Capture of a Baby Gorilla in a Banana Field at Bukonde
A baby gorilla was captured by a villager at Bukonde, a locality situated
in the Tayna Gorilla Reserve (RGT), southeast of Butembo in North Kivu,
Democratic Republic of the Congo. Arrested by the RGT trackers, the villager
told them:
On February 5, 2003 a family of 8 gorillas was destroying my banana
field. I decided to frighten them away with loud noises, and a female
abandoned the baby that she was carrying on her back when running away,
and I took it. Influenced by my neighbours, who told me that I could sell
the baby gorilla for US$ 5,000, I went to look for a buyer in Butembo
(a town about 280 km from Goma).
To reach Butembo, he went by a route which would allow him to leave as
quickly as possible and avoid the RGT guides, from Bukonde via Kanyabayonga
to Butembo. During the trip, the baby gorilla was transported on the man’s
back in a locally made sack as far as the place where he found a vehicle.
He fed the baby gorilla on bananas and wild fruits.
In Butembo, where he was arrested by the RGT trackers, the villager was
brought to local community authorities to whom he declared that he was
poaching because of his poverty and unemployment, but if he could get
a job in the project he would stop poaching and influence his fellow citizens.
In our opinion, considering the gorillas’ biology and the savagery
of the silverback, we do not think it is possible to capture a member
of a family without threat. Moreover, it is rare for a female to abandon
her baby, because she lives most of time close to the silverback and benefits
from his protection.
Investigations are going on, and we hope to find out if the troop’s
silverback and the female were killed; we think it most likely that the
poacher obtained the infant in this way.
The baby, a female, measured 75 cm and weighed 15 kg. Up to now she has
been in good health in the care of the RGT team, which proposes to return
her to her natural habitat or to send her in to a nearby research center.
We will request the politico-administrative authorities of the area to
facilitate her transfer from Butembo.
The RGT has been involved since 1998 in community conservation activities,
education of the local populations, and fighting against poaching and
the illicit trade in protected wild species. The arrest of the villager
with a baby gorilla proved to be a good opportunity for publicity, and
for the educational and sensitization teams of the RGT to organize a large
public awareness campaign about the event to local communities. During
these activities, the team was asked to explain how bad poaching is and
what the advantages of conservation are.
Some days afterwards the RGT and its local partners received positive
responses from other persons who keep primates in their homes. The RGT
has also taken the opportunity to involve the legal system and other relevant
services in the affair, and we received their complete cooperation. Thus,
after a dialogue with other conservation organisations, the RGT is setting
up a program to rehabilitate all wild animals being held in captivity.
However, there are considerable technical, material and financial difficulties
in setting up a transit center or a center specialized in keeping primates
for reintroduction to their natural habitat without harming other animals
still living in the forest. The RGT team is afraid of the risk of contamination
or disease transmission, or simply of difficulties related to their reinsertion
into social groups or their natural habitat.
The RGT team and partners are working hard now to make a census of all
wild animals kept in captivity in different houses in Goma and the surrounding
neighbourhood.
Pierre Kakule Vwirasihikya
Pierre Kakule Vwirasihikya has been working in the Virunga National Park since 1982 and became a Senior Warden in 1988. He took part in gorilla monitoring in the park. Currently, he is both the Tayna Gorilla Reserve Coordinator (since 1998) and the UGADEC Executive Secretary (since 2002). He won the ASP Conservation award in 2002.