First Day Issue Bonobo

Ironically, in early 1997, as the rebel army under Kabila was advancing toward Kinshasa, the World Wildlife Fund, in collaboration with the Zairian government, issued a special series of four bonobo postage stamps. Within a few months, the country was no longer Zaire -- and the future of the bonobos was under the thumb of another political system.

In a way, this story serves to illustrate how the future of the bonobo (as well as other endemics such as okapi, the Congo peacock, aquatic genet, and Grauer's gorilla) is tied up with the politics of a single country. Much of the problems for wild animals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo -- once Zaire -- continue to be related to the ongoing instability of the region.