Gorilla Protection

I just got back from the Patrol Post at Kabaraza where the ranger Rugira Sebuja Faustin was shot dead late last night.

On our way to Rutshuru we passed many refugees on the road who were leaving the area due to the recent fighting. We also found it difficult to buy supplies for the funeral as much of the town has now been evacuated.

At 11pm last night, Rugira heard strange noises coming from some of the rangers’ houses. When he went to investigate he was shot in the stomach and then died from his wounds.

The other man to have been shot in the neck was not a ranger as earlier reported, although he was a worker at the camp. He is currently recovering at Rutshuru hospital.

Houses at the camp were looted, and so money was brought to help buy food and supplies for the rangers, and also to pay for the wake and the funeral.

We will continue to support the rangers throughout this difficult time.

Rob Muir

Technorati : Congo, DRC, Frankfurt Zoological Society, ICCN, Rutshuru

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Last night the Kabaraza Patrol Post, 30km North of Rutshuru, was attacked by rebels. One park ranger was killed and another is seriously wounded with a gunshot in the neck.

Over these last few days tensions have increased in this area and there are worries that the situation could deteriorate further.

Rob Muir from FZS, and Augustin from WWF left early this morning to go to the wounded guard and provide emergency supplies. More details will be given upon their safe return.

William Deed

WildlifeDirect

Technorati : Congo, DRC, ICCN, Virunga, WildlifeDirect

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Following on from what Diddy reported yesterday, the Silverback Mapuwa is also at the moment nursing a wound, a cut on his nose, after an interaction with Mareru. We know that Mapuwa had an interaction with Pili-Pili in the month of July.

The gorilla families in this part of the park are highly unstable due to the number of lone silverbacks in the area.

Currently, in the Bikenge area there is the Rugendo Family, the lone Silverbacks Pili-Pili and Mareru, and the newly formed Lulendo Family. The Mapuwa Family tends to move frequently between Bikenge and Jomba, and the lone Silverback Ruzirabwoba likes to stay around Jomba.

Other news, we have heard today that with the donations received through this blog construction work will soon start at the Bukima Patrol Post. This is so that the guards can have access to proper toilets, and also improvements will be made on the water system in place so that they will have cleaner water. Thank you to everyone that has donated, all of these improvements help our work here and steer Virunga towards a better future. Thank you.

Innocent

Technorati : Congo, DRC, ICCN, Mountain Gorilla, WildlifeDirect

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We’ve just come back from our status and identification check of the habituated gorillas at the Bikenge and Jomba Patrol Posts, and are very pleased to tell you that the Lulengo Silverback, who went missing with an adult female in January of this year, has been found.

Last Thursday we heard that there was an interaction between a lone Silverback and the Silverback Pili-Pili at Rutabagwe. However, it wasn’t until we arrived that the individual was able to be identified as Lulengo. There was no sign of Lulengo’s previous partner, and we believe that she may have been charmed away by a wild, lone Silverback in the area.

Pili-Pili did have a family group of 4; 1 Silverback, 2 adult females and 1 sub-adult female. Unfortunately for Pili-Pili, it seems that after the interaction Lulengo succeeded in charming all of the family away from him, leaving him solitary with nothing but, I should imagine, as much anger as is possible.

So Lulengo is found, and with a new family. Although not clear, below is the wound that Lulengo received during the interaction with Pili-Pili.

I’m sure it will heal faster than Pili-Pili’s pride.

Diddy

Technorati : Congo, DRC, ICCN, Lulengo, Mountain Gorilla, WildlifeDirect

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Sorry for the lack of blog post yesterday. The key for the room with the internet made it’s way to Goma on Sunday and didn’t get back to Rumangabo until half an hour ago. The Director Mushenzi has been called to meetings and so is unable to talk on the charcoal trade, as promised, however I would like to talk you about what my men have achieved in this aspect since their arrival.

For the last month we have been on patrols daily to crack down on those who are making charcoal in the Southern Sector of Virunga National Park. Despite being a difficult trade to hide -the smoke below indicates where there is an oven making charcoal- many people are able to profit from the instability here and continue with the making of charcoal.

While out on patrol we have found many of these ‘ovens’ where people have been making charcoal.

It takes about 15 days to prepare these ovens, and so by destroying them we hope to strongly discourage the efforts of the people to continue.

We know that there are large trucks coming out of the park, full of charcoal. And from this we can assume that there are strong networks in place where about 50/60 men make charcoal for 1 or 2 people at the top of that particular chain.

At the beginning of our crackdown we came across and arrested many women making charcoal in the park, but as the Director Mushenzi stated, they are victims of this situation. We also discovered that many of the women in the park with charcoal were the wives of Congolese military who were picking up the scraps of charcoal that they could find so that they can cook for their families. The military are not paid by the government and so their families do what they can to get by.

More recently we have also stopped many men making charcoal in the park, and we have found that the majority of them come from Rwanda. In Rwanda it is illegal to make charcoal, and so many Rwandans enter Congo to make it here instead. They take advantage of the fact that the Congolese military are not paid and so pay the military protection money to enter the park.

We arrested all of the men but, after we instruct them about why they shouldn’t make charcoal in the park, we now let the women go. We take the men to the main station at Rumangabo. Once there we question them to find out more about the networks, and then after some instruction as well as a fine, they are all taken back to the Rwandan border. With the progress that we have made we have unfortunately received many threats, and a few weeks ago one of our men was attacked by the military.

Kimanuka works at the Kibati Patrol Post, and was travelling on a truck between Rumangabo and Kibati. There were some military also on the truck and once the truck had travelled some distance from the main station here at Rumangabo, they started to attack him with their bayonets. Due to the location of his injuries he is very lucky to have survived.

We also receive letters from the military asking us to let certain prisoners free, and believe that this is part of their efforts to continue protecting those who pay them to make charcoal.

However things may be about to change. While out on patrol we also found the following letter from the Commander of the 9th Brigade, who is in control of the military in the South.

It seems that this letter was written just after the Advance Force arrived, and could have been written for a number of reasons. In the letter he advises that charcoal production within the park should stop four weeks from the date on the letter, 25 July 2007.

It was after we found a copy of this letter that we were able to arrange a meeting with the Major to visit the Director here at Rumangabo. The meeting happened last Friday and one of the outcomes was to introduce mixed patrols within the park, of both park guards and military. More details will follow shortly from Director Mushenzi.

Commander Elie Mundima

Advance Force, Congo Rangers

Technorati : Charcoal, Congo, DRC, ICCN, Mountain Gorilla, Virunga

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Enjoy.

We are still writing our reports here in Rumangabo, and on Monday we will be going out into the field to the Bikinge and Jomba Patrol Posts, to check on the habituated gorilla families there. There is no internet connection so you will not be hearing from us until Wednesday.

You will however be hearing from Norbert Mushenzi who is the Director for the Southern Sector of Virunga National Park. There has been some progress on the crackdown of the charcoal trade, which he will tell you more about on Monday.

Have a good weekend.

Diddy and Innocent

Technorati : Congo, DRC, ICCN, Mountain Gorillas, Munyaga, WildlifeDirect

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Dr Jacques arrived this morning at Bukima to check on the health of Mutazimiza from the Kabirizi Family.

He said that Mutazimiza is doing much better than he was on Monday. The soles of her feet and hands seem to have healed slightly and that she doesn’t seem to be in as much pain. You can see below the red patches on her feet, they look sore but not as bad as they did at the beginning of the week.

He therefore thinks that intervention at this stage is unnecessary and that it would be unwise to give her medication. We will still continue to monitor her progress.

The orphans in Goma are doing well, and still being monitored daily. Again Dr Jacques took some leaves with him to feed Ndeze, although not Kabila as he is still too young.

This afternoon we drove back in Rumangabo, the main station for the Southern Sector of Virunga National Park.

We will continue over the weekend to work on our reports. Although before that Innocent must now work the role of Chauffeur, and do the three hour drive there and back to Bukima with the relief guards for the Patrol Post -those who have been there deserve a much needed break.

And for those who asked yesterday, yes Ndindanyare does mean that. Ndindanyare is a very steep part of the mountain and when our ancestors used to walk in this area, they used to say this as an excuse to stop and take a breather.

Technorati : Congo, ICCN, Kabirizi, MGVP, Mikeno, Mountain Gorilla, WildlifeDirect

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This week the winds have started again which means that the rains have stopped. When there is no rain the families tend to move around a lot more, and yesterday the guards here reported that the Munyaga Family covered a distance of over 3 kms in just one day, normally they move about 2 kms maximum. Today the Kabirizi Family have also been moving around a lot, but this is not because of the lack of rain but because there have been interactions between Kabirizi and the lone silverback Karateka, who is obviously keen to start a group by gaining females.

There are three habituated families near the Bukima Patrol Post; Kabirizi, Munyaga and the Humba Family, as well as two habituated, solitary silverbacks; Karateka and Bukima. Although the Rugendo Family were here, they have now moved back into the area of the Bikenge Patrol Post.

Now that we have finished visiting each family, and checked on the status and identity of each habituated individual, it is time for us to write our reports.

Each day, for each group, we take the GPS coordinates of where the family stayed the night and also where they are during the day. These coordinates are then put into the computer and are tracked using Arc View and GIS software.

We also record the type of vegetation that dominates the area that they are in, the type of terrain; whether they are in the hills, mountains or on a plain. We also record the ancient names of the area that they are in, for example, Ndindanyare which in Kinyabwisha means, ‘Wait for me, I’m taking a piss’.

Our report also involves documenting the face of each individual from each group, and also noting the nose print.

Above you can see the photos and nose prints of the Humba and Mapuwa Family back in January. Every three months we have to do this for each individual as the nose print changes with time.

We will be letting you know more about our report as the days continue.

Other news, the infant Mutazimiza is still poorly and so Dr Jacques and Dr Eddy from MGVP will be coming to visit tomorrow.

Diddy and Innocent

Technorati : Bukima, Congo, DRC, ICCN, Mountain Gorillas, WildlifeDirect

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We set off at first light to locate the Munyaga Family and check on the newborn, but unfortunately when we got close to where the family were known to be, we saw that a group of forest elephants had also passed through the area.

This made it very difficult to track the family as they are only a small group and so do not leave that many traces.

We searched through the bamboo forest, in the area that they should have been located, but each track that we found was soon covered by the tracks of elephants.

We prepared ourselves for a whole day in the forest, to try and locate the family, when we suddenly received a radio call from the guards with the Humba Family -they had just seen the Munyaga Family close by to where they were.

We trekked for a short time to where they were and found the family, starting with the Silverback Kasole.

There are three Silverbacks in this group, with Munyaga who is the leader but Munyaga was not present when we first arrived, however Bilali was nearby with her newborn baby.

She was protective of the baby and they were hidden in the vegetation when we first saw them. There was also always one of the two Silverbacks, Kasole or Mawazo, or the blackback Kadogo by her side. After a few minutes of been in their company, Bilali was more willing to show us the baby.

It was a great sight to see, and we are even able to tell you that the newborn is a boy. We truly hope that this is one of many infants to join the Munyaga Family.

Diddy and Innocent

Technorati : Congo, DRC, ICCN, Mountain Gorilla, Munyaga, Virunga, WildlifeDirect

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We’ve just this minute received news that there is a newborn in the Munyaga Family, the family we are to visit tomorrow. The news came from one of the guards who was with the family today.

This is great news and the baby was born to the only female in the group, Bilali. Tomorrow we will bring you photos of the newborn and other information about the family.

Innocent

Technorati : Congo, ICCN, Mikeno, Mountain Gorillas, Munyaga, Virunga, WildlifeDirect

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