Mountain Gorillas and the Forgotten War

For some time I have wanted to write about the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where, amidst the chaos of civil war, approximately 200 of the world last remaining mountain gorillas live. These gorillas live in a small portion of the Virunga National Park, and are protected by the ICCN Rangers, but recent escalations in fighting have forced the rangers to flee their station in the forest. I received an email from them yesterday:

“The Gorilla Park Headquarters in DR Congo is still held by the rebels. They spent the night there and vandalized the buildings by busting down doors and stealing.
The 50+ Rangers who fled yesterday from the fighting spent the night in the forest with no food, or shelter, or water. The situation is now desperate. The area controlled by the rebels has grown, and we fear our Rangers are now sitting in an isolated pocket of forest, totally vulnerable to all the militia groups in the area.”

Most people in the states are totally unaware of what is going on in the DRC, but the conflict there is directly related to us in more ways than one. A huge amount of the minerals we use here in the states, including copper, gold, silver, zinc, tin, cadmium, uranium, and diamonds are all being mined with unregulated abandon, displacing millions of people in the process. The mining of coltan (the shortened African colloquial term for columbite-tantalite), the metallic ore used in almost every electronic device currently in production, from cell phone and iPod batteries to ink jet cartridges, has also helped create a huge upset in the region.

As these minerals and resources are being stripped from the environment, the people of the DRC, including a vast number of starving refugees (the aftermath of the Congo Wars), are being left to fend for themselves in dire poverty. With no gas to boil water or to cook with, the people are forced to venture into the parks in order to make their own charcoal by slashing down protected old growth virgin rainforest, the same forest that the mountain gorillas call home.

The illegal charcoal trade has become a dangerous yet profitable one, which both the Army and the rebels have been accused of having a hand in. The rangers have also had to fight charcoal trade corruption in their own ranks over the years, a situation that boiled over and was exposed in a court case in 2007, brought to the attention of the world by the brutal execution-style killings of 8 mountain gorillas in 2007 by rebels as a way to intimidate the incorruptible rangers that worked in the forest.

This situation has hit mainstream news lately as the rebels have advanced their front, yet most of the information above is, most of the time, left out. By knowing how much we as Westerners are involved and just how much is at stake, we can begin to raise our awareness and call for international attention to the region.

If you would like to follow the developments from the point of view of the rangers themselves, visit their blog, which they update regularly, at www.gorilla.cd/blog. Bookmark it, visit often, talk about it with your friends and family, pass the word along.

Since I started writing this piece, I received another update from the rangers. It reads:

“Twelve of the 53 missing Rangers who fled the Gorilla Park Headquarters in DR Congo on Sunday morning as a result of the fighting have been located in the forest, about 20km north of Goma. These men have walked over 35km through Virunga during the last 48 hours with no food, water, or shelter. A rescue operation is now underway to get them to safety. Will they make it?”

www.gorilla.cd/blog.

Here is the latest video posted by the rangers.

Guest Writer: Vernon Reynolds

This week I have the distinct honor of posting an article written by a man I admire very much, primate conservationist Vernon Reynolds! Please read!

Snare removal by a chimpanzee
by Vernon Reynolds

Introduction

In the Budongo Forest, in Africa, local hunters put out snares to catch duikers (small antelopes) and pigs. The snares are in the form of a noose, made of wire or nylon. The hunters are poor village people and unable to buy meat, and this is how they manage to get some protein for the cooking pot. Unfortunately, chimpanzees which live in the forest do sometimes get caught in these snares

It’s very rare for one chimpanzee to help another to remove a snare. Normally if a chimp gets caught in a snare, it has to try and remove it itself. Sometimes they succeed, other times the snare just stays on the wrist or ankle for a long long time. Sometimes the wound gets infected and the individual may die as a result. Other times the hand or foot becomes useless and hangs limply while the poor chimp has to walk and climb with three limbs only. In really bad cases a chimp can get caught more than once. Amazingly, chimps can survive with two injured limbs but life is very hard for them.

All this we know because of our studies at the Budongo Forest in Western Uganda. I first went there with my wife Frankie in 1962 and we spent the best part of a year there studying chimps. We returned to Europe and Idi Amin came to power in Uganda. We kept clear of the country during its two devastating civil wars, from 1971 - 1986. In 1990 I started the Budongo Forest Project again . Today we are a Ugandan NGO with the name Budongo Conservation Field Station. We have a Ugandan director and a Ugandan staff. Our Scientific Director and Assistant Director are Europeans, but we are very much a Ugandan project.

Chimpanzee removes a snare

On January 18, 2008 one of our Field Assistants, Stephen Amati, was with a party of 27 chimps in the forest. At 16:53 one of our senior and respected adult female chimps, Kwera, started to scream, and other chimps joined in. Kwera’s right hand had become caught in a nylon snare attached to a tree sapling. Here is how Stephen tells the story:

“A couple of minutes after she got caught, the alpha male Nick arrived and displayed at Kwera, who was immobilised. After hitting Kwera a couple of times, Nick stopped and sat next to her. Nick broke off the small sapling so that Kwera was able to move again. However the snare was still around her hand, which was still attached to a stick of about 30 cm.

“The party continued travelling towards the south. At 17:18 the party started to move through an area of thick undergrowth, quite common in Budongo Forest. The stick attached to Kwera’s snare got stuck between the little trees. Again she started to scream while pulling on the snare. Nick came back and displayed again towards her. He pulled on the stick which made Kwera scream more. Kwera presented to him and Nick started grooming her. While being groomed, Kwera manipulated the snare with her teeth trying to bite through the nylon string. After 5 minutes, Nick took Kwera’s right arm, held it up and investigated the snare. He started to manipulate the nylon with his teeth while holding Kwera’s arm and the stick firmly in position. After a few minutes the snare fell off and the party continued moving.”

This is the first time we’ve seen a snare removed from one chimpanzee by another chimpanzee at Budongo and there are very few reports from elsewhere. This is perhaps surprising given the high intelligence of chimpanzees, but it is a fact nonetheless. Most chimps who get a snare are left to fend for themselves and suffer accordingly. But as this case shows, it is possible for chimps to cooperate and get a snare off. We hope this habit may spread within our community of chimps! Well done Nick, and also well done Kwera for allowing him to do this, it must have been a very painful experience.


Acknowledgment
The full account of this event was published in Pan Africa News, the Newsletter of the Committee for the Care and Conservation of Chimpanzees and the Mahale Wildlife Conservation Society, June 2008. I wish to express grateful thanks to the Editors of Pan Africa News for permission to publish this story, which was initially written by Stephen Amati, Fred Babweteera, and Roman Wittig.

Budongo Conservation Field Station (BCFS)
PO Box 362, Masindi, Uganda
Email: bcfs@utlonline.co.ug

Pan Africa News
Japan Monkey Centre
26 Kanrin
Inuyama, Aaichi 484-0081
Japan
Email: pan.editor@gmail.com



This article was written by Vernon Reynolds (Associate Editor, PAN and Advisor, BCFS)

Primate Conservation with Felicia Walker of the Oakland Zoo

Power to the primates! This past weekend I took my video camera on a little trip to my second home, the Oakland Zoo, to talk to Felicia Walker, Outreach Coordinator for the Education & Conservation Department, about primate conservation. Check out the video! (If you go to YouTube to watch it there you can view it in high quality).



The things discussed in this video is of course just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to primate conservation, and the snares mentioned by Felicia in the video affect many more animals than chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, and other apes and monkeys. Painted Dog Conservation, located in Zimbabwe, has had to battle the same threats that the wire traps pose to the 4000 or so African wild dogs they struggle to protect. For almost every animal species that live in areas where the traps are set, from duikers to warthogs to hyenas to elephants, snares pose an enormous dilemma.



A spotted hyena with a snare around its neck.

Death by a snare is a harsh one for animals. Often times the poaches and hunters who set the traps don’t come back to check them for a day or more, sometimes out of fear of being discovered by park authorities, leaving the animals to a long, drawn out, and painful death (injuries often include maiming and dismemberment). If the snares catch more than a hunter can carry, he will then take what he can and leave the rest to die and rot. A huge amount of precious wildlife is killed annually in parks, forests, and nature reserves across the African continent and the rest of the world due to snare traps.





A three-legged tiger photographed in Indonesia. Its right forepaw was caught in and severed by a wire snare.

But the reason behind why this problem exists is one that cannot be ignored. As Felicia stated in the video, people need to eat. In countries where people live far from big cities and are loosing access to water sources to support agriculture and farming, more and more villagers are forced to head into protected reserves to catch their meat. This poses extreme threats to not only the animal populations in the forests and parks, but also to the people themselves. Humans can acquire deadly diseases, such as the Ebola virus, when they consume infected primates.

The issue of bushmeat (meat that is acquired from animals not traditionally consumed as game) is a serious one. Many animals are facing extreme declines in their populations due to the threat of poaching for bushmeat, such as Miss Waldron’s Red Colobus monkey, considered extinct in 2000 (although recent evidence suggests there may be a small population left along the Ivory Coast) due to hunting for consumption.



Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. However, there is an ever-increasing number of people learning about the bushmeat crisis and taking action to turn it around. Many of the conservation groups I so admire are grassroots organizations that attempt to find alternative solutions for the people living near the forests they catch food from, and through community education programs, teach them the importance of preserving the biodiversity of the protected areas. This usually takes a lot of cooperative effort, but it is achievable. Some of these groups are even able to employ ex-poachers to assist them in snare removal.

To find out more about how to support these endeavors, visit any of the websites listed at the end of the video above, and look into the groups Felicia suggests investigating (those and other links are also listed to the right of this posting). Despite what your abilities may be, there’s always something you can do, and it all starts with education!

Jessica's Animals Asia Adventure Blog

Here's the link to Jessica's blog, Animals Asia Adventure, detailing the events of her trip to China and her work with the rescued moon bears at China Bear Rescue facility.

http://jessicasvolunteering.blogspot.com/

You go, Jess!! And for anyone else that is interested in volunteering or contributing to http://www.animalsasia.org/, visit their website here. Asia's animals need your help!

Moon Bear Rescue with Animals Asia

I am extraordinarily proud to announce that one of my friends, a coworker from the Oakland Zoo, is spending three months in China right now volunteering with Animals Asia Foundation (AAF), helping to rescue and care for abused Asiatic black bears farmed for their bile. Here's a short video showing the work they do.



AAF is doing hard, noble work to rescue the Asiatic black bear, aka "moon bear," listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN. It joins the ranks of the Asian elephant, the tiger, orang utan, and giant panda as one of Asia's Big 5, the most iconic animals in Asia (according to Asian Geo), all of which are endangered.

AAF's work is commendable and difficult, and they are, like most other organizations doing this type of work, a non-profit in need of supporters and donations to assist them in their uphill battles against a vast array of frighteningly archaic animal practices. Funds donated to AAF go directly to maintaining the enclosures, food supply, veterinary needs, and enrichment for the bears they rescue, which, my friend working there right now has explained for me in wonderful detail, are getting a second chance at life. Please visit Animals Asia's website, and make a donation to help them in their efforts!

Here's another video I found. It has some graphic images, but the end is inspiring and uplifting. Please watch.

Mammals of the World Face Crisis

The results are in. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) recently published findings that one out of every four mammals is in danger of going extinct. While not all of the mammals are, say, critically endangered, being anywhere on the Red List is not a good thing for any species. Be they threatened, endangered, conservation-dependant, or vulnerable, the fact remains that 1,141 of the 5,487 mammalian species alive on the planet today are facing dire straits.

Earth’s mammals are in crisis, a situation that has largely been brought about by human activity. Since 1950, three subspecies of tiger, the Balinese, the Javan, and the Caspian, have been hunted to extinction. And now, with only 5 subspecies and less than 3,000 tigers left in the wild, we are forced to reflect upon the cowardly, selfish, and hateful acts that have brought one of the most celebrated animals in the world to the brink of extinction, carried out by the very hands of the species that reveres it.


The Balinese tiger


The Javan tiger


The Caspian tiger

This is just one story of many. The charismatic megafauna that captures most of the media’s attention is not the only type of animal suffering the effects of our irrationality and our history of wanton disregard for the planet’s ecosystems. From the Tasmanian devil to the fossa, from the smallest mammal in the world, the bumblebee bat, to the largest, the blue whale, mammals are facing serious challenges due to the Big Five: Habitat destruction, invasive species, pollution, overpopulation, and the overconsumption of our natural resources.


Pangolin

We need to act now. It is a choice you must make within your heart—when you become a witness of injustice, do you stand by and watch, doing nothing? When you know someone or something is in pain, do you do nothing to try to alleviate it? When you see a fellow human harming a living creature, does the vision meet your gaze with an apathetic stare?

I believe that all humans are born good, that all humans are born with the intrinsic desire to do good things, to care for others, and to be cared about. But I believe that the expert mastery of society’s influence can direct us instead, with a bombardment of images, advertisements, and propaganda, to steer our attention and desires towards a sugar-coated happiness rooted in the loose soil of materialism. But is it really easier to not care than to care? Is it easier to face your emotions or turn your back on them?

I believe that the right thing to do is often the hardest, and the situation at hand calls for everyone to turn to face the mountain that as humans we must climb towards fixing the problematic ways in which we coexist with animals. Be it through choosing locally produced, organic food, avoiding purchasing items in heavy packaging, purchasing a hybrid car, selling the car and riding a bike, recycling everything from paper to iPods, choosing to major in conservation ecology or environmental management, insulating your home with blue jeans, powering your appliances with solar technology, teaching the younger ones you may know about animals and plants, donating to conservation groups, writing letters to your government to call for responsible energy alternatives, the extra effort is little to ask for helping a quarter of all mammals to recover and get the chance at survival that it deserves.

In your hearts, I believe you all know what to do. Search within and find the strength to become a defender of wildlife and make the changes necessary to help protect the precious life that remains on this incredible planet. Despite what your abilities may be, there’s always something that you can do!

Paragliders Teach Eagle How To Fly

This is awesome.

A 14 year-old bald eagle, raised in captivity, has been getting flying lessons from its caretaker on Mont Blanc in France. By making the decent together (the trainer by way of paraglider), the trainer has been able to offer support for the magnificent bird of prey during the entire 40 minute decent from the 15,781 ft peak.

This flight was a year and a half in the making, and has been an integral element in trying to determine whether or not injured or captive-born birds can be taught to fly with the aim of releasing them into the wild as functional predators with a good chance of survival.

Big giant props to both the eagle and the trainers. This makes my heart soar!