DRC rebels 'killing gorillas'

2007-01-10 22:10

Nairobi - Rebel fighters in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) shot and killed a highly endangered mountain gorilla in what conservationists said on Wednesday could be a catastrophe for the species.

Rebels commanded by dissident DRC general Laurent Nkunda allegedly slaughtered the young male silverback in eastern DRC's Virunga National Park on January 5 and forced a local farmer to butcher its meat, they said.

"The killing of a gorilla is a disaster for us," the Nairobi-based Wildlife Direct group said, adding that the death of the rare animal, one of a tiny group that was used to humans, could also bode ill for tourism.

"In a population this small, every individual counts and the loss of a trusting young silverback is tragic on many levels," said Ian Redmond, the chief consultant for GRASP, the UN Great Apes Survival Project.

Only about 700 mountain gorillas remain in the wild, all of them living in the mountains of Rwanda, Uganda and the eastern DRC, where Nkunda's rebels and other armed groups are accused of poaching and encroaching on their habitats.

Patrol post abandoned due to rebel attacks

Nkunda's men, blamed for sowing insecurity throughout the volatile eastern DRC, killed the silverback less than 600m from a former wildlife patrol post abandoned by park rangers due to rebel attacks.

"It is feared that this latest gorilla killing could be the beginning of a large-scale gorilla massacre," said Wildlife Direct, noting the introduction of cattle into Virunga by Nkunda's forces and increased poaching of other species.

"The future survival of this species is now under threat and I fear that this recent attack on the gorillas could signal a wave of such killings if immediate action is not taken to remove Nkunda's and his troops from their habitat," said Robert Muir of the Frankfurt Zoological Society.

Wildlife Direct, founded by famed Kenyan conservationist Richard Leakey, urged international efforts to help avert the mass killing of mountain gorillas and other endangered species in Virunga.

- AFP