Four rare gorillas at the center of a five-year international tussle were due to fly from South Africa just after midnight yesterday to a wildlife sanctuary in Cameroon.
Tinu, Izan, Oyin and Abbey were all lightly tranquilized as they were loaded into giant wooden crates on Thursday for the 18-hour journey to their new home. They seemed fine as they emerged from that initial sedation and were to be lightly tranquilized again before the flight, said Christina Pretorius of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
Clifford Nxomani, executive director of the Pretoria zoo, said he did not expect any hitches in the operation.
The Western Lowland gorillas, dubbed the Taiping Four -- were smuggled as young animals to Taiping Zoo in Malaysia, via South Africa, using forged documents in 2002. The Malaysian government sent them back to South Africa in 2004 and they have since been kept at Pretoria's zoo.
South African officials relented earlier this year after at first claiming that under international law they should remain where they were as there was uncertainty over their true origin.
"These animals have become the poster children of the ugly side of the trade in endangered wildlife," said Pretorius, her voice choked with emotion. "They have really caught the international imagination."
"Africa's wildlife is disappearing from the earth right in front of our eyes," she said. "The return of the Taiping Four sends a clear message that Africa's wildlife is worth fighting for and that international law must be upheld."
Although the circumstances of the gorillas' capture as infants remain uncertain, they were probably victims of the bush meat trade. Typically adult gorillas are killed for meat and their young taken to sell. At least four out of five infants die before they get proper help.
Gorillas are protected from capture, killing or export under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Experts believe that fewer than 100,000 Western Lowland gorillas remain in the wild in West Africa. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature recently upgraded their status from endangered to critically endangered, largely as a result of being hunted, killed and captured for commercial use.
The gorillas -- three females and one male -- will be kept at the Limbe Wildlife Center sanctuary, which has a good record in rehabilitating orphans. Limbe staff spent the past few weeks at the Pretoria zoo to get used to the animals and two Pretoria zoo staff will accompany the gorillas to Cameroon to make sure they settle in, Pretorius said.
The six-year-old gorillas -- which were all tested and declared free of disease -- will be kept in quarantine for several months while they acclimatize.
"They are sociable animals and you can't just release four adolescent animals into a family group. They have to adapt," said Pretorius, whose organization helped meet the costs of the repatriation.
Kenya Airways agreed to fly the animals for free on a scheduled flight from Johannesburg, via Nairobi and onto Douala in Cameroon, and the zoo said it would cover all the medical costs.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS