AWF Blog

• Rebels Take Over Park Headquarters in Gorilla Territory

  Posted: October 28, 2008, 12:50 pm by Paul

  Fighting has broken out again in eastern DR Congo between rebels under General Laurent Nkunda and the Congolese Army. The rebels, who have been hiding out in Virunga National Park, have just taken the park headquarters. The park is home to about 200 of the 720 mountain gorillas.

  “Over 50 rangers were forced to flee into the forests and abandon the park station, in fear of their lives,” a park statement said.

  Here’s the latest from our people on the ground with the International Gorilla Conservation Program (IGCP):

  “As most of you already know, Nkunda’s rebels have retaken the Rumangabo area in an offensive over the weekend. This area includes Virunga National Park HQ.

  Rebel troops took Rugari and Mwaro corridor and now they are fighting to take Kibumba (which is at about 25 km from Goma). The road (Goma-Rutshuru) is broken, and some rangers who left Rumangabo since yesterday still somewhere in the forest.

  So it looks like some of the park rangers are still making their way through the forest and the main road is now closed.  Kibumba has a patrol post and a large refugee camp, and is very near Goma.  In addition, from the AP I got a report that the rebels are now firing rockets at the UN Peacekeepers in the Kalengara area, which I believe is near the Rumangabo base and VNP headquarters.”

  I’ll keep you posted as we hear more from the source.

  Read the latest from CNN: [edition.cnn.com]

• Lion Killed by Snare

  Posted: October 27, 2008, 12:17 pm by Nakedi

  In the last blog I spoke about animals crossing the border in to Mozambique. Sometimes they don’t come back!!

  On Friday October 24th I went in to Mozambique together with Francois and Erin and ended up on the border with the Kruger National Park. About 80 metres from the fence we spotted a lioness that lay motionless against a tree trunk. She didn’t look like she was alive, so we cautiously walked towards her.

  Upon arrival we saw that she was dead and had a big wound around her neck.

  The deep wound was caused by a wire that was still tied to a tree trunk on the game path. Judging by the wound it looked like the animal died in the morning hours. The tree on which the snare was attached had been heavily attacked showing that the poor animal tried, albeit in vain to free herself from this wire that kept sinking deeper and deeper in to her neck with each attempt.

  A lion killed by a wire snare.

  That’s the thing about the snares; the more you struggle the deeper the wire sinks in to the flesh; I don’t think animals know that.

  This snare must have been set to catch animals like antelopes. But sometimes the snares catch non-target animals like this lioness.

  We later searched the area for more snares and found ten of them in an area of about 50 square metres.

  On the other hand, people need to eat. How do you tell a man without any sort of income to stop hunting? What options do you give him to feed his family? The method of hunting stated above is extremely crude, but it is also very cheap.

  I’m posing these questions so that you the reader will hopefully empathise with both humans and wildlife in certain parts of the world. What do you think?

  As long as we have people and organisations like AWF there is always hope for our quest that together with people, the wildlife and wild lands of Africa will endure forever. In the next few weeks I hope to write a success story regarding the above mentioned.

  It’s not all doom and gloom!!

• IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona

  Posted: October 8, 2008, 6:05 pm by Paul

  This week I’m at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona with a delegation from AWF. The WCC is like a Star Trek convention for conservation geeks.

  8,000 people from all around the world - policy-makers, NGOs, governments, academics - come together for 10 days of workshops and discussions that guide global conservation issues. Issues like biodiversity, illegal wildlife trade, livelihoods, and global climate change.

  AWF’s booth at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona.

  AWF has been a member of IUCN since 1966. We have a booth at this year’s Congress - #30 for those of you in the area. Come visit!

• Camera Traps… and Beyond!

  Posted: October 8, 2008, 5:21 pm by Nakedi

  During the week of October 20th we’ll add the second aspect of the leopard research. The first two of the twelve leopards will be captured and collared. The other ten will subsequently be collared, depending on the rate of success with fund raising. The type of collar that we’ll use is the GSM or cell phone collar.

  For starts, we will collar a male and a female. The use of collars will help us to

  1. Understand the land use patterns of the leopards relative to the other carnivores, namely lions and hyena;
  2. Get an insight in to how far in to Mozambique these animals go. Of interest will be the nearest communal land, Mapulanguene, which is about 10 km from the fence. We can finally follow up on the relationship between leopards and humans as it happens; and
  3. Document the type of prey that will be taken during that period; also relative to lions and hyenas.

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes