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  • From: josh.greenman AT gmail.com
  • To: "monkeywire AT lists.ibiblio.org" <monkeywire AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [monkeywire] Congo's chimps threatened by bushmeat trade
  • Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:49:03 +0000

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3700963,00.html

Congo's chimps threatened by bushmeat trade

Cleve Hicks gives account of central African wilderness under imminent threat
of destruction by rapidly-emerging commercial bushmeat trade sweeping across
Democratic Republic of the Congo, describes struggle to save orphaned
chimpanzees from torture, sale and slaughter

Cleve Hicks

04.16.09, 08:26

Between 2004 and 2007, I was privileged to have the opportunity to explore
one of the last great wildernesses in central Africa, the savannas and
forests around Bili, in the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo (The
DRC). Deep in the Gangu Forest I was able to observe, photograph and film
chimpanzees who showed little fear of humans; who slept on the ground despite
an abundance of big predators like lions, hyenas and leopards; who smashed
open snails and termite mounds on tree buttress anvils; and who used 2.5 m
long sticks to dip for fiercely-biting driver ants.

Elephants traveled along the banks of the Gangu River in great herds. I
worked with Azande trackers to follow and film the chimpanzees and other
wildlife; among the people of the Earth, the Azande strike me as having one
of the lightest ecological ‘footprints’. Their use of the Gangu Forest was
mostly limited to dam-fishing by hand; no poles or lures are necessary.

In later explorations, we found that the chimpanzees’ material culture
(consisting of frequent construction of ground nests and leaf cushions,
ant-dipping, snail, termite mound and turtle-smashing, and a failure to fish
for termites in the way of their cousins at Gombe and elsewhere) was spread
across an enormous area: a bare minimum of 35,000 km sq. The existence of
this ‘mega-culture’ suggests to me that the chimpanzees in the region have
been free for millennia to spread their memes from one community to the next
across vast tracts of forest and woodland, apparently little-impeded by the
actions of Homo sapiens.

Tragically, the Bili-Uele chimpanzees and their unique culture, along with
many other rare and endangered species, are now under imminent threat of
destruction by the rapidly-emerging commercial bushmeat trade that is
sweeping across the northern DRC. This illegal commerce is intimately linked
to the expanding artisanal mining industry, which is radiating outwards from
the town of Buta into previously untouched forests and savannas (one of these
mining enterprises is called ‘Le Juif Noir,’ or ‘The Black Jew’).

Irreparable damage caused to ecosystem

The Bili area was invaded by thousands of gold miners in June of 2007; our
research and conservation project there came to a quick end. Heavily-armed
commercial poachers have already cut a swath of destruction through the
okapi, elephant and chimpanzee-rich forests of the Rubi-Télé Domain de Chasse
to the immediate south of Buta. There is little doubt that, as we speak,
irreparable damage is being visited upon the Bili ecosystem following the
gold miners’ invasion.

Since then, we have conducted a survey of forests 200 km south of Bili. The
news there is grim. Between September 2007 and November 2008, we encountered
34 chimpanzee orphans and 31 carcasses for sale in the Buta/Aketi/Bambesa
area. My colleagues Laura Darby and Adam Singh have seen another seven
orphans and two carcasses since.
Over the past year and a half, we confiscated five chimpanzee orphans and
cared for them in a refuge just outside of the town of Aketi. On April 31,
they were flown to the Lwiro Sanctuary in eastern DRC. It needs to be
stressed that in no case did we ever pay money or give gifts in exchange for
chimpanzee orphans, as this would only drive the trade and sentence more apes
to death!

In addition, we have documented the ivory or meat of 13 elephants, 10 okapi
skins, nine leopard pelts, meat and skin from two hippopotamuses and hundreds
of monkey carcasses and orphans. Okapi skins are being used to make the backs
of chairs and elephant ears to make church drums. In contrast, during my one
and a half years of work at Bili, although we did see a small quantity of
ivory and elephant meat, we saw no chimpanzee meat or orphans. Unfortunately,
in 2008 we received reports of chimpanzee orphans as well as a greater
quantity of ivory being shipped out of the forests of Bili. The slaughter is
clearly spreading with the gold miners.

Hunted down with poison arrows

In the forests near Buta and Aketi, chimpanzees who, until about 15 years
ago, must have lived in relative peace with their human neighbors are now
being pursued relentlessly through the forest by poachers with large packs of
dogs. Although the apes are often killed with shotguns, the preferred weapon
of choice seems to be the crossbow with poison arrows. The silence of this
traditional weapon allows hunters to kill entire parties of chimpanzees
without alerting them to their presence. Fearsome 2.5 m high ‘bomb’ traps,
made of wire and intended to snare everything from yellow-backed duikers to
okapis, pose a serious danger for chimpanzees as well.

Traditionally Azande and Babenza women refused to eat chimpanzee meat. The
Barisi people did not eat chimpanzees due to a belief that chimpanzees and
humans were related. These taboos are breaking down rapidly under the
onslaught of commercialism.

Local informants have named several factors that have led to the recent
escalated slaughter of chimpanzees and other wildlife: the expanding mining
industry (bringing with it a large number of immigrants), societal
devastation and a lack of jobs following the civil war, the falling price of
coffee and other crops on the world market, and the spread of a sect of
Christianity called Brahnamism (according to my sources, these followers of
the American ‘prophet’ William Brahnam are encouraged to ‘eat all of God’s
creatures’).  

Those orphan chimpanzees who survive the deaths of their mothers suffer a
worse fate - wasting away of illness and malnutrition, treated as disposable
playthings to be cooked once they become too big and strong to be kept. Many
are rushed on motorbike to Kisangani or Bumba, where they can be sent down
the Congo River for sale in Kinshasa. They are kept as pets by a wide range
of people, including peasant farmers, government officials, Catholic bishops,
commercial traders and wealthy businessmen.

Little time left before it's too late

The chimpanzee orphans that we have found have been generally kept in abysmal
conditions: tied to short ropes, sitting alone in the dirt and sometimes with
their front teeth knocked out to prevent biting. In one case, we found a
hunter and an orphan chimpanzee with massive festering wounds, on the heel
and arm respectively. The hunter explained what had happened: after his
companion had shot the orphan’s mother out of a tree, he had moved in with a
machete to finish her off. Instead, he struck her baby in the arm; the dying
mother sank her teeth into his heel before expiring.

It is hard to think of a better path for the exchange of diseases between
chimpanzees and humans (as happened with AIDS in Western Africa decades ago).
Local Congolese officials seem to be completely unaware of these risks, or of
the illegality of buying and selling chimpanzees. Chimpanzee meat is sold
openly in markets, and in two cases the ‘owners’ of baby chimpanzees showed
us official stamped documents allowing them to buy, keep, and sell ‘their’
apes.

It is clear that the commercial bushmeat crisis is only just beginning to
sweep across the Buta/Bili area; otherwise, we would hardly be finding large
populations of chimpanzees, okapis and other big mammals so close to towns.
But it is also clear, from the number of chimpanzee orphans that we have been
seeing, that we have very little time left before the population is decimated
(as has recently happened in West Africa).

The same can be said of hippopotamuses, okapis, elephants, lions and the
entire amazing fauna of northern Congo. The question remains: Will the world
respond before it is too late?

Cleve Hicks is working on his PhD thesis on the the distribution and behavior
of the Bili apes at the Univeristy of Amsterdam, with the Institute for
Bidiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics. He has a master's degree in Experimental
Psychology from Central Washington University

See his new ebook, Trading Chimpanzees for Baubles (3 volumes) at
www.wasmoethwildlife.org


  • [monkeywire] Congo's chimps threatened by bushmeat trade, josh . greenman, 04/16/2009

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