Africa's endangered mountain gorillas - 25 Sep 07

Africa's endangered mountain gorillas - 25 Sep 07



Al Jazeera's Yvonne Ndege reports from Virunga National Park near the Democratic Republic of Congo's border with Rwanda on the endangered mountain gorillas who live in a vast expanse of forest there. There are only 720 of them left on earth. But nine of them have been killed since the beginning of this year. Tracking their footprints, Ndege ventured deep into the forest with a rangers' patrol to investigate the threats facing the mountain gorillas. The national park is the kind of habitat that gorillas need to survive. But it's also the theatre of an intense battle between government troops and rebels fighting alongside the renegade general Laurent Nkunda. It's not just the recent fighting that's wreaking havoc on the gorilla population. Poachers set snares, illegal "invaders" and also people going into the park to cut down the trees to make charcoal.