Mountain Gorillas in Danger

On the news today, rebels under General Laurent Nkunda seized the Virunga Park in eastern Democratic of the Congo, home to 200 of the 700 known mountain gorillas. After fierce fighting with the army regulars, 50 park rangers were forced to abandon their posts and flee for safety through the forest.

The rebels have set up roadblocks on the main road heading north into Goma, which is close to the Park headquarters. Although it is doubtful that the rebels would deliberately harm the gorillas, (they are seen as an important economic resource in the area), animals may be killed in crossfire, or by displaced people desperate for meat.

Twenty-three years ago I stayed at the Virunga park for 5 days. The wildlife was plentiful and the park boasted the heaviest concentration of hippos in the world. The six of us Peace Corps Volunteers had the entire park to ourselves -- there were no other visitors.

I remember fishing with bamboo poles, along a cliff overlooking hundreds of hippos bathing and wallowing on mud flats in a river. after we caught around twenty tilapia, the workers cooked them with local potatoes and carrots, for our lunch.

And then a small plane flew overhead, following the winding river, as if it was a landmark highway. Far away, and then closer and closer as the airplane approached, the hippos lifted their heads and bellowed their honking grunts as it passed overhead. Their hippo noises faded in the distance with the parting drone of the plane.

I have learned that most of the hippos I saw years ago have been slaughtered in the internecine conflicts that have raged back and forth across this beleaguered land. That is bad enough, but due to its restricted range, the mountain gorilla is dependant on fragile, volatile political systems.

One hundred years from now, no one will know or care about what is transpiring today in the affairs of man. But the extinction of a species of ape, so similar to us, will be a tragedy that mankind won't be able to easily erase.

To see a video about the fighting near the Virunga Park, see
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/10/26/congo.gorillapark/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

For further information about the Gorillas of the Virunga visit http://gorilla.cd/

Photos as posted by: CNN