Gorilla Protection

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 03 2009 | By: paula

Today we are celebrating the birth of a baby by Mahisho in the Kabirizi family. Innocent took some lovely photos which can be found here at the Official Virunga website

But we are also mourning the death of 8 year old Muchana at the St Louis Zoo - she was found dead tangled in her ropes.

And 32 year old Kambula at Texas Zoo who had an untreatable condition and was euthanized

We are also deeply shocked by the savage chimpanzee attack in Connecticut. Listening to the 911 call is terrifying I am not surprised that it took this particularly horrific mauling of a woman last week by the pet chimpanzee, for the USA to take immediate action in banning trade in apes. Its not the first time it has happened, over 100 people have been attacked by chimpanzees in USA (29 are children) but this incident led to the swift drafting of new legislation and the passing of a vote to ban interstate trade of apes and monkeys. It’s a pity that it took such a tragic incident to close a loop ion US legislation which bans the importation of apes for pets, but did not ban the transport for the purpose of sale of apes once in the USA. Now that the vote has passed (overwhelmingly 323-95), and will make it difficult for people to access apes like chimpanzees and gorillas which are sought for household companions.

Hopefully this incident which led to the killing of the 14 year old chimpanzee named Travis, will discourage people from seeking baby apes for pets. One consequence of ape trade is the tragic escalation in number of orphaned apes now in captivity in at JACK, Limbe, Cercopan, Tacugama and Lola ya Bonobo.

Ironically, someone called me yesterday asking if I could help find a baby mountain gorilla for a member of the royalty in one of the Arab states who wanted a pet. I know that Vanessa would agree with me when I told them why it was such a bad idea! Somehow though, I fear that this person will try to get a gorilla through illegal means.

Tags: ape trade, baby gorilla, DR Congo, Innocent, Kabirizi, Missouri Zoo, Mountain Gorillas, Virunga

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Category: Kabirizi Family | Date: Dec 05 2008 | By: paula

Its amazing that the ICCN are able to conduct a gorilla census sin Vurunga National Park despite the continued conflict that is ongoing (even though most news agencies have tired of telling that story apart from Bloomberg who reports cooperative efforts between Congo and Rwanda).

Diddy at Bukima camp last year when he found Miza

Diddy and Innocent have revealed that not only have they found most gorilla families intact, but that there migraitons, and importantly, there have been some births. We are still waiting to hear about Miza and look at her photos. Her sister Mivumbi who rescued her when she was orphaned, has had an infant of her own. If you haven’t got it yet,  the childrens book Looking for Miza is a perfect Christmas gift for any child or adult.

Miza was orphaned last year and it was feard she was dying

Read more about the exciting survey and watch the videos from the field here

Tags: Diddy, DR Congo, ICCN, Innocent, Kabirizi, Miza, mountain gorilla, mutazimiza, Virunga National Park

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