Gorilla Youngsters Seen Dismantling Poachers' Traps—A First
Just days after a poacher's snare had killed one of their own, two young mountain gorillas worked together Tuesday to find and destroy traps in their Rwandan forest home, according to conservationists on the scene.
Gorilla Youngsters Seen Dismantling Poachers' Traps—A First
Ker Than
for National Geographic News
July 19, 2012
Just days after a poacher's snare had killed one of their own, two young mountain gorillas worked together Tuesday to find and destroy traps in their Rwandan forest home, according to conservationists on the scene.
"This is absolutely the first time that we've vseen juveniles doing that ... I don't know of any other reports in the world of juveniles destroying snares," said Veronica Vecellio, gorilla program coordinator at the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund's Karisoke Research Center, located in the reserve where the event took place.
"We are the largest database and observer of wild gorillas ... so I would be very surprised if somebody else has seen that," Vecellio added.
Bush-meat hunters set thousands of rope-and-branch snares in Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park, where the mountain gorillas live. The traps are intended for antelope and other species but sometimes capture the apes.
