(MY) Fw: primfocus: Pathway to extinction: Illicit trade threatens Africa's great apes

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Pathway to extinction: Illicit trade threatens Africa's great apes

Sat Jun 1,12:00 PM ET

By GLENN McKENZIE, Associated Press Writer

 

IBADAN, Nigeria - Wildlife groups on Saturday demanded return of four baby

gorillas suspected of being illegally captured and flown to a leading

Malaysian zoo - calling it one of the most troubling cases yet in an

international smuggling trade threatening Africa's great apes with

extinction.

 

Malaysia's government-funded Taiping Zoo denies any impropriety, saying the

apes were bred in captivity in Nigeria and therefore liable to trade under

world wildlife protection accords.

 

Workers at a Nigeria zoo, however, told The Associated Press this week that

the four infant gorillas passed through their zoo after being caught wild in

the forests of Cameroon.

 

Conservationists also independently challenge the Malaysia zoo's account of

the four apes' origins - arguing, in part, that there are no known breeding

program for gorillas anywhere in Africa from which the animals could have

been taken.

 

" This is clearly a case of smuggling ... the only real question is who is

responsible, " charged Muhtari Aminu-Kano, executive director of the Nigeria

Conservation Foundation, an affiliate of the World Wildlife Fund.

 

Wildlife experts say the case appears to highlight a growing trafficking

market, thrown to light in September when Egyptian authorities drowned an

allegedly smuggled baby gorilla from Nigeria in a vat of chemicals, saying

it arrived without proper import or export papers.

 

Gorillas, chimpanzees and drills - a baboon-sized animal that is Africa's

most endangered primate - have also been intercepted in the 1990s on their

way from Nigeria to Quatar, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Philippines and

Thailand.

 

Selling or trading apes caught in the wild is banned under the Convention on

International Trade of Endangered Species, or CITES, which permits only

those born in captivity to be exchanged for noncommercial purposes. Both

Malaysia and Nigeria are signatories.

The latest case involves four young gorillas - listed as aged between 18 and

48 months - that turned up at Taiping Zoo in January.

 

Authorities at the Taiping zoo, 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Kuala

Lumpur, have refused repeated requests for on-the-record comment about the

animals' origins.

 

Speaking only on condition they not be identified, Taiping Zoo officials say

they received the infant gorillas as part of a trade with a Nigerian zoo.

 

They have repeatedly refused to identify the Nigerian zoo.

 

" Exchanges of animals between zoos are fairly normal, " one official at the

Taiping Zoo said last week, speaking like the others on condition he not be

named.

 

" We have done nothing wrong ... all the documentation is in order and we

have no reason to suspect any foul play, " the official said.

The permanent secretary of Nigeria's Ministry of Environment, D.B. Usman, is

listed on export documents for two of the gorillas - named

Abbey and Alice - as approving the shipment to Malaysia.

 

Usman did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

 

Environment Ministry officials likewise declined comment, beyond saying that

the ministry was now investigating the case.

 

The export documents, viewed by The Associated Press, list the gorillas as

having been bred at Nigeria's University of Ibadan Zoological Gardens.

 

Ibadan Zoo officials say they have no such breeding program, however.

 

The only gorilla currently at the zoo is a 37-year-old female long past

breeding age.

 

Olalekan Akanji, a zookeeper at the University of Ibadan Zoological Gardens

about 120 kilometers (70 miles) north of Nigeria's commercial capital of

Lagos told The Associated Press the four gorillas " came from the jungle in

Cameroon " and spent several months at the zoo before flying to Malaysia in

January.

 

Akanji said he bottle-fed the young apes milk and sugar water, and even

taught one to ride a tricycle.

 

" If anyone else wants more gorillas, we can get some more, " Akanji

volunteered in front of several primate cages. " But they are very

expensive. "

 

Asked if the zoo ever had other baby gorillas intended for trade, he said

" Yes, there have been many. But a lot of them died. "

 

Another zoo employee, guide Friday Ndubisi Onwuka, also said the four

gorillas came from " the forest " and spent time in Ibadan before flying to

Malaysia.

 

The Nigerian zoo said Friday that the zoo's director was not available for

further comment Friday.

 

Taiping Zoo had publicly sought this particular species of gorilla over the

Internet for more than a year.

 

The gorillas have yet to be put on public display in Malaysia. Zoo

authorities say they are under quarantine.

 

Wildlife groups say there are enough obvious questions marks about the

animals' origins to mean that Nigeria and Malaysia should never have allowed

their export.

 

" They could not legitimately have been captive-bred, " said Shirley McGreal,

chairwoman of the Summerville, South Carolina-based International Primate

Protection League.

 

Allowing the Malaysian zoo to keep the gorillas would set a " disturbing

precedent " and touch off a flood of similar shipments further threatening

the already endangered primates, McGreal said.

 

Although the exact scope of the illicit trade of great apes is unknown, a

growing number have been intercepted on their way from Nigeria to the Middle

East, Asia and eastern Europe where they can fetch tens - or even hundreds -

of thousands of dollars each from private zoos and collectors, Nigerian and

U.S. conservationists say.

 

" We fear the cases that have come to light are just be the tip of the

iceberg, " McGreal said.

 

The Protection League showed The AP a letter from Nigerian firm Odukoya &

Associates offering four baby gorillas for sale to a private Middle Eastern

zoo for dlrs 400,000 each.

 

There is no indication the gorillas were the same ones sent to Malaysia.

 

Great apes once ranged from Senegal on Africa's western tip to Tanzania in

the east, but today survive only in isolated pockets of dwindling forests.

Scientists estimate that perhaps just 100,000 chimpanzees and far fewer

gorillas remain today in the wild.

 

Primate traders often buy the surviving babies of animals killed by local

bushmeat hunters for food or profit, said John Oates, a British-born

primatologist living in Manhattan and Nigeria.

 

A chimpanzee selling for dlrs 10 in the village commands perhaps dlrs 500 in

Abuja, and dlrs 20,000 in Moscow or Dubai.

 

In Nigerian cities, young men openly hawk rare parrots, peacocks,

chimpanzees - and occasionally gorillas.

 

Other pressures facing apes - humans' closest animal relatives with more

than 95 percent of human brain material - include commercial logging and

civil wars.

 

Nigeria, a nation of 120 million people with only 100 wild gorillas left, is

a frequent transit point for animals from neighboring countries, said

Aminu-Kano. Smugglers at times take advantage of some Nigerian officials'

lack of knowledge about laws banning the trade.