No one who looks into a gorilla's eyes -- intelligent, gentle, vulnerable -- can remain unchanged, for the gap between ape and human vanishes; we know that the gorilla still lives within us”.     

                                                                                                                                George B. Schaller, "Gentle Gorillas, Turbulent Times"    

                                                                    The Congo Gorilla Massacre

Gorillas are one of the most feared animals in the world, thanks to movies like King Kong. While it is true that they are large, powerful creatures, they are also gentle and affectionate and contrary to popular belief, they are vegetarians.  After chimpanzees, the charismatic gorilla, the largest of all living primates, is our closest living relative among the world great apes, and they are being driven to extinction.

According to the African Wildlife Federation there are now only about 720 mountain gorillas left in the world and are they critically endangered.  Mountain gorillas are actually one of the most endangered animals in the world. All of them live within four national parks, split in two regions that are 28 miles apart.  One population of mountain gorillas inhabits the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda and the second population is found in a mountainous region referred to as The Virungas in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In recent years, the region has been gripped by conflict and civil war.  Since August 2007, the gorilla sector of the national park has been under the control of rebel forces.  Until recently, officials has not been able to enter the area, and many of the 1,100 rangers had to flee to safety with their families.  The great Gorillas are being slaughered in numbers as high as 300 annually for the bushmeat and exotic animal black market.

The primary threats to mountain gorillas, aside from the civil war and conflict, comes from forest clearance and degradation, and the bushmeat crisis in the Congo Basin, where as much as 1 million metric tons of bushmeat is eaten each year (the equivalent of almost 4 million cattle) by as many as 30 million poor rural and urban people in that area.  With farming unprofitable and almost no off-farm jobs available, many rural people have resorted to hunting the wildlife that is free-for-the-taking.  The trade in bushmeat is leaving the forests empty.  There are also criminal gangs running the illegal charcoal trade in the area that “stalk the majestic apes like assassins out on a contract hit; killed in their own sanctuary.”

An undercover investigation by Endangered Species International has found that up to two gorillas are killed and sold as bushmeat each week in Kouilou, a region of the Republic of Congo.  Mr. Pierre Fidenci, President of Endangered Species International, also stated that “Gorilla meat is sold pre-cut and smoked for about $6 US per hand-sized piece.  Actual gorilla hands are also available for about $6 US.  The gorilla meat goes to the nearest, biggest and most profitable place.”  According to interviews and field surveys, Mr. Fidenci estimates that “4% of the poplulation of gorillas is being killed each month, or 50% in a year.”

According to Dr. Jo Thompson (“Crisis in the Congo”), “it has become clear that the most remote and presumed protected wildlife areas are, in fact, experiencing the severest wildlife harvest particularly those ‘protected areas’accessible to major urban centers”.

It is time that those of us who care about the survival and well-being of the apes, and all life in Africa, confront this crisis. If we are to stop the slaughter of protected and endangered species we must do so with and through the people who are now involved in the trade, from lorry driver to logging executive, hunter to housewife, gendarme to gentry. Conservation must pursue the biosynergy of humanity and nature in order to find alternative ways to satisfy the human needs that drive the destructive commercial trade in wildlife bushmeat.  

According to Dr. Jo Thompson (“Crisis in the Congo”), “it has become clear that the most remote and presumed protected wildlife areas are, in fact, experiencing the severest wildlife harvest particularly those ‘protected areas’accessible to major urban centers”.

“When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate on the preservation of the future”.  Dian Fossey,  “Gorillas in the Mist”

                                                                                                                                Christina Bush