gorilla.cd

On May 12, the Gorilla Doctors were informed by Virunga National Park officials in DR Congo that the lone silverback Mukunda had left the national park and traveled to the village of Rugari. You may recall from last year that Mukunda has a habit of traveling far outside the park, seeking human settlements. In May and July of 2010, the Gorilla Doctors had to twice intervene, darting Mukunda with an anesthetic drug in order to bring him back to his home.

This month, Mukunda spent three days going in and out of the park to raid crops from farmers’ fields. On the 12th he traveled 4km out of the park, crossing the bridge at Kanyemondo across the Gasasa torrent and then to Rugari town in Kigarama village where he slept.

In Rwanda, Dr. Mike decided to cross the border at 7am on May 13 to be on location at 8am, prepared for a full immobilization. Drs. Mike, Magda, and Julius and met up with Drs. Eddy and Jacques once in Congo. The MGVP team reached the place where Mukunda spent the night around 8:20, and met the Virunga National Park team with the HUGOs. HUGO stands for human-gorilla. These are local people hired by the park to help move Mukunda and other gorillas back into the park when the gorillas try to come out.

When the team was assembled, Mukunda decided by himself to start walking back to the park. The Gorilla Doctors, Virunga National Park rangers, and HUGOs together herded Mukunda towards the park. Mukunda was moving fast, but taking some breaks to rest and eat. During this trek he was seen eating ripe bananas, bamboo shoots, potatoes, and corn. The weather was extremely sunny and Mukunda was obviously distressed by the heat. He was seen sweating, breathing heavily, and looking for shade. At 10am he took a break, napping for about 2 hours. When he awoke, he ate some bamboo, and continued towards the park.

Around 12:45 he entered park and laid down for a quick snooze. After about 10minutes he was up eating his bamboo shoots.

The effort was a complete success. Generally the communities were calm and cooperative. Mukunda has no fear of people and walked within 10 feet of buildings and human activity. Hopefully he will remain within the park boundaries in the future.

This is Ephrem. During the last two weeks, the Virunga National Park has lost 14 elephants and 2 hippos as recorded below. All the park has been affected especially the central sector: Rwindi and Rutshuru where 12 elephants have been recorded. The main responsible of this killing are Rwanda militias (FDLR): 5 elephants, Congolese militias (PARECO): 3 elephants and Congolese soldiers (FARDC): 5. A Congolese high Commander has recently told to soldiers that poaching is a crime that is going to be severely punished.

Sunday afertnoon, while coming from Beni with WCS’s vehicle, we met at Mabenga checkpoint a FARDC and rangers joint patrol coming from the forest. They have just arrested 6 Rwandan militias who killed an elephant near their positions of Kahunga. Unfortunately , it wasn’t possible to take a picture. These men have been transfered at Rwindi, the ICCN HQ of the central sector of Virunga National Park. they should be prosecuted.

There is an increase of ivory demand that is a solid incentive of looting elephants in the park. The networks are in the DRC as well as in the neighbouring countries. In Bujumbura, some dealers are paying more than US$ 50 /kg. Congolese Park Authority is facing many difficulties to put an end to this poaching.

I’ve been accompanying an important patrol in the southern part of the gorilla sector, around Kibumba, the only functional patrol post in the sector. It was a regular patrol with 12 rangers on the southern slopes of the Mikeno and Karisimbi Volcanoes.

Kibumba Patrol Post

It was quite an eventful patrol. We tracked some poachers who were laying snares (a very unpleasant way of killing wildlife). 13 wire snares were dismantled.

Ndeze with some of the snares that we recovered

While we were doing this, we heard a silverback chest-beating, and tried to locate the gorilla. It was fairly obvious that it was a solitary. The gorillas quite rare in this area, but a small group of four unhabituated gorillas are known to range in this area, but because of that they’re almost impossible to see. Still, all the more important to have removed those snares.

The patrol, on our return

We heard another group on the slopes of Mt Karisimbi, near the Rwandan border. We didn’t take the patrol in that area because we had seen tracks of other groups in the area. We know these tracks to be those of Rwandan military, who often come into Congo in that area. Last month, the rangers laid an ambush for some poachers in the park. Some of the poachers escaped and while they were being pursued by us, they got caught by a Rwandan patrol, and taken to Rwanda.

We’ll be going back into the park tomorrow to double check to make sure that there are no more snares.

Anyway, this patrol happened thanks to funding from this blog, so we’re extremely grateful for your support

-Ephrem Balole

Every 3 months we hold a meeting at Rumangabo with local leaders and authorities to talk about protecting Virunga National Park and working with the local populations.

This committee is called Concd which stands for Convergence pour la Conservation et le Developement, Convergence for Conservation and Development. So it is a forum if you like, and traditional chiefs, military heads, police chiefs and Rangers all come together to address the important issues. This is a very important aspect of protecting the park as communication is paramount to any success and diminishing threats from poachers and charcoal burners and others. We find solutions to conflict.

Here are photos from the most recent meeting. You can see me addressing the group (in the second photo), and also the military, police and local population representatives. At the end we all had a group photo. I am at the front next to the police chief.

Last week I went to Kinshasa our capital to receive an award from Cites for Bravery in Law Enforcement. Cites is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and an international agreement with governments that was set up in the 1970s. It aims to ensure that international trade in wild animals and plants does not threaten the survival of these animals and plants.

Cites is THE convention on trade on endangered species and my country joined the convention in 1976. The convention is relevant to Mountain Gorillas given that there has been trade in baby Mountain Gorillas.

I traveled to Mbobolumene which is 135km north of Kinshasa to receive the award. My superiors from ICCN also came with me, including Pasteur Cosma, the Director of ICCN, Dr Muamba and Benoit Kisuki, the Assistant Directors in Kinshasa. I am very very proud to receive this award. Thank you Cites!

Here is a picture of my son Timothee that I wanted to share with you. He was born last September and is my youngest child! Paulin Ngobobo.

I’m Paulin Ngobobo. I’m a senior warden with the Congolese wildlife authorities known as ICCN. I’m responsible for the Southern Sector of Virunga National Park. The greatest challenge, and my biggest responsibility, is protecting the Mikeno Gorilla sector, which protects many of the last remaining Mountain Gorillas. Many of our rangers have died protecting these gorillas from land invasions, poachers and rebels, but so far we have been fairly successful - the population has increased by about 14% during the terrible civil war that affected our country since 1996.

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