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Many big and small incidents happen in the park daily. Some might give you a better picture of what the staff and rangers deal with, so we will be blogging more about the stories that happen all over the park. Because it is high on the priority list to keep our animals safe, today you get an animal rescue story:

Last weekend, it involved hippos on Lake Edward. The central sector warden, Rodrigue, learned from a supporter of the park that a hippo had died following a fight with another hippo at Taliha on the west coast of Lake Edward. The people living nearby wanted to chop it up and split the meat among them, and began making plans to kill the other hippo involved in the fight as well.

At the request of our team, some FARDC military soldiers guarded the hippos while the rangers took a boat to the scene. The dead hippo was still in one piece and was found to have a snare on his foot. The rangers planned to take the hippo back to Rwindi, central sector headquarters south of the lake, to bury it or let wild animals take it, but the plan changed to a public burning in Vitshumbi, a large lakeside fishing village, to prevent accusations that the rangers would eat the hippo.

The dead hippo is burned under a pile of wood debris in Vitshumbi.

The park strictly forbids eating animals of the park for any reason. Without this policy it would be easy to find excuses. Hippos in particular have been a target of poachers. In 1976 there were 27,000 hippos in Lake Edward and surrounding rivers, the largest concentration of hippos in the world.  In 2005, there were approximately 350. Today that number is up, at about 1200, but we still have a long way to go in protecting these animals.

Some of Virunga’s hippos and a buffalo sharing a spit of land on the Ishasha river near Lake Edward.

It was a very sad event yesterday during a routine inspection in the Park. Lulimbi is our eastern-most park station on the Ishasha River, that is also the international border with Uganda. It’s a beautiful area with some of our greatest concentrations of large savanna mammals, including elephants, hippos, buffalos and all kinds of other herbivores, as well the large predators. 

Emmanuel and others try to dig a ramp for the hippo to get out.

As Ephrem and I were carrying out the inspection, the station commander approached us with a report of a young hippo that had just been discovered trapped in a hole.  As we arrived, there were storms of flies over the hole, and sure enough a young hippo in a desperate state was at the bottom of the hole.  The hole wasn’t that deep, only about five feet, but the hippo was wedged in and completely trapped.  It was obvious that he’d been there for at least three days, and was utterly exhausted.

The obvious thing to do was to dig fast, and establish a ramp that the hippo could climb out on.  We took it in turns to dig, and after about one hour, the ramp was cleared.  As we started to remove the mud around the young hippo, he lifted his head high, looked at me and lowered his gaze as his breathing ceased altogether. The exhaustion of a three day struggle to survive had got the better of him. There was nothing left to do but to bury the poor fellow.  We flew home that evening more than a little demoralized. Read the full story »

Ishango is one of our ranger stations on the north side of Lake Edward at the mouth of the Semliki river, a beautiful location on a small cliff overlooking the lake. This area has hippos, elephants, and antelope…and illegal fishing and poaching. Godefroid Wambale is the warden in charge of Ishango sub-sector and sent some photos and information from his station:

Baby Hippo

This particular baby hippo was rescued the day it was born when rangers found it alone and separated from its mother. The baby was obviously newborn and still had some of the afterbirth on it and couldn’t see. I put the baby in the boat and started up the river looking for the mother. We finally saw a hippo that seemed to be looking for something, so we placed the baby nearby in some swampy reeds, and waited to see if the mother would find the baby, which she did. Read the full story »

I have mentioned in recent posts the repeated armed contacts that we have had over the last month with rogue elements in the army and militias.  Most of these fights relate to control over the fish breeding sites on Lake Edward.  These are shallow bays that are incredibly important for the production of fish, but also for our hippo populations.  Thousands of hippos used to live in these bays, and the fish that bred here created the most productive lake on the African continent.  Before the war, Lake Edward’s fishing industry used to be a pillar of the economy in eastern Congo.  Today, the fish stocks have collapsed, driving the fishing communities that live around the lake into a spiral of poverty.  According to the fishing cooperative, a fishing boat used to come back with over 700kgs after a day’s fishing.  Today, they struggle to come back with 10kgs of fish.  All of this is caused by the destructive habits of armed men living off the land and profiting from poaching and illegal fishing.

Hippos are still being slaughtered by rogue elements in the army as well as militias.

Read the full story »

At the moment there is ongoing Ranger Training taking place at Lulimbi, on the Ishasha River to the south of Lake Edward (see map). Sixty Rangers per month go through the training program, to then be redeployed throughout the park. Training is obviously a critical component of wildlife conservation - with educated, energized and competent Rangers, Virunga’s flora and fauna stands a much better chance of being preserved.

Last month Katya shot this video at Lulimbi, which shows some of the many elephants, hippos and antelope that live in the park. This is just a taste of what the Rangers fight to protect on a daily basis.

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More dismal news I am afraid. We can report that 7 hippos were slaughtered during the month of February. All in Virunga National Park. Bantu from IDPE, a local organization that works with the communities around Virunga, confirmed all of this with us here at the Congolese Wildlife Authority. Utterly depressing after all the effort that the Rangers go to.

Bantu gave me this image. The killer smiles after the slaughter.

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As you can tell from the content of the blog we have already trained Rangers throughout Virunga National Park in how to shoot video and take photos. It is very important to document this park’s wildlife – not just the gorillas but all the animals. Virunga is arguably the most biodiverse park in Africa, but it is also the most threatened and so its species have suffered enormously from poaching, war and deforestation. That is why we get so excited when we see an increase in animal populations – whether it be the gorillas of Mikeno, the hippos of Ishango, the elephants of Kabaraza or the chimps of Tongo (and I could go on and on!)

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Yes, there is another newborn in the Kabirizi family. We never tire of hearing this wonderful news, especially when we think of the war that was enraging Virunga, the Rangers and the gorillas only a year ago.

Karibu gave birth late last month – this is baby number 3 for her. The newborn will join his or her siblings, Kitagenda and Serundori. She has only been an adult since 2002 – so we hope she has more babies in her yet! Read the full story »

Last month the Rangers reported a marked and alarming rise in the number of hippos killed in the Central Sector of Virunga National Park. The Rangers are almost certain that this is the work of FARDC (DRC Armed Forces).

Eight Hippos were killed in a month. Read the full story »

We have received a report from our colleagues at IDPE detailing an alarming rise in poaching by FARDC government soldiers in the central sector of the park (see map). In the month of August alone soldiers killed 8 hippos and 6 elephants, as well as the female lion recently shot in Rwindi.

One of the killed elephants- its tusks had been removed and trunk cut off.

Read the full story »