XINHUA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE
May 23, 2003 , Friday
Rescued gorillas leaving for Cameroon for new life
A pair of western lowland gorillas, one of the most endangered species in the world, is being flown from Nigeria to Cameroon Friday for a new life after being rescued from the clutches of the illegal pet trade, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) said here in a press release.
Brighter and Twiggy, both six, believed to have been captured as infants in their native Cameroon before being smuggled into Nigeria and sold to a businessman in the northern Nigerian city of Kano , will take up residence in the world famous Limbe Wildlife Center in Cameroon , the press release said.
"Their rescue and return home owes much to the courage and vigilance of wildlife campaigners and Dr Imeh Okopido, the Nigerian state minister for environment," said the release.
UNEP, under its Great Ape Survival Project (GRASP), is co- funding the repatriation with Britain and some other international organizations.
The arrival of the two gorillas will bring the number of gorillas at Limbe to 10.
"Great apes across Africa and Southeast Asia are in peril. The massive and unrelenting destruction of their habitats, the slaughtering of apes for meat and the pet trade are just some of the factors behind their demise," said Robert Hepworth, deputy director of UNEP's division of environmental conventions.
"Indeed it is quite likely that Brighter and Twiggy fell into the hands of smugglers after their mothers were killed," Hepworth said.
"However their story is not just one of tragedy, but of hope. In the past there have been concerns over the role of Nigeria as a route for the illegal pet trade in west Africa. But the actions of the Nigerian authorities and the personal intervention of Dr Okopido show a new determination to crack down on this harmful trade," he said.
Hepworth said the cooperation between Cameroon and Nigeria could also signal improving relations between the countries which will hopefully extend to other areas of the environment, including great apes.
Meanwhile, UNEP disclosed that Melanie Virtue, GRASP team leader, and Ian Redmond of GRASP's technical team will begin a fact finding mission to help Nigeria draw up a great ape conservation plan after seeing Brighter and Twiggy off from Nigeria 's Lagos airport on a Cameroon Airways flight.
UNEP is working to develop great ape conservation strategies in all of the 23 states in Africa and Southeast Asia that have populations of humankind's closest living relatives.
These national strategies are being developed in close consultation with governments, wildlife groups and local communities.
__________________________ Washingtonpost.com (Also published in the Times Daily ( Alabama )
Endangered Gorillas Returned to Cameroon
By DULUE MBACHU
The Associated Press
Friday, May 23, 2003 ; 10:48 PM
LAGOS, Nigeria - Two rescued Lowland gorillas were loaded into a jet cargo hold at Lagos' international airport on Friday, on their way back to the wild after seven years of captivity.
Release of the smuggled Lowland gorillas, among only 30,000 of their kind left in all of Africa , marked a rare victory over worldwide trafficking rings for Africa 's increasingly endangered great apes, U.N. environment officials said.
Crediting Nigerian officials' help, U.N environmental program division deputy director Robert Hepworth welcomed what he called "a new determination to crack down on this harmful trade."
Both 9-year-old Brighter and 7-year-old Twiggy had been recovered in Nigeria 's northern city of Kano .
Animal smugglers have long-established rings specialized in taking rare and endangered animals from Nigeria and neighboring countries to sell around the world.
Often taken as orphans by hunters who kill the apes' mothers, few ever make it out of captivity.
Most wind up in squalid roadside zoos, illicit private zoos of the wealthy, or, in violation of international conventions, in public zoos.
"Taking the animals back sets a very important precedent," Ian Redmond of the U.N. Great Apes Survival Project told The Associated Press.
"The species are highly endangered; the numbers are declining year by year and every individual matters," he said.
The gorillas' return to the wild began when police raided the Kano home of a Lebanese businessman in December.
Ime Okopido, the outgoing junior minister for environment whose intervention in the case won U.N. praise, said the government was putting in place measures to halt the depletion of endangered animals and ensure sustainable development of the country's remaining forests.
" Nigeria can no longer tolerate this nonsense," he said.
© 2003 The Associated Press
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Smuggled gorillas return home
By DAVE CLARK
Agence France-Presse
Saturday, May. 24, 2003
LAGOS -- Nigerian officials and conservationists won a small but symbolic victory in the battle against Africa 's animal smugglers yesterday, sending two illegally captured gorillas back to their homeland in Cameroon .
Two female western lowland gorillas, a nine-year-old and its younger playmate, were airlifted from the northern Nigerian city of Kano , via Lagos ,en route to the jungles of Cameroon .
There they will be cared for in a wildlife sanctuary near the rain forest where they were kidnapped by poachers and smuggled across the border as part of Africa 's deadly trade in endangered species.
Primate protection campaigners hailed their return as a step in the right direction and a sign that Nigeria , once a major player in the illegal trade,is taking its conservation responsibilities more seriously.
The pair probably represent a small proportion of the great apes killed for bush meat or captured for the trade in exotic pets or circus attractions, but their rescue has heartened activists.
"The message is that Nigeria is committed to conservation measures," said Imeh Okodipo , Nigeria 's Minister of State for the Environment, as the apes' two specially built cages were transferred to a Cameroonian jet.
"This is to tell the poachers that they will not get away with it."
Ian Redmond, who observed the transfer for the United Nations' Great Ape Survival Project (GRASP), said he was delighted that Nigeria was joining a growing number of African nations taking primate survival seriously.
He and the minister said that next year Nigeria would hold an
intergovernmental conference on great apes, and that Nigeria was looking to sustainable "eco-tourism" to help fund conservation.
The two gorillas were probably captured by poachers who slaughtered their mothers in the rain forest and smuggled the infants across the border to Nigeria and on to Kano , a great trading centre.
British businessman Paul Raad said that he had taken pity on the baby apes when he saw them being hawked around the city and had bought them to protect them. Eight years later they finally set off for home.
"I'm certainly going to miss them, but this is always what I wanted for them," Mr. Raad said. "I think they will be happier in their natural environment. Kano is like the desert."
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Snatched As Infants, Two Gorillas Flown Home Thanks to UN Agency
United Nations ( New York )
May 23, 2003
Posted to the web May 24, 2003
It all began when they were snatched as infants from their home in Cameroon, their mothers possibly killed, and smuggled across the border to be put up for sale in a Nigerian city hundreds of miles from where they were born.
Today, in a repatriation co-funded by the United Nations Environment Programme (http://www.unep.org/), Brighter and Twiggy were jetting back home, a pair of Western lowland gorillas, among the rarest and most endangered species on earth, saved by the vigilance of wildlife campaigners and the Nigerian State Minister for the Environment.
"Great apes across Africa and South-East Asia are in peril," Robert Hepworth, Deputy Director in UNEP's Division of Environmental Conventions, said: "The massive and unrelenting destruction of their habitats, the slaughtering of apes for meat and the pet trade are just some of the factors behind their demise. Indeed it is quite likely that Brighter and Twiggy fell into the hands of smugglers after their mothers were killed for bushmeat."
Calling this story of two of humankind's closet living relatives "not just one of tragedy, but of hope," he added: "It sends a loud and clear signal to poachers and smugglers that their illegal and destructive activities will no longer be tolerated there and that there is no longer a profit to be had from these wildlife crimes."
Brighter and Twiggy will now take up residence in the world famous Limbe Wildlife Centre in Cameroon . The story of how they came to be bought in the Sabon Gari animal market in Kano by a businessman is shrouded in mystery. It is believed they were born in south or east Cameroon and captured by poachers when they were two years old.
Once alerted by wildlife campaigners, Environment Minister Imeh Okopido took action to save the "Kano Two" as they have become to be known, intervening last December to confiscate them from the businessman without compensation.
Their arrival at Limbe will bring the total of gorillas there to 10. If they stay healthy they should live to be over 40, wildlife experts said. Twiggy has nerve damage to an arm, which just hangs down, but otherwise they both appear in good physical and mental shape. To fly them home required special permits under the Convention on the International Trade in En dangered Species (CITES), a UNEP-linked treaty.
Under its Great Ape Survival Project (GRASP), UNEP is co-funding the repatriation with support from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. UNEP is working to develop great ape conservation strategies in all of the 23 States in Africa and South-East Asia that have ape populations.
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ALLAfrica NEWS
Snatched as infants, two gorillas flown home thanks to UN agency
23 May - It all began when they were snatched as infants from their home in Cameroon, their mothers possibly killed, and smuggled across the border to be put up for sale in a Nigerian city hundreds of miles from where they were born.
Today, in a repatriation co-funded by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Brighter and Twiggy were jetting back home, a pair of Western lowland gorillas, among the rarest and most endangered species on earth, saved by the vigilance of wildlife campaigners and the Nigerian State Minister for the Environment.
"Great apes across Africa and South-East Asia are in peril," Robert Hepworth, Deputy Director in UNEP's Division of Environmental Conventions, said: "The massive and unrelenting destruction of their habitats, the slaughtering of apes for meat and the pet trade are just some of the factors behind their demise. Indeed it is quite likely that Brighter and Twiggy fell into the hands of smugglers after their mothers were killed for bushmeat." Calling this story of two of humankind's closet living relatives "not just one of tragedy, but of hope," he added: "It sends a loud and clear signal to poachers and smugglers that their illegal and destructive activities will no longer be tolerated there and that there is no longer a profit to be had from these wildlife crimes."
Brighter and Twiggy will now take up residence in the world famous Limbe Wildlife Centre in Cameroon . The story of how they came to be bought in the Sabon Gari animal market in Kano by a businessman is shrouded in mystery. It is believed they were born in south or east Cameroon and captured by poachers when they were two years old.
Once alerted by wildlife campaigners, Environment Minister Imeh Okopido took action to save the "Kano Two" as they have become to be known, intervening last December to confiscate them from the businessman without compensation.
Their arrival at Limbe will bring the total of gorillas there to 10. If they stay healthy, they should live to be over 40, wildlife experts said. Twiggy has nerve damage to an arm, which just hangs down, but otherwise they both appear in good physical and mental shape. To fly them home required special permits under the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), a UNEP-linked treaty.
Under its Great Ape Survival Project (GRASP), UNEP is co-funding the repatriation with support from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. UNEP is working to develop great ape conservation strategies in all of the 23 States in Africa and South-East Asia that have ape populations.
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IRIN NEWS
Two gorillas repatriated to Cameroon
LAGOS , - Nigeria on Friday repatriated two gorillas recovered from animal smugglers to eastern neighbour Cameroon , where they will be returned to their natural habitat in the Limbe Wild Life Park .
The two species of Western Lowland gorillas of central Africa 's tropical high forests were estimated to have been brought to Nigeria about seven years ago by animal smugglers intent on taking them out of the country.
Paul Raad, a Lebanese-born businessman who described himself as "an animal lover" said he bought the gorillas nicknamed Brighter and Twiggy shortly after, with the aim of returning them to the wild.
In December last year their plight came to the attention of the Nigerian government, which subsequently speeded up the process to repatriate the primates with funding provided by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Ian Redmond, an official of UNEP's Great Apes Survival Project, who was at the Lagos airport to see off the primates, described the repatriation as an important precedent to break the smuggling chain.
"There is a well-trodden path of smuggling of apes from Cameroon ," he told IRIN. "The species are highly endangered and their numbers are declining year by year."
Only 30,000 of the lowland gorillas are estimated to remain in Africa . In Nigeria , a specie known as the Cross River gorilla is thought to number under 200.
Nigeria 's outgoing Minister of State for Environment, Ime Okopido, said the government was seeking the assistance of UN primate experts to secure the remaining gorillas found in the country's remaining rainforests in the southeast.
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MONTEREY ( California ) HERALD
Endangered Gorillas Returned to Cameroon
DULUE MBACHU
Associated Press
LAGOS, Nigeria - Two rescued Lowland gorillas were loaded into a jet cargo hold at Lagos' international airport on Friday, on their way back to the wild after seven years of captivity.
Release of the smuggled Lowland gorillas, among only 30,000 of their kind left in all of Africa , marked a rare victory over worldwide trafficking rings for Africa 's increasingly endangered great apes, U.N. environment officials said.
Crediting Nigerian officials' help, U.N environmental program division deputy director Robert Hepworth welcomed what he called "a new determination to crack down on this harmful trade."
Both 9-year-old Brighter and 7-year-old Twiggy had been recovered in Nigeria 's northern city of Kano .
Animal smugglers have long-established rings specialized in taking rare and endangered animals from Nigeria and neighboring countries to sell around the world.
Often taken as orphans by hunters who kill the apes' mothers, few ever make it out of captivity.
Most wind up in squalid roadside zoos, illicit private zoos of the wealthy, or, in violation of international conventions, in public zoos.
"Taking the animals back sets a very important precedent," Ian Redmond of the U.N. Great Apes Survival Project told The Associated Press.
"The species are highly endangered; the numbers are declining year by year and every individual matters," he said.
The gorillas' return to the wild began when police raided the Kano home of a Lebanese businessman in December.
Ime Okopido, the outgoing junior minister for environment whose intervention in the case won U.N. praise, said the government was putting in place measures to halt the depletion of endangered animals and ensure sustainable development of the country's remaining forests.
" Nigeria can no longer tolerate this nonsense," he said.
______________________________________________
St. Petersburg Times ( Florida )
Two Lowland Gorillas rescued
May 24, 2003
LAGOS, Nigeria - Two rescued Lowland gorillas were loaded into a jet cargo hold at Lagos' international airport on Friday, on their way back to the wild after seven years of captivity. Release of the smuggled Lowland gorillas, among only 30,000 of their kind left in all of Africa , marked a rare victory over worldwide trafficking rings for Africa 's increasingly endangered great apes, U.N. environment officials said.
Crediting Nigerian officials' help, U.N environmental program division deputy director Robert Hepworth welcomed what he called "a new determination to crack down on this harmful trade."
Both 9-year-old Brighter and 7-year-old Twiggy had been recovered in Nigeria 's northern city of Kano .
Animal smugglers have long-established rings specialized in taking rare and endangered animals from Nigeria and neighboring countries to sell around the world.
Often taken as orphans by hunters who kill the apes' mothers, few ever make it out of captivity.
Most wind up in squalid roadside zoos, illicit private zoos of the wealthy, or, in violation of international conventions, in public zoos.
"Taking the animals back sets a very important precedent," Ian Redmond of the U.N. Great Apes Survival Project said.
"The species are highly endangered; the numbers are declining year by year and every individual matters," he said.
The gorillas' return to the wild began when police raided the Kano home of a Lebanese businessman in December.
Ime Okopido, the outgoing junior minister for environment whose intervention in the case won U.N. praise, said the government was putting in place measures to halt the depletion of endangered animals and ensure sustainable development of the country's remaining forests.
" Nigeria can no longer tolerate this nonsense," he said. |
