Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 26 2009 | By: Aaron Nicholas

Dear Friends,

This is a letter we recieved from Rusty Stewart about meeting Titus, the silverback made famous by Dian Fossy in Gorillas in the Mist.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2009

When I was at ORTPN getting my gorilla trekking permits and it was taking a long time I had an opportunity to watch a documentary about Titus, the Silverback who died last week at the age of thirty five.  He had a very interesting and tumultuous life which included being orphaned at a young age, dodging poachers successfully for years, surviving the Rwandan Genocide by moving to the very top of  Visoke to avoid rebels bent on killing gorillas, surviving the death of Digit,  the leader of his group and one of Dian Fossey’s favorites,  living in an all male group for several years and  finally taking over the group  and leading it successfully for years fathering many new babies.  He seemed to have a philosophy of life that made him charismatic and in my view very human.

With thoughts of Titus on my mind, I set off for Ruhengeri to start my gorilla trek. The trek starts at 0700 and the excitement in the folks was palpable. Each group has 8 people and our group set out with our guide to find our gorilla group.  After a short ride over a very rough road we de-camped. It was a tough 3 hour climb, steadily uphill, through a bamboo forest.  I would be lying if I suggested it was easy.  As the oldest in my group, I had a porter who helped me and I often needed his help.  Then we stopped, left our bags, poles,etc, walked on another hundred feet and there he was… our Silverback, sitting like a Buddha..

We were all mesmerized at how close we were to him.

Our guide was able to speak gorilla which was great so if there was movement he could tell us whether we should be afraid or not.  Other gorillas started to arrive and we enjoyed a real show.  Three young gorillas and two mature females.

The young were intent on entertaining us, but when they came too close to us the Silverback would give what sounded like a small cough and they would run back up to him.

Too soon, our hour of excitement was over and we hiked back down the mountain.

What a thrilling experience, and certainly worth every penny!  I’ve included some of my favorite pictures so you can see how wonderful they are to see in their natural habitat.

I am just finishing Farley Mowat’s book Virunga, The Passion of Dian Fossey (Seal Books McClelland-Bantam, Inc, Toronto)  I am in I recommend it to anyone interested in her struggle to protect the Mountain Gorilla from poacher, and the encroachment of the world.

A word about why I’m in Rwanda right now.  My husband chose to spend a month here teaching anesthesia, as part of an ongoing project sponsored jointly  by the Canadian Society of Anesthesia  and  the American Society, in the university hospital programs in Kigali and Huye.  I have accompanied him and have done some volunteering for Vision Finance International the micro finance arm of the charity World Vision. We have also been accompanied by a young anesthesia resident from the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine. This  project has been going on for almost two years now and is being very well received.

Today my two adult children are here and they left in the last hour for Ruhengeri to have their own gorilla adventure.  Later all of us will leave Rwanda for Kenya and a Safari.

Thank you Rusty for sharing this story with us. Rest in Peace knowing that you changed the world Titus. 

Paula

Tags: Dian Fossey, gorilla, gorillas, Gorillas in the Mist, Mountain Gorillas, Rwanda, silverback, Titus, Virunga, wildlifedirect

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Category: Gorilla tourism, Mountain Gorillas, Year of the Gorilla | Date: Sep 17 2009 | By: paula

We have just learned that the Uganda Wildlife Authority plans to introduce online gorilla tracking as a new initiative aimed at the global demand for conservation tourism.

For a minimum donation of $1, subscribers will be able track the movements of individual gorillas through a custom-made Web site. Strategically placed cameras in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest will stream video footage of gorillas to audiences worldwide.

The service – scheduled to begin this month – will also allow users to “befriend a gorilla” on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

“The project aims to bring attention to the plight of gorillas,” said Lillian Nsubuga, a spokeswoman for the Uganda Wildlife Authority, “and any money raised will be put towards conservation efforts.”

For more on this story go here

Tags: , endangered species, gorilla, Mountain Gorillas, Uganda, wildlife, wildlifedirect

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Category: Mountain Gorillas, Rwanda | Date: Sep 16 2009 | By: paula

Dear Friends

We are so sorry to be the bearers of bad and sad news- Titus, the star from Gorilla in the Mist has died.

KIGALI: The world’s most famous mountain gorilla Titus, aka the Gorilla King, has died at the age of 35, the Rwandan national parks office said Tuesday.

‘He was born on August 24, 1974 and has been observed closely by researchers throughout his entire life. Tragically, he succumbed to old age on September 14,’ a statement said.

Rwanda’s oldest silverback was made famous notably by a BBC documentary broadcast in 2008 and called ‘Titus: the Gorilla King.’

YoG Ambassador Ian Redmond, who knew Titus since infancy, said: “The death of any individual who plays such an important role in his community is a sad occasion.  All who knew Titus will mourn his passing in their own way – whether gorilla or human.  For me it is like losing an old friend – he was the first gorilla I saw when beginning my work as Dian Fossey’s research assistant in 1976.   He was a playful two-year-old and I was a newly graduated biologist, so we both had a lot to learn.   But Titus’s death from natural causes at 35 is also a triumph for conservation – how wonderful that we humans have been able to leave him the space to flourish and become the most successful silverback on record, then grow old and die surrounded by his family.   The King is dead, yes, but long live the King – his son Kuryama.”

The highly-endangered mountain gorillas are found only on the slopes of the Virunga mountains on the borders of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Fewer than 700 mountain gorillas are left, according to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International.

Both Rwanda and Uganda have turned gorilla tracking into a major eco-tourism industry and a big foreign-currency earner.

Legendary American primatologist Dian Fossey, who until her brutal murder in 1985 lived in the Virunga, is credited with bringing the mountain gorilla’s plight to the world’s attention and most likely saving it from extinction.

Fossey’s isolated life in the mountains of Rwanda was immortalised in the 1988 Hollywood movie ‘Gorillas in the Mist.’— AFP

Tags: Dian Fossey, gorilla, gorillas, Gorillas in the Mist, Mountain Gorillas, Rwanda, silverback, Titus, Virunga, wildlifedirect

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Category: Eastern Lowland Gorilla, Mountain Gorillas | Date: Mar 23 2009 | By: paula

Some hilarious photographs were taken in Rwanda suggesting that gorillas getting drunk on bamboo juice in Rwanda

The photographs were takne by Andy Rouse who belives that Kwitonda got drunk and then had a massive hang over afterwards. I’m not sure if gorillas can get drunk on bamboo juice but the pictures are pretty stunning.

Jane Goodall saving gorillas

Jane Goodall has launched a mobile phone recycling program at Melbourne Zoo, with two objectives: to recycle coltan and cut demand for coltan mining, and to raise funds to pay for extra park rangers to prevent gorilla poaching.

“So far we’ve collected 6037 phones, which is enormous,” said Melbourne Zoo primate keeper Andrea Edwards, who was in the Democratic Republic of Congo last year as a volunteer at a primate orphanage.

“We’ve already sponsored a park ranger in the Maiko national park in the north-eastern part of the country to patrol the area. If we’ve already paid one ranger’s wage in a few months, and this program is going national, I can only imagine what the zoos of Australia can achieve when they get together,” she said.

“We can hire more rangers, give them better equipment and make it safer for them and better for the animals. It’s real and it’s tangible and it’s very, very exciting.”

Eastern Lowland gorilla numbers have dropped by 70 per cent in the last five years due to disease and poaching for meat, part of Africa’s bush meat trade.

Roughly $2 is raised for each phone. Zoos Victoria’s partner in the scheme, Aussie Recycling, can also refurbish and resell phones that are less than five years old.

For our friends in Australia, phones can be dropped off at Melbourne Zoo, Werribee Open Range Zoo or Healesville Sanctuary, or a free postage label can be downloaded at zoo.org.au.

Tags: coltan, drunk, gorillas, Jane Goodall, Kwitonda, Rwanda, wildlifedirect

7 responses so far

Category: Grauer's Gorillas, cross river Gorilla | Date: Mar 20 2009 | By: Daniel

Dear Friends,

This Gorilla Protection Blog is a collaboration between WildilfeDirect, the Gorilla Organisation, WCS, the GTZ (German Development), GRASP, CMS, WAZA, PASA and Born Free Foundation, as well as other organizations involved in gorilla conservation. The goal uniting these various organisations is to raise as many funds as possible for a selection of important gorilla field-conservation projects.

Gorillas and the forests they live in are under pressure from all sides. Most of the threats are manmade – hunting, habitat loss, mining and war – and some are natural – such as diseases like Ebola. A combination of these threats, if left unmitigated, is a recipe for extinction and will lead to the disappearance of any viable gorilla populations from the wild within only a few decades – less than a gorilla lifetime.

Time is not on our side. This is why the UNEP Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), the UNEP/UNESCO Great Ape Survival Partnership (GRASP) and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) have jointly declared 2009 the Year of the Gorilla. This global campaign raises awareness and educates the public about gorillas and their threatened status, while at the same time raising funds for tangible on-the-ground conservation work. The projects featured here with the kind support of Wildlife Direct have been approved by experts and are of high conservation value. By donating, you can help us ensure that our grandchildren still have the chance to see these awe-inspiring beings in the wild.

The Year of the Gorilla 2009 also supports the decision by the gorilla range states to give the gorillas better protection through a legally binding agreement concluded under CMS. What is needed now is swift and effective implementation of this promising new instrument, and the Year of the Gorilla is a first big step in this direction.

Please go to www.yog2009.org to find out more. And don’t forget to tell a friend!!

Tags: CMS, gorilla graueri, gorillas, GRASP, lowland gorilla, mountain gorilla, PASA, UNEP, WAZA, wildlifedirect, Year of Gorilla

One response so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 12 2009 | By: paula

We at WildlifeDirect have raised concern about China’s role in the accelerating elephant killings across Africa hwic his driven by China’s insatiable demand for ivory. The Government of China claim that they have excellent controls and education programs at home, and deny that China is having the impact that so many of us fear, on elephants, trees, apes and other species in Africa.

Jane Goodall has vindicated us. This news article was just published on AFP on 10th March 2009.

Primatologist Goodall: China plundering Africa resources

WASHINGTON (AFP) — China’s thirst for natural resources including wood and minerals is leading to massive deforestation in Africa and the destruction of crucial wildlife habitat, world-renowned primatologist Jane Goodall has said.

The British scientist who revolutionized research with her studies of chimpanzees beginning in 1960 warned that Beijing is pressing governments in central Africa’s Congo basin to sign over forest concessions in return for infrastructure and healthcare aid.

She said the process is helping decimate some of the largest populations of wild chimpanzees and gorillas in the world.

“These areas containing unlogged forests are very desirable to, particularly today, China, with China’s desperate effort for economic growth,” she told a Capitol Hill briefing attended by House of Representatives science and technology committee chairman Bart Gordon.

“Basically, they have almost exhausted their own supplies (of wood and minerals) so they go to Africa and offer large amounts of money or offer to build roads or make dams, in return for forest concessions or rights to minerals and oil,” Goodall, 74, said.

“I’m actually hoping (China’s growth rate) will be slowed a little bit by this economic crisis” in order to stem the deforestation, she said.

Goodall said the Chinese “have many enterprises in Congo-Brazzaville, and they’re certainly in DRC,” the Democratic Republic of Congo, two countries where deforestation and human encroachment have decimated wild primate populations despite efforts by the Jane Goodall Institute and other groups to reverse the trend.

“Their habitat is disappearing,” said Goodall, considered one of the 20th century’s leading scientists for her work with chimpanzees in what is now Gombe National Park in Tanzania.

She said it was crucial to work more closely with national and local governments in order to expand community-based conservation projects as a way to “offset offers from China.”

She also blamed the rampant bushmeat trade for helping devastate primate populations.

The trade is facilitated by foreign logging concerns building roads into once-inaccessible forested areas, and in some cases allowing hunters to ride in and out of the region on logging trucks.

Goodall’s institute is focused in part on expanding chimpanzee habitat in Gombe and working with local villages to rehabilitate denuded land and help create green corridors between Gombe and other areas with chimpanzees within the vast Congo basin.

The softspoken Goodall began her briefing in dramatic fashion, by imitating the wild call of a chimpanzee.

It could be interpreted as a cry for help — both for the primates and for the organizations working to protect them — as Goodall acknowledged that the conservation efforts could suffer a crippling blow over the next year and beyond due to the global financial crisis.

She told AFP that the downturn has made it more difficult to raise money for her work and for local governments to conduct or enforce conservation initiatives.

Tags: China, Congo, DR Congo, Elephants, great apes, illegal trade, ivory, Jane Goodall, wildlifedirect

3 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Feb 27 2009 | By: paula

Today we send out congratulations to Cameroon for establishing a new Gorilla Park. Deng Deng park is the size of Chicago and is hometo 600 western lowland gorillas. Lowland gorillas are listed as critically endangered by the IUCN after populations crashed by more than 90% in recent years.

What a great way to start tGorillhe Year of the Gorilla

More information here

Tags: Cameroon, gorilla, gorilla park, Western Lowlan Gorilla, wildlifedirect

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Feb 26 2009 | By: paula

Uganda is celebrating that a new gorilla trekking site will be opened in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park this April.  This is Uganda’s fourth gorilla site. Managed by the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), Rushaga in Kisoro District, is being opened to allow more tourists to visit their 300 mountain gorillas in this tiny national park in southwest Uganda.

Meanwhile in England “A LOCAL Conservative councillor has been suspended by his party following a row over an internet blog.

Cllr Bob Allen is being investigated by Bolton’s Tory leader Cllr John Walsh after he posted a picture of a gorilla next to a story about a fellow councillor on his personal online blog”.

The guy should have been honored!

Tags: Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Mountain Gorillas, Uganda, UWA, wildlifedirect

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jan 09 2009 | By: admin

Year of the Gorilla is now underway – here are some interesting things to look out for.

The Gorilla Agreement has been signed. It is an international treaty, a legally binding agreement among the ten countries with gorilla habitats, requiring that they protect and conserve the gorillas. Implementation will include anti-poaching campaigns, reforestation work, and developing eco-tourism along with community development projects. Six of the ten governments have signed the agreement: Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Gabon. Still to sign are Angola, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Uganda.

A gorilla appears on Rwanda’s largest banknote, the pink 5,000-Franc bill, which is worth almost $10. But the apes carry an even greater responsibility on their hairy shoulders: they have effectively become national mascots.

Recycling phones - A company called Eco-Cell recycles cell phones, collecting them at zoos and other places around the country. The company recently announced that the Louisville Zoo led the more than 100 zoos across USA that recycled cell phones in 2008.

At WildlifeDirect we have done several things already.

With partners Clinton Foundation, Turtle Pond, Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation and Scholastic Publications we Published a childrens book “Looking for Miza”- the true story about how 2 year old baby Miza survived after her mother was killed in the DR Congo last year

In partnership with with Scholastic and Turtle PondHeld the Kids Gorilla Summit and got thousands of signatures on the Kids Global Act Pact

American and Rwandan children met with President Clinton to sign the Act Pact

This is only the beginning of the Year of the Gorilla. Throughout this year we will be bringing even more news about gorilla conservation from across the continent and working with new partners in many gorilla range states. We will of course be letting you know how you can help save one of our closest living relatives.

A number of conservation organizations are announcing their commitments to actions this year. The following activities are planned by the The Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfe organization

Reforestation of a Buffer Zone on Mt. Tshiaberimu
Near Mt. Tshiaberimu (a part of the Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo) trees are grown in a tree nursery. The Congolese initiative SAGOT planted 40,000 seedlings that will be planted at the border of the national park in 2009. The aim is to create a forested buffer zone for the Mt. Tshiaberimu gorillas who frequently use the area. The whole project is funded by us.

HuGo in Uganda und Ruanda
Conflicts between humans and gorillas are common if the forests for the gorillas shrink and land is cultivated right next to the conservation areas. In Rwanda und Uganda the program HuGo (Human-Gorilla Conflict Resolution) was initiated to solve and avoid such conflicts. Teams with members from the villages close to the park observe the gorillas’ ranging and become active as soon as they leave the parks. If the situation is critical, the HuGo teams chase the gorillas away with loud noise.
We support the HuGo teams in Rwanda and Uganda in 2009 by funding training and equipment (rain jackets, gumboots, bicycles).

Emergency Support for Cameroon
The international financial crisis now also affects gorilla conservation. We received an urgent request for support from Cameroon because a sponsor had to cancel his funds. The projects for the conservation of the Cross River gorillas there need the followind:
The solar power system needs repair after having been damaged by lightning. The daily patrols for gorilla monitoring and protection have to continue in Kagwene. In the Mone Forest a botanical survey is planned. And the employees of the project need additional funds for their families because highly elevated food prices in the markets.

Do you know of any other planned YOG activities? Are you going to do to celebrate the Year of the Gorilla?

Tags: , Clinton, Looking for Miza, UN, wildlifedirect, Year of Gorilla

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jan 06 2009 | By: paula

The latest news from Congo suggests that Laurent Nkunda has been ousted by his own rebel force, the CNDP say our sources on the ground. It has also been reported in BBC, Reuters and Angola Press.

Nkunda however denies being ousted according to AFP   Many would think it a good thing if Nkunda is removed, however it may not be as simple as that. One of the challenges will be to continue the peace negotiations under these circumstances. Indeed the news of Nkunda being ousted significantly complicates matters and one of our sources fears that his denial suggests that the CNDP is splitting up.

The New York Times describes Nkunda as a man who “has pushed the nation to its most dangerous precipice in years”

The change in leader ship at CNDP will affect the Virunga National Park, home to 170 of the worlds mountain gorillas where CNDP rebels and the park authority have reached an uneasy agreement on managing the park and monitoring the gorillas. Until now the gorillas have been doing fine. 

Tags: DR Congo, gorillas, Laurent Nkunda, Mountain Gorillas, wildlifedirect

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