RWANDA ‘REPATRIATES’ LOW LAND GORILLAS TO CONGO
Six ‘low land gorillas’ impounded some time ago from poachers and smugglers, ‘flew home’ over the weekend when they were returned to their original homeland.
Held in Kinigi until Saturday, where they had been looked after by gorilla conservationists from the Diane Fossey Gorilla Fund, the six will now for the time being ‘live’ at GRACE, the gorilla rehabilitation and conservation education centre, although the intention is to eventually released them back into the wild.
This form of transboundary cooperation between RDB and ICCN, the Congolese Institute for Conservation of Nature, is the second of its kind, as last year already two mountain gorillas were returned to authorities in the Congo DR, also confiscated from smugglers and poachers who had fallen into a trap laid by park rangers on the Rwandan side of the Virunga massif.
Good luck to the six low land gorillas in their new temporary home before they will finally return to their original habitat, when it is safe to do so.
