The Kenya Conservationist fraternity has come out and has strongly criticized the vice of poaching that is going on in the Virunga Massif; they have therefore urged all the responsible people to come out and assist each other hunt down and arrest the poachers. They sought to have the number of the patrolling team improved if they are to reduce the threats to especially the mountain gorillas which are more at risk of being killed.
Information got the conservationists, park rangers in the Greater Virunga Landscape discovered carcasses of a mountain gorilla killed by a poacher’s snare and an elephant within the first few days of February. In a statement, the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project (MGVP), condemned the incidents and called on the gorilla conservation community to help strengthen law enforcement mechanisms in the parks and encourage local communities to condemn poaching.
Dr. Mike Cranfield who is the Executive Director of MGVP said that the awful death of the Mountain Gorilla is bad news to all conservationist who are do everything in their power to see that they protect all the animals that are vitally in danger especially since they are still very few in number thus the need to protect them by all means. The Virunga Massif has got part of it in Rwanda, Uganda and the other part in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and it is the only home for the mountain gorilla world wide and according to the reports, there are about 480 mountain gorillas at the moment.
These mountain gorillas are continuously threatened by the poaching which is very much rampant especially in the Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda, Virunga National Park in the DRC and Mgahinga National Park in Uganda. It was mentioned in the statement made that the park authorities together with the gorilla conservationists will hold a meeting in DRC in the coming week to discuss and pave ways of reducing and eliminating the vice and also come up with proposals. Basing on the statistics provided, an anti-poaching patrol collects over 1,500 snares every year from the Virunga Massif.
