"Taiping 4" Gorilla Rescue Update: 29 November 2006

IFAW is abuzz as the countdown to the return of the Taiping 4 gorillas – Izan, Tinu, Abbey and Oyin – has truly begun until just after midnight on December 13th when the gorillas finally depart South Africa for Cameroon.

The logistics of getting the gorillas away are desperately complicated – from the tortuous process of getting essential permits issued by the Governments of Cameroon and South Africa, to sorting out veterinary requirements and organizing the safe transport of the gorillas.

The event is already being greeted with high excitement down here in South Africa, and offers to help are flooding in. Last week Kenya Airways very generously offered to sponsor nearly the full cost of the transport of the gorillas and their caregivers back to Cameroon.

The gorillas meanwhile are getting used to a new keeper. To make sure they are subjected to as little stress as possible once they finally arrive at the Limbe Wildlife Centre, Johnathan Kum Kang, Limbe’s head keeper, last week arrived for a three week “getting-to-know-you” trip to the National Zoo in Pretoria. He is working with the gorilla’s current keepers at the zoo so that the young gorillas will become used to him.

When they leave in two weeks time, two of the National Zoo’s keepers will travel to Limbe as part of the gorilla’s settling in process.

Another interesting part of the process of preparing the four young gorillas has been the making of individual crates for each of them. Our crate builders are working round the clock to deliver the crates to the zoo this weekend. The crates will likely be moved to the gorillas sleeping quarters so the animals will have a little while to familiarize themselves with them.

The move is a whole event in itself. The gorillas will most likely be crated during the afternoon of Tuesday 12th December before being loaded onto a massive flat bed truck. The trip to OR Tambo Airport from the zoo will take about an hour, and the gorillas need to be at the freight holding area at 22h00. From there it’s into the hold of a Kenya Airways Boeing ready for a midnight flight to Nairobi, and on to Cameroon.