The #1 source for news about monkeys and apes

[Joe Garden <joegarden AT yahoo.com>]

·       Illicit Trade Threatens Africa's Apes - Associated Press
(Jun 1, 2002)
Sat Jun 1, 1:17 PM ET 

By GLENN McKENZIE, Associated Press Writer 

IBADAN, Nigeria (AP) - Wildlife groups on Saturday demanded the return of
four baby gorillas believed to have been illegally captured and flown to a
leading Malaysian zoo. Conservationists called it one of the most
troubling cases yet in an international smuggling trade threatening
Africa's great apes with extinction.

Malaysia's government-funded Taiping Zoo denies wrongdoing, saying the
apes were bred in captivity in Nigeria and therefore liable to trade under
world wildlife protection accords.

Workers at a Nigeria zoo, however, told The Associated Press this week
that the four infant gorillas passed through their zoo after being caught
wild in the forests of Cameroon.

Conservationists also independently challenge the Malaysia zoo's account
of the four apes' origins — arguing, in part, that there are no known
breeding program for gorillas anywhere in Africa from which the animals
could have been taken.

"This is clearly a case of smuggling ... the only real question is who is
responsible," charged Muhtari Aminu-Kano, executive director of the
Nigeria Conservation Foundation, an affiliate of the World Wildlife Fund.

Wildlife experts say the case appears to highlight a growing trafficking
market, exposed in September when Egyptian authorities drowned an
allegedly smuggled baby gorilla from Nigeria in a vat of chemicals, saying
it arrived without proper import or export papers. Airport veterinarians
said they feared the primate might have carried diseases.

Gorillas, chimpanzees and drills — a baboon-sized animal that is Africa's
most endangered primate — have also been intercepted in the 1990s on their
way from Nigeria to Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Philippines and
Thailand.

Selling or trading apes caught in the wild is banned under the Convention
on International Trade of Endangered Species, or CITES, which permits only
those born in captivity to be exchanged for noncommercial purposes. Both
Malaysia and Nigeria are signatories.

The latest case involves four young gorillas — listed as between 18 and 48
months — that turned up at Taiping Zoo in January.

Authorities at the Taiping zoo, 155 miles north of Kuala Lumpur, have
refused repeated requests for on-the-record comment about the animals'
origins.

Speaking only on condition they not be identified, Taiping Zoo officials
say they received the infant gorillas as part of a trade with a Nigerian
zoo. They have repeatedly refused to identify the Nigerian zoo.

"Exchanges of animals between zoos are fairly normal," one official at the
Taiping Zoo said last week.

"We have done nothing wrong ... all the documentation is in order and we
have no reason to suspect any foul play," the official said.

The permanent secretary of Nigeria's Ministry of Environment, D.B. Usman,
is listed on export documents for two of the gorillas — named Abbey and
Alice — as approving the shipment to Malaysia.

Usman did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

Environment Ministry officials likewise declined comment, beyond saying
that the ministry was now investigating the case.

The export documents, viewed by The Associated Press, list the gorillas as
having been bred at Nigeria's University of Ibadan Zoological Gardens.

Ibadan Zoo officials say they have no such breeding program, however. The
only gorilla currently at the zoo is a 37-year-old female long past
breeding age.

Olalekan Akanji, a zookeeper at the University of Ibadan Zoological
Gardens about 70 miles north of Lagos, said the four gorillas "came from
the jungle in Cameroon" and spent several months at the zoo before being
flown to Malaysia in January.

Akanji said he bottle-fed the young apes milk and sugar water, and even
taught one to ride a tricycle.

"If anyone else wants more gorillas, we can get some more," Akanji
volunteered in front of several primate cages. "But they are very
expensive."

Asked if the zoo ever had other baby gorillas intended for trade, he said
"Yes, there have been many. But a lot of them died."

Another zoo employee, guide Friday Ndubisi Onwuka, also said the four
gorillas came from "the forest" and spent time in Ibadan before flying to
Malaysia.

Taiping Zoo had publicly sought this particular species of gorilla over
the Internet for more than a year.

The gorillas have yet to be put on public display in Malaysia. Zoo
authorities say they are under quarantine.

Wildlife groups say there are enough obvious questions marks about the
animals' origins to mean that Nigeria and Malaysia should never have
allowed their export.

"They could not legitimately have been captive-bred," said Shirley
McGreal, chairwoman of the Summerville, S.C.-based International Primate
Protection League.

Allowing the Malaysian zoo to keep the gorillas would set a "disturbing
precedent" and touch off a flood of similar shipments further threatening
the already endangered primates, McGreal said.

Although the exact scope of the illicit trade of great apes is unknown, a
growing number have been intercepted on their way from Nigeria to the
Middle East, Asia and eastern Europe where they can fetch tens — or even
hundreds — of thousands of dollars each from private zoos and collectors,
Nigerian and U.S. conservationists say.

"We fear the cases that have come to light are just be the tip of the
iceberg," McGreal said.

The Protection League showed The AP a letter from Nigerian firm Odukoya &
Associates offering four baby gorillas for sale to a private Middle
Eastern zoo for $400,000 each.

There is no indication the gorillas were the same ones sent to Malaysia.

Great apes once ranged from Senegal on Africa's western tip to Tanzania in
the east, but today survive only in isolated pockets of dwindling forests.
Scientists estimate that perhaps just 100,000 chimpanzees and far fewer
gorillas remain today in the wild.

Primate traders often buy the surviving babies of animals killed by local
bushmeat hunters for food or profit, said John Oates, a British-born
primatologist living in Manhattan and Nigeria.

A chimpanzee selling for $10 in the village commands perhaps $500 in
Abuja, and $20,000 in Moscow or Dubai. Nigeria, a nation of 120 million
people with only 100 wild gorillas left, is a frequent transit point for
animals from neighboring countries, said Aminu-Kano.

Other pressures facing apes — humans' closest animal relatives — include
commercial logging and civil wars.


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com