Scientists Dash To Rescue Gorillas From War Zone

The scientists had just 20 minutes to dash into the zoo, tranquilize the terrified lowland gorillas and get them out of the war zone.

Under the guard of French soldiers, a team of experts rescued four young apes - but had to leave one behind in the violence-wracked city. They had brought no cage big enough for Man, a 14-year-old gorilla.

“I dread to think” what will become of him and other animals left at the zoo, said the team’s leader, Amos Courage of Britain’s Howletts Zoo.

Courage led the Saturday evacuation from the zoo, which is near the airport that has seen some of the fiercest fighting between President Pascal Lissouba’s troops and Gen. Denis Sassou-Nguesso’s militia.

The apes were part of a special program, run by Howletts and the Congolese government, that prepares gorillas and chimpanzees orphaned by poaching to be released into a government wildlife sanctuary.

The program was put on hold because of the fighting.

Fewer than 50,000 lowland gorillas are left in the wild - mostly in equatorial Africa. The plight of mountain gorillas is even more serious: Only about 600 are left in the world, most in neighboring Rwanda, Uganda and Congo, the country formally known as Zaire.

Wildlife officials in the Republic of Congo estimate fewer than 100 wild lowland gorillas are left in the north of the country, while the species has virtually disappeared from the south.

“Here in the Congo, gorillas are hunted for their delicious meat,” said Marcel Nguimbi, coordinator of the Brazzaville zoo ape project, said.

Gorilla body parts are also believed to hold magical powers: A gorilla’s finger bone tied to a baby’s wrist or put in bath water is believed to make the baby healthy and courageous, Nguimbi said.