Virunga National Park Mountain Gorillas Slaughtered

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Virunga National Park Mountain Gorillas Slaughtered
Aug. 2007  – A group of experts from UNESCO and 
the World Conservation Union, IUCN, has been invited into the Democratic 
Republic of the Congo to investigate the slaughter of four mountain 
gorillas in Virunga National Park last month. They leave Paris Saturday on 
a 10 day mission to the central African country. 
The execution-style shootings are considered a setback for gorilla 
preservation and for conservation of the World Heritage site, which was 
placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 1994.
Two suspects have been identified as being involved in the killings. One 
has been arrested and is assisting the authorities, but the other is still 
at large. Both were seen early on July 23 at the scene where the gorillas 
were shot, according to the International Gorilla Conservation Program, 
IGCP. 
 
Working with local authorities and partners in the field, the members of 
the UNESCO-IUCN mission will investigate the reasons for the targeting of 
these rare animals whose population in the park is estimated at 380 out of 
a total of 700 mountain gorillas worldwide. 
Seven mountain gorillas have been killed in separate incidents this year 
alone. 
On the basis of its findings, and in consultation with the Congolese 
authorities, the mission will propose measures for the protection of the 
mountain gorillas and for the improvement of the conservation of the World 
Heritage Site. 
Situated in the northeast region of the DRC, near the borders of Uganda 
and Rwanda, Virunga is the oldest national park in Africa, established in 
1925. 
This mission is organized within the framework of the reinforced 
monitoring mechanism adopted by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee during 
its annual session in Christchurch, New Zealand just over a month ago. 
Invited into the country by the DRC authorities and the Congolese 
Institute for the Conservation of Nature, the members of the mission will 
meet government representatives in Kinshasa. 
They will collect data including testimonies from guards and 
administrators of Virunga National Park as well as representatives of 
local communities and of the United Nations mission to the DRC. 
The experts will meet political and military leaders of the province and 
examine the state of conservation of Virunga National Park, the threats on 
the site and its actual management. 
They will also examine the economic impact of the situation on the local 
economy, especially with relation to tourism. 
The four gorillas were killed in Bukima, probably on the night of July 22. 
Two other members of the group, a female and her young, are reported to 
have gone missing. They all belonged to a group inhabiting an area 
regularly visited by tourists and were habituated to the presence of human 
beings.

Killed were Senkwekwe, the dominant silverback of the group, and three 
adult females, while another adult female is missing and presumed dead. 
The loss of five of the group's 12 members means it is likely to 
disintegrate as a social group, says Conservation International, whose 
president Russell Mittermeier is a primate specialist. 
"This is the worst single incident in 30 years, in a region that is 
normally seen as the only success story for gorillas across the 
continent," said Mittermeier, who chairs the Primate Specialist Group of 
the IUCN's Species Survival Commission. "If we can't stop these attacks, 
our closest living relatives will disappear from the planet." 
Conservation International says an infant mountain gorilla, carried by his 
brother from the scene of the slaughter, has been rescued and is being 
cared for at a primate rehabilitation center in the DRC city of Goma. 
Members of the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Program and Congolese Institute 
for the Conservation of Nature had to tranquilize the brother to rescue 
the infant, who otherwise was certain to die from lack of care in the 
diminished group. 
The infant was taken to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, DFGFI, 
rehabilitation center in Goma, joining another infant orphaned six weeks 
earlier in an attack on a different group in the park that killed another 
adult female.

Fossey, an American zoologist, lived in the Virunga Mountains and studied 
gorillas on the Rwanda side of the border until she was murdered there in 
1985. 
Mittermeier said Conservation International has agreed to provide Primate 
Action Fund money in collaboration with DFGFI for additional guards to 
protect the mountain gorillas. 
Members of the International Gorilla Conservation Program - a coalition of 
the African Wildlife Foundation, Fauna and Flora International and WWF - 
are engaged in emergency talks with wildlife authorities and conservation 
groups in Goma to coordinate and support conservation efforts. 
Plans are to intensify ranger patrols within the park, to solicit support 
of the DRC national army to provide security to the rangers, and to seek 
political support from the provincial governor to safeguard all the 
habituated gorilla groups in the area of the killings. 
The disappearance of these gorillas represents not only a tragedy for the 
preservation of the species, but also the loss of an important source of 
revenue for local communities, said UNESCO. 
Since the beginning of the year, seven gorillas have been shot and killed. 
This is more than the numbers lost during the conflict that wracked the 
Great Lakes region in the 1990s, leading the World Heritage Committee to 
inscribe the park of the List of World Heritage in Danger.

UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura has called on the DRC national 
authorities to adopt urgent measures to bring the killings to an end. 
"There is grave concern for the mountain gorillas as the latest killings 
are inexplicable," said UNESCO. "They do not correspond to traditional 
poaching where animals are killed for commercial purposes. Furthermore the 
killings have taken place despite the increased guard patrols and the 
presence of military forces in the area." 
After their mission is complete, the UNESCO and IUCN experts will brief 
the authorities in Kinshasa as well as partners in the field of their 
findings and compile a report on the situation. 
In view of the fact that the five World Heritage sites of the DRC have had 
to be placed on the World Heritage in Danger List, and of the recent 
deterioration in Virunga, UNESCO is planning a high-level meeting in the 
autumn to examine ways to improve the situation. 
The meeting will bring together the DRC authorities, UNESCO natural 
heritage specialists, representatives of the African Union, sub-regional 
organizations and IUCN President Mohammed Valli Moosa, who is a former 
South African environment minister.
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