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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS