Nature & Environment

Young gorillas seen dismantling traps

By T.K. Randall
July 19, 2012 ·  37 comments

Image Credit: CC 2.5 Kabir Bakie Bush-meat hunters in Rwanda set up thousands of rope and branch snares in and around the Volcanoes National Park in an attempt to catch antelopes and other animals. While poachers have little interest in catching gorillas sometimes one will fall victim to one of the traps, adult gorillas are usually able to break free but youngsters are more at risk. To combat this, some of the juvenile gorillas have taken it upon themselves to go out and destroy all the traps they can find.

"This is absolutely the first time that we've seen juveniles doing that ... I don't know of any other reports in the world of juveniles destroying snares," said coordinator Veronica Vecellio. "We are the largest database and observer of wild gorillas ... so I would be very surprised if somebody else has seen that."[!gad]Bush-meat hunters in Rwanda set up thousands of rope and branch snares in and around the Volcanoes National Park in an attempt to catch antelopes and other animals. While poachers have little interest in catching gorillas sometimes one will fall victim to one of the traps, adult gorillas are usually able to break free but youngsters are more at risk. To combat this, some of the juvenile gorillas have taken it upon themselves to go out and destroy all the traps they can find.

"This is absolutely the first time that we've seen juveniles doing that ... I don't know of any other reports in the world of juveniles destroying snares," said coordinator Veronica Vecellio. "We are the largest database and observer of wild gorillas ... so I would be very surprised if somebody else has seen that."

Source: National Geographic | Comments (37)

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