$2m from US Foundation buys helicopter to fight poaching in DRC

The efforts of on-profit organisation, African Parks, to resolve the poaching crisis in Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been bolstered by a $2 million grant from the Howard G Buffett Foundation (HGBF) in the United States.

The funding was used to purchase a the Eurocopter (Airbus) AS 350 B3 model helicopter, designed to accommodate a pilot plus five rangers with sufficient weapons and equipment for a 10-day patrol.

It is equipped with night vision capabilities and has been fully fitted for African Parks’ law enforcement operations to implement a variety of dedicated anti-poaching and support initiatives.

These activities include show-of-force operations, the rapid deployment of anti-poaching rangers, surveillance flights, the transportation of tracker teams in follow-up operations, the gathering of information on unauthorised aircraft flying over parks, the drop-off of supplies to ground units and the evacuation of ranger casualties.

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Garamba National Park under attack from armed poachers in DRC

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Garamba National Park, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is experiencing a poaching crisis, authorities and conservationists have announced.

African Parks, the management body of not only Garamba, but many other national parks across Africa, has intensified its anti-poaching efforts in eastern DRC to counter the poaching onslaught that has beset the park in the past two months.

Massacre site with juvenile elephant

 - its ivory would have been too small

 to have value. Credit: African Parks

A total of 78 elephants have been poached since mid-April, representing about 4% of the total population.

In mid-May, African Parks reported that 33 elephants had been killed in the five weeks prior, indicating a concerted attack on the park's elephant population.

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Name of new weakly electric fish species reflects hope for peace in Central Africa

Two new species of weakly electric fishes from the Congo River basin are described in the open access journal ZooKeys. One of them, known from only a single specimen, is named "Petrocephalus boboto." "Boboto" is the word for peace in the Lingala language, the lingua franca of the Congo River, reflecting the authors' hope for peace in troubled Central Africa.

On a 2010 field trip to the Congo River of Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the riverside village of Yangambi-Lokélé, French ichthyologist Sébastien Lavoué of the Taiwan Institute of Oceanography and American ichthyologist John Sullivan of Cornell University, both specialists on mormyrid weakly electric fishes, captured a single individual of the genus Petrocephalus not quite like any they had seen before.

"Sébastien has the best eye of anyone in the world for Petrocephalus," says Sullivan. So when he wasn't certain what species it belonged to, we flagged it as one to look at carefully once we got home."

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Four New Mammal Species Discovered in Democratic Republic of Congo

Dec. 16, 2013 — Julian Kerbis Peterhans, a Roosevelt University professor and adjunct curator at The Field Museum who has conducted extensive studies on mammals in Africa, has announced the discovery of four new species of small mammals in the eastern section of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The mammals were found during an expedition to the Misotshi-Kabogo highlands led by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and in another nearby forest with the Centre de Recherche en Sciences Naturelles (CRSN) Lwiro -- areas that were previously unexplored. "Our discoveries demonstrate the need for conserving this isolated reservoir of biodiversity," Kerbis said.

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Forest giraffe joins growing number of threatened species

November 2013: The okapi, also known as the forest giraffe, and the national symbol of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), is now on the brink of extinction the IUCN has declared in its latest red list update. 

The Okapi (Okapia johnstoni) is a close relative of the giraffe and unique to the rainforests of the DRC. It has been listed by the IUCN as Endangered, only one step away from the highest risk of extinction, Critically Endangered, with numbers dwindling across its range. Poaching and habitat loss, as well as the presence of rebels, elephant poachers and illegal miners, are the principal threats to its survival. 

“The Okapi is revered in Congo as a national symbol – it even features on the Congolese franc banknotes,” says Dr Noëlle Kümpel co-chair of the IUCN SSC Giraffe and Okapi Specialist Group and manager of ZSL’s range-wide okapi conservation project. “Sadly, DRC has been caught up in civil conflict and ravaged by poverty for nearly two decades, leading to widespread degradation of Okapi habitat and hunting for its meat and skin. Supporting government efforts to tackle the civil conflict and extreme poverty in the region are critical to securing its survival.” 

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Gorillas Caught in the Crossfire in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Mar. 13, 2013 — The world's leading conservation organizations have joined together to fight for the survival of the Endangered Grauer's or eastern lowland gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri).

Found only in the mountain and mid-altitude forests of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Grauer's gorilla is not only the largest of the four gorilla subspecies but also the largest primate in the world.

With their entire range consumed in conflict since 1996, important populations of Grauer's and their chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) relatives have gone largely unmonitored. Different sources have offered varying population estimates since that time, but their true status is unknown.

The Jane Goodall Institute, Fauna & Flora International (FFI), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS), Conservation International (CI), the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International (DFGFI), and local conservation organizations have partnered with the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN), the Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Tourism (MECNT), national military and police authorities, and local communities to support the implementation of a recently completed International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Conservation Action Plan for great apes in the eastern DRC.

Continued: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130313111931.htm