gorilla.cd

Two buffalo – a female and a male – have been speared and macheted to death near Jomba on the edge of the Gorilla Sector by villagers angry at the animals for eating and destroying their crops.

The dead male buffalo is burned by Rangers to prevent disease from rotting flesh & to prevent anyone eating the animal.

We have often blogged about the conflict between humans and wildlife around Virunga, and specifically around the Gorilla Sector, where gorillas, elephants and buffalo stray from the boundaries of the park and ravage the crops upon which the villagers depend to survive. We also blogged in March about a villager who was killed by an elephant that was stealing crops. So the problem is very real and one that we are constantly trying to deal with.

You can see the wounds on the back of this buffalo; I am in the background.

In this case I personally went to calm the villagers, who are rightfully furious at having their crops destroyed. This is their livelihood. Other members of the community were also injured, as they tried to kill this buffalo. This time of year is particularly challenging, as new shoots – a favourite for our animals – start to come out of the ground.

The long-term solution is to put an electric fence around this sector of the park, and this is something that we are working on getting financed. In the interim we continue to utilize the HUGOs – the Human Gorilla Protectors  – to create awareness in the communities and also entice animals – of all kinds - that have strayed back into the forest.

Since mid-April 60 of our Rangers have been deployed in a series of operations on the southern shores of Lake Edward (see map). These are the “killing fields” in which thousands of hippos have been slaughtered over the years by rebels and rogue elements in the Armed Forces.  The most important hippo population in the world has been reduced from 27,000 20 years ago, to about 300 today.

Rangers learn to shoot in a straight line at Lulimbi training camp

Now the Rangers are fighting back. There are a number of programs that we’re putting in place to give the Rangers - who are seriously outnumbered by their opposition - an edge. The first is an intensive training program at the eastern park station in Lulimbi (that Samantha blogged about last week).  This teaches the Rangers the latest law enforcement techniques - ie how to be a lot more effective in a combat situation, but also how to stay alive.  They’ve been doing a lot of close combat without firearms, as used by the police force in many countries, which is already proving incredibly useful in some of their confrontations.  We’re also trying to improve their personal equipment.  We’re looking to bring in four used 4×4 trucks from the Dutch army to increase the mobility of the Rangers, and we now have the 3 boats on the lake (paid for by the European Union), which are a huge help in protecting the hippos.

Despite the lack of equipment, we had to start somewhere, and the operations were launched.  They were incredibly violent at first, with 8 armed contacts with rogue military elements in the park.  After 3 weeks of operations, we received news that the soldiers were leaving the park.  This has since been confirmed, which is a major victory for the park.  33 arrests were made during these operations, many of them armed men illegally in the park.

Rangers camping out during the operations

One of our biggest priorities now is to improve communications and surveillance.  We’re trying to raise funds to set up a radio network to cover the area.  We’ve also made some progress in raising the funds to purchase a light aircraft for the park.  We’ve found the aircraft, a 1976 cessna 182 in the United Sates and paid a deposit on it (to read more on how aerial surveillance can help Virunga go here).  We’re making adjustments to the aircraft to make it a good bush plane, and we’ve found a ferry pilot to fly it from Colorado to Congo.  It should be good to go in the park by mid-July, and that should transform our ability to support our Rangers on the ground.

This is the plane we have put a deposit on with YOUR DONATIONS… it will be ferried from Colorado to Congo

The aircraft will make the Rangers more effective against the poachers - and also help us to make the right decisions to keep the Rangers safe.

We’re enormously grateful for the support that we’ve received from you in making this happen.  It could not be done without your help.

The HUGOs - which comes from Human & Gorilla Protection - are hard at work. These men - 40 of them in total - are the Community Scouts that Emmanuel blogged about in February, and form part of a new intiative to remove snares in the Gorilla Sector of Virunga. This decision was taken if you recall following the death in February of little Nsekanabo.

Here I am talking to the HUGOs on the first day.

The 40 HUGOs are based out of 4 patrol posts in the area - Bukima, Bikenge, Jomba and Gatovu. These are the men from the local communities, and we pay them $30/month with your donations made via this website (mainly Protect the Park donations). We have also provided them with uniforms, paid for with donations.

This is at our base in Bukima, with the Mikeno volcano rising up behind.

We are already seeing results. Just this week a patrol arrested a poacher near Bukima who had 1 metal snare, and 2 rope snares, intended to catch buffalo. These are larger snares than those for antelope, for example, which is the kind that caught Nsekanabo.

The HUGOs are always on patrol with Rangers and Trackers. In general we have 2 Rangers, 2 Trackers and 2-3 HUGOs per group. It is most definitely helping us to boost our effectiveness in the Gorilla Sector in terms of removing snares, and really patroling every inch. It is absolutely essential to do this if we want to protect our Mountain Gorillas.

Thank you for all your support, and also for the donations to the plane.

There were a number of important questions over the issue of an aircraft for Virunga. I think it’s impossible to manage a park as big and as complicated as Virunga without adequate aerial support. There are three main areas where we need an aircraft: for surveillance, medical evacuations and for logistics.

Surveillance is becoming increasingly important as the pressures on the park and on the rangers increase. This is for all sorts of reasons. Of course, the primary purpose is to get law enforcement teams in place rapidly when we find poachers. Our main aim is to prevent poaching, so we need to try to find the poachers before they kill an animal. With regular surveillance flights, we can often spot the poachers fires, even if they’re in the forest. Poachers know that they have a much greater chance of being detected and this acts as a very important deterrent, ultimately helping us to ensure that poachers give up even trying to enter the park. The same is true for the charcoal fire.

Virunga is 7,800 square kilometres of park - much of it inaccessible by road

Another important issue is that our wildlife authority is currently going through a reform process. One of the outcomes is that our staff will be reduced by almost 50%. This reduces our ability to carry out widespread surveillance on foot. However, it does mean that the remaining rangers will be younger, and more able to carry out interventions against poachers, but only if we are able to guide them effectively, and for that we need aerial support.

Of course, it is not just about law enforcement. Sometimes we come across a problem, like a land invasion. If we detect it early on, we can talk to the local chiefs and to the people involved, and through persuasion, convince them to leave the park. But if we aren’t even aware that the land invasion has happened, weeks or months can go by, and the situation becomes almost irreversible. An aircraft would help us to set up a very effective early warning system that is in everyone’s interest.

Elephants are just one of the many species that need protecting in Virunga

Medical evacuations are an serious problem for us. Last year, Kanyangara died from bullet wounds eight hours after he was shot by poachers. He died in a dug-out canoe as his team were trying to get him to hospital. If we had had an aircraft, we could have evacuated and got him into intensive care in about three hours. I don’t know if that would have saved him, but it certainly would have increased his chances.

Logistics would improve enormously with a light aircraft. At the moment it takes me 5 days to a week to cover all the stations and sub-stations of the park by road. I need to do these rounds to check on staff and make sure that things are running smoothly. If I were flying a plane, I could do it in a day. It also means that we can deal with urgent supplies, like dropping medicine for rangers during operations.

There are other important reasons to acquire an aircraft, but in essence, I don’t think we can succeed in protecting the park without aerial support. Thank you for your donations. And if you have any more questions please leave a comment here.

A Congolese soldier has been killed in Virunga National Park by a lioness after he reportedly tried stealing her two cubs. The incident took place near Katanda, which is in the savannah region of Virunga just south of Lake Edward (and south east of Rwindi). Another soldier was also injured.

A lion in Virunga. Lions in Virunga are just starting to make a comeback, after having been decimated during the civil war.

Last September we blogged about a lion being shot in the chest by soldiers, in Rwindi. Lions are a flagship species in Virunga, and it is a positive sign that they have started to return to the park, often crossing over from Queen Elizabeth Park in Uganda which is contiguous to Virunga.

This incident once again highlights the problems the Rangers face on a daily basis arising from the human/wildlife conflict in Africa’s oldest national park.

For $25/month you can protect a 30-acre plot of Virunga National Park - home to the critically endangered Mountain Gorilla.

With your monthly contribution the Rangers will be funded to keep the area free from snares, and prevent another gorilla death. Click on the picture link below to find out more.

At the moment 79 plots are protected, representing a total of 2,391 acres.

BUT WE NEED TO PROTECT ALL OF THE GORILLA SECTOR - this is 250km2 or 61,750 acres.

So right now we are protecting, through this scheme, less than 5 percent of the Gorilla Sector. Please help us.

Check out for example Karel’s area. You can see it below, or click on the top right hand square. Karel can see photos and video of the forest area that he is protecting.

As you know the Rangers go out into the forest daily with cameras and devices that log the GPS coordinates of their movements. This is how we manage to synchronize photos and video with the exact location.

If you have any questions please leave a comment here. Thank you.

In the early hours of this morning a villager near the Gorilla Sector (near Bukima) was killed by a forest elephant. The elephant was trying to steal potatoes from the fields, and the villager was trying to scare him away. Innocent tells me that the man was hit with the trunk of the elephant and fell to the ground and died.

The villager was with 2 other men who were sitting in their field next to the Gorilla Sector at about 4am in case elephants came to steal the crops. We know - and we have talked about this many times - that elephants, buffaloes and gorillas all leave the confines of Virunga National Park to crop raid.

We have trained community members in crop protection and that it is important have a fire. Unfortunately these men did not have a fire - and so the elephant was not scared off at all, but startled by the presence of the men.

We do not have any photos of the forest elephants. You never see them during the day when you walk in the forest. What you do see very very clearly is their tracks.

The community is understandably upset and angry. ICCN will cover all funeral costs and will make a cash payment to the family. This is the least we can do for the time being, and at a later date we will have to see how we can alleviate the family’s suffering. I have sent this money to Innocent this morning from donations that you have made on our website. This money is usually for the Ranger’s widows, and other emergencies. This is an emergency.

Michel, the head of Bukima patrol post, is still in the community trying to help.

In each area of Virunga poachers operate in different ways.  This means that they use different kinds of traps to catch wild animals – whether it be antelope, buffaloes, elephants or rodents.

As you know the rope and wire snares laid in the Gorilla Sector for antelope can ensnare gorillas. That’s why Rangers remove them and why we burned a mountain of them earlier this year. All of those who are Protecting the Park are helping the Rangers carry out the important task of keeping the Gorilla Sector free from snares.

This photo reached me from a Ranger in Kabaraza – a patrol post north of Rumangabo, where the scenery turns from lush forest to Savannah. The large circular rusty object in the photo is the so-called Jaw Trap. And this is the poachers’ weapon of choice up in Kabaraza. Poachers will actually lay this trap near crops planted by villagers, knowing that animals sometimes leave the park for an easy feed. The Jaw Trap is made of metal, and this one is designed for warthogs. It has a very powerful spring, making the jaw deadly and vicious. The trap itself is actually tied to a tree (with the red rope you see), so that the prey is not only in agony, but also immobile.

These traps weigh about 4 kilos (nearly 10 pounds), but are cheap to manufacture. As you can see the design is fairly crude. Rangers on patrol also have to be careful of these traps – during routine patrols Rangers have been known to become caught in them. This type of trap is not used everywhere in the park, but unfortunately there are many other kinds.

Also in the photo you can see what we call in French a “grelot”. This is the object that is a metal semi-circle with a ball. This ball actually makes a noise, like sharp sounding bells, and this object is tied round a dog’s neck. When a wild animal, such as an antelope, hears the bell sound, it startles them into movement, and then the chase begins. The poachers and dogs run after the wild animal until they manage to kill their prey.

And far to the right are a couple of wire snares – we see those all the time and we have blogged about those before.

This is just a snapshot of what poachers use to wreak havoc on Virunga’s wildlife. Unfortunately there is much, much more.

As we all know, mountain gorilla tourism brings much needed revenue to Virunga for the conservation effort - but it also brings the threat of disease. Humans and gorillas share so much DNA, that we can easily pass on our viruses and diseases to these animals that we are struggling to protect.

When a tourist, a ranger or anyone is visiting a family of gorillas, they should stay at least 7 meters away from the animals. But sometimes the gorillas themselves, out of sheer mischief or curiosity, come closer.

Rangers have spent all day destroying illegal charcoal kilns in the southern sector of Virunga, the area the worst hit by the illegal charcoal industry as you know.

Innocent and his men swept a large area in the park

We need to maintain the momentum of this very important operation and do all that we can to prevent the destruction of the forest.

Thank you for all your donations – please keep Protecting the Park !