up
to three years.
Only 700 mountain gorillas survive in the wild, more than half of
them in Virunga.
At least two have been killed and eaten already this year by rebels
living off the land as militia fighting drags on despite the official
end of Congo's five-year war in 2003.
It is unclear who had killed the adult female or why.
She had been killed "execution-style" in the back of the head and
left at the scene rather than taken away to be eaten, said Emmanuel
de Merode of conservation group Wildlife Direct.
"It looks like she was lured with bananas because we found bananas at the site.
"A second gorilla was probably shot because there was a trail of
blood nearby and three gunshots were heard. The other was probably
wounded and got away," he said.
"There are militia groups there. This particular incident was in the
Mikeno sector, which is on the border of Rwanda. There was a lot of
fighting in that area in January and those problems have not entirely
been solved."
Last month Wildlife Direct said Mai Mai rebels had attacked patrol
posts in Virunga park, killing one wildlife officer and critically
injuring three others, and threatened to slaughter gorillas if park
rangers retaliated.
More than 150 rangers have been killed in the last decade while
protecting Congo's parks from poachers, rebel groups, illegal miners
and land invasions, working through the war without pay.
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