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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Rare gorilla orphaned when mother shot dead
'Execution-style' killing; only 700 mountain gorillas left in wild
KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo - National park rangers here are battling to save a 2-month-old gorilla found clinging to its dead mother, who was shot dead through the back of the head.
"She's more or less OK. It is certainly a worrying situation, but not hopeless," Paulin Ngobobo, senior warden in eastern Congo's Virunga National Park, said from the city of Goma, where he is looking after the female infant.
He said the young mountain gorilla, born on April 15 and named Ndakasi by conservationists, had accepted baby formula from a feeding bottle. Mountain gorillas usually suckle for up to three years in the wild.
Only 700 mountain gorillas survive in the wild, more than half of them in Virunga.
At least two have been killed and eaten already this year by rebels living off the land as militia fighting drags on despite the official end of Congo's five-year war in 2003, in which violence, hunger and disease killed around 4 million people.
It was unclear who had killed the adult female or why. She had been killed "execution-style" in the back of the head and left at the scene rather than taken away to be eaten, said Emmanuel de Merode of conservation group Wildlife Direct.
"It looks like she was lured with bananas because we found bananas at the site," de Merode said from Goma.
"She was shot at very close range ... a second gorilla was probably shot because there was a trail of blood nearby and three gunshots were heard. The other was probably wounded and got away," he said.
"There are militia groups there. This particular incident was in the Mikeno sector, which is on the border of Rwanda. There was a lot of fighting in that area in January and those problems have not entirely been solved," he said.
Last month Mai Mai rebels attacked patrol posts in Virunga park, killing one wildlife officer and critically injuring three others, and threatened to slaughter gorillas if park rangers retaliated, Wildlife Direct said at the time.
More than 150 rangers have been killed in the last decade while protecting Congo's parks from poachers, rebel groups, illegal miners and land invasions, working through the war without pay, Wildlife Direct said.
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| jostorm |
Thanks for posting, Ten Thousand Motels, you ARE the "librarian" on RO who always keeps us informed about a vast plethora of subjects. I personally really appreciate it!
Yes, makes you sick to the stomach, doesn't it??? We applied for the contract for the veterinary work at the Virunga Reserve a few years ago, but thank God lost out to an American set-up. At the time I said to my husband that if he ever went out there I was going to walk out on him on the spot. And he knew I meant it!
Many years ago I got verbally crucified for suggesting at a specialist's conference that the only way of saving the mountain gorilla was to descend with a lot of chinook helicopters , dart the beasts with anesthetic and take them out one by one and take them to a safeheaven with similar vegetation and geology somewhere (usually referred to as "translocation", the only alternative being getting rid of the people. Didn't go down well, but desperate times need desperate measures, if you ask me.
In my opinion it would be a total sin to allow a vital evolutionary link like the mountain gorilla to become extinct, and although in principle I always think that humans come first before animals, some humans aren't humans in my book. If you think back to the appalling genocide between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda a few years ago that swelled the rivers and lakes with bloated corpses of women and chidren brutally massacred, you really have to ask yourself whether in this case it isn't the gentle giant feeding on leaves who should take priority over the "human" killing it for greed or bushmeat.
Controversial, I know, but the mountain gorilla will soon be gone, and it's heart-breaking to watch... |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
NDAKASI
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| mrhipfl |
That is why I have more respect for animals than for humans. |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Poachers kill one of last two white rhinos in Zambia
Tue Jun 12, 9:56 AM ET
LUSAKA (AFP) - Poachers have shot the last two white rhinos in Zambia, killing one and wounding the other, in a night operation at the Mosi-Oa-Tunya national park in Livingstone, an official said Tuesday.
The shooting of the two endangered animals in a heavily-guarded zoological park near Victoria Falls in Zambia's tourist resort town of Livingstone took place last week.
"I can confirm that one of the white rhinos was shot dead by suspected poachers. The other one was wounded and is undergoing treatment," said Maureen Mwape, spokesperson of the Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA), which would be investigating the shooting.
The dead female rhino's horn was apparently removed.
Zambia's white rhinos were all killed by poachers but the government managed to acquire six from South Africa in 1993, of which the injured male is the last to survive.
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| Cocaine Eyes |
This news just makes me ill. People can really fuck up innocent life, it's a sin and a shame. |
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| MrPleasant |
Mother Nature is a bitch and people generally suck. |
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| gimmekeef |
In an effort to raise the animal properly it has been sent to Rosie O'Donnell in order that its natural habitat be kept intact.... |
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| Lord (Hetero) |
That makes me ill. Man, I don't do nothing for any animal causes but this stuff is the worst. |
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