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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