on gorillas

[Guest guest]

From www.malaysiakini.com

 

Nigerian conservationists urge return of 'poached' gorillas

 

Dave Clark

7:53pm Fri May 31st, 2002 AFP

 

LAGOS - Nigerian conservationists on Friday called for four baby gorillas

that were exported to a Malaysian zoo to be returned to Africa, amid fears

they were illegally captured in the wild.

 

Nuhtari Aminu-Kano, executive secretary of the Nigerian Conservation

Federation, said claims that the gorillas had been bred in captivity at

Nigeria's Ibadan University were false.

 

" There are no captive breeding facilities for gorillas in Nigeria, " he told

AFP.

 

The head of Ibadan University Zoo was not contactable by telephone on Friday

but Layi Ajayi, secretary to the university vice-chancellor, told AFP that

no gorillas had been bred there.

 

" That's true, " he said. " I'm not even sure that we have any gorillas at the

moment. "

 

Instead, Aminu-Kano and other conservationists told AFP, it is far more

likely that the rare lowland gorillas were captured in the wild, either in

Nigeria or elsewhere in Africa, by poachers who would not have hesitated to

kill their parents.

 

" Only a DNA test can determine where these gorillas are from, but they

should be returned either to Nigeria or to their country of origin, " Aminu

Kano said.

 

Exchanging animals

 

Nigeria and Malaysia are both signatories of the Convention on International

Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) which bans the trade in highly

endangered animals born in the wild.

 

The gorillas were exported earlier this year, via an airport in South

Africa, to Taiwan, where they are to be housed in Taiping Zoo in Perak.

 

In exchange for the gorillas, the Malaysian zoo is preparing to send its

Nigerian colleagues Asian animals.

 

Taiping Zoo officials told AFP last month that the gorillas had legal CITES

export documents and were adapting well to their new environment.

 

AFP has obtained a copy of a CITES export permit issued by the Nigerian

authorites on November 6 last year and stamped by the Nigerian Customs

service on Jan 10.

 

The permit is issued to the Ecological Garden at the University of Ibadan,

and approves the export of five lowland gorillas, three chimpanzees and six

duikers, a small forest deer.

 

The CITES permit lists the gorillas as captive bred, raising the

possibility, conservationists say, that it was issued fraudulently or

without proper checks being carried out.

 

Indochinese tigers and Malayan sunbears

 

An export permit issued in Ibadan confirms permission for four western

lowland gorillas - two females aged 14 months and 24 months, and two males

aged 14 months and 33 months - to be exported.

 

On Jan 7 the South African Department of Agriculture issued Taiping Zoo with

a permit, also seen by AFP, to import and re-export five gorillas via

Johannesburg airport.

 

In a separate document, Ibadan University requests permission to import from

Malaysia four Indochinese tigers, four Malayan sunbears, eight mousedeer,

four black-crowned night heron and four nilghai, a species of antelope.

 

Aminu-Kano told AFP that while only just over 200 lowland gorillas still

live wild in Nigeria in the highland forests along its border with Cameroon,

and that gorillas have been smuggled across the border in the past.

 

Last year the illegal trade triggered a scandal when a baby chimpanzee and a

baby gorilla were seized from a Nigerian woman at Cairo airport by Egyptian

officials.

 

Fearing that the apes could carry diseases that contaminated blood could be

spread if they were shot, customs officials drowned them in a vat of

chemicals, according to the International Primate Protection League and

press reports.

 

 

Zoo clears the mist on transfer of Nigerian gorillas <Picture>

 

 

 

Malaysiakini.com

Kevin Tan

4:30pm Fri Apr 26th, 2002

 

The transfer of four baby gorillas from an African country to Malaysia early

this year was part of an exchange programme and not a trade, said Perak’s

Taiping zoo director Dr Kevin Lazarus today.

 

“It’s not a trade but an exchange. We have all the proper documentation,” he

said when contacted.

 

According to Lazarus, the exchange programme was conducted with the Ibadan

Zoo in Nigeria.

 

However, he refused to provide copies of the documentation when asked by

malaysiakini.

 

Lazarus was responding to an AFP report yesterday which said a group of

international animal rights campaigners is calling for an inquiry into the

matter.

 

Rare gorillas

 

Known as the International Primates Protection League, the group claimed

that a Nigerian individual had offered the gorillas to the Taiping Zoo for

the price of RM6 million (US$1.6 million).

 

The four rare western lowland gorillas were flown from the Nigerian capital

of Lagos to Malaysia between Jan 18-20.

 

The report added the same individual had issued a price list on other

animals, whose trade is banned. The prices ranged from RM304,000 (US$80,000)

for a baby jackal to RM760,000 (US$200,000) for four baby chimpanzees.

 

Under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES),

trade in highly endangered animals such as wild-born gorillas is outlawed.

Both Malaysia and Nigeria are signatories to this convention.

 

Meanwhile, Lazarus said in return, Malaysia will give some of its animals to

the Nigerian zoo.

 

“We will give Sun bears, Malayan tigers and a few other species to the

Ibadan Zoo,” he said.

 

He added that the Taiping zoo was also planning to take some small antelopes

called duikers.

 

 

_______________

MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:

http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx