- Chained by the neck to a concrete outhouse for 12 years,
it was not much of a life. But given the alternative, Julie was
lucky.
-
- Bought for £60 as an infant, this suburban yard
in Douala, Cameroon's commercial capital, was the only home she
knew.
-
- Slamming her hands on the ground, screaming, the family
pet was evidently in distress but at least she had survived, unlike most
great apes in central Africa.
-
- After being captured with her in the jungle Julie's
parents
almost certainly ended up in a cooking pot as bushmeat, a trade which is
driving chimpanzees and gorillas towards extinction.
-
- Young chimps like Julie are more valuable as pets but
as they grow strong and wild they can also end up as bushmeat or as
prisoners,
chained to a wall.
-
- In this case there was a happy ending. Fed up with her
angry and out-of-control pet, the owner contacted a wildlife centre at
nearby Limbe to take her away.
-
- After being tranquilised and having her chain broken
Julie was lifted into a cage and driven to Limbe to be quarantined for
three months and introduced to other chimps who have also been
rescued.
-
- Whether she will integrate is uncertain. 'This animal
thinks it is a human. She has never seen another chimpanzee,' said Livia
Wittiger, a biologist at the centre.
-
- Most great apes in the Congo basin never get that chance.
An estimated one to five million tonnes of bushmeat is eaten here every
year, its value ranging from £10 million to £100m in different
countries.
-
- In the past decade the number of eastern lowland gorillas
has plunged from 17,000 to 5,000, according to Conservation
International.
-
- Western chimpanzees have disappeared from Benin, Gambia
and Togo and fewer than 1,000 remain in Senegal, Ghana and Guinea-Bissau.
The UN environmental agency has warned that we are destroying a bridge
to our origins - humans share more than 96 per cent of their DNA with great
apes.
-
- Hunting and eating great apes has been illegal for a
decade but it is only recently that the trade went underground, partly
because since last year any restaurant caught serving meat from endangered
animals faces up to three years in prison and a $16,000 (£8,700)
fine.
-
- 'We know it is still being sold. Gorilla meat sells for
five times the price of beef so there is an incentive,' said Marius Talla
Tene, of the Last Great Apes organisation.
-
- The Observer accompanied him to Nkoldongo market in
Yaounde,
the capital, where porcupine and other legal bushmeat were on display.
Angry traders ordered him out when he tried to inspect stalls. 'People
threaten to kill us,' he said.
-
- Most hunters are impoverished villagers who use the
income
to buy essentials such as salt, fuel and medicine. The carcasses are
brought
to an informal depot in the jungle and then driven to cities. Logging
trucks
have been repeatedly implicated in such transports but traders also use
ordinary cars, said Tene.
-
- 'Restaurants and rich people know where to buy the meat.
Sometimes they commission hunters but often they just go shopping.' Chimp
and gorilla meat has been found in Europe but is usually consumed in
central
and western Africa.
-
- Babies have been sold as pets but nine out of 10 have
died from disease and neglect, said Felix Lankester, of the Limbe Wildlife
Centre. As awareness of the problem grows more of those pets which survive
will be rescued. 'It's not too late, but there is not a lot of hope left
for the great apes. They are spiralling into extinction.'
-
- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004
-
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/conservation
- /story/0,13369,1340363,00.html
|
