(MY) Taiping Four gorillas

[Guest guest]

Saturday September 16, 2006-The Star

 

Gorillas bound for Cameroon

 

*PETALING JAYA:* The four Taiping Zoo gorillas that were smuggled into

Malaysia four years ago and later relocated to South Africa, will now be

heading back to their home country of Cameroon.

 

The Cameroon authorities had started a relentless campaign to have the

African great apes, aged five to seven years old, returned to them.

 

The gorillas are now at the National Zoological Gardens in Pretoria, South

Africa.

 

The Malaysian authorities, which confiscated the animals, had decided to

deliver them to South Africa in 2004 while Cameroon made a bid for the

apes.

 

Early this month, **it was* *reported that South Africa was informed by the

Malaysian Government of the decision to relocate the four gorillas to the

Limbe Wildlife Sanctuary in Cameroon.

 

" Malaysia as the confiscating authority has the jurisdiction in this

regard.

 

" They have initially okayed South Africa and I have no idea why they changed

their minds, " Willie Labuschagne, the executive director of South Africa's

National Zoo, was quoted as saying in the report.

 

However, it is unclear when the relocation will take place and who will pay

for the transfer costs. South Africa said it was not paying.

 

All species of great apes are banned from international trade under the

Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), which

deemed the practice detrimental to their survival in the wild.

 

In early 2002, Taiping Zoo acquired the animals under a purported animal

exchange programme that was later discovered to be a scam.

 

The Department of Wildlife and National Park, the principal management

authority of Cites in Malaysia and also the agency that approved the import

in the first place, declined to comment.