Cameroon Fears Smuggled Apes Will Die in South Africa
Date: 09-Dec-05
Country: CAMEROON
Author: Tansa Musa
Cameroon says the young Western Lowland gorillas, dubbed the "Taipeng Four", were shipped illegally to Malaysia's Taipeng Zoo then sent two years later to South Africa, violating the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
"The four gorillas are currently being held under inappropriate conditions in a rocky enclosure constructed for them and are being exploited for touristic and commercial purposes," Cameroon's Environment Minister Piere Hele said.
"Five gorillas have previously died in the Pretoria Zoo and we fear the four Cameroonian gorillas could suffer the same fate," Hele said in a statement.
The fate of the great grey-brown apes, which weigh up to 275 kg (600 lb) and live deep within central Africa's tropical rainforests, has infuriated wildlife protection groups.
The lowland gorilla's intelligence and physical structure is closer to man that any other primate except chimpanzees, but hunters track it for bushmeat while timber companies destroy its natural habitat.
Cameroon has demanded the return of the apes, sending a government delegation to South Africa in October to try to win their release and demanding compensation if Pretoria's National Zoological Gardens refused to hand them over.
"Despite the fact that all the proofs were presented, the South African authorities did not make any concrete promises to return the animals to Cameroon," Hele said, appealing to the international community to put pressure on Pretoria so that the "Taipeng Four" return as soon as possible.
South Africa, which has offered wildlife conservation and research cooperation in return for keeping the animals, has insisted the gorillas undergo DNA tests to determine their country of origin, a move officials in Cameroon have dismissed as a "delaying tactic".
Faecal samples from the four apes were sent to independent laboratories in Germany and Britain in October but the final results were expected to take several months.
