2008-09 Archives

Mountain gorillas at Virunga Park threatened by war


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March 1, 2008. A Peace Conference is underway in Goma.  For the latest updates visit the UN website at www.monuc.org. The area has been experiencing heavy fighting  between the DRC army and rebel forces of general Nkunda north of the city of Goma, in North Kivu continues.  MONUC reports that general Nkunda plans to attend the Peace Conference.  Heavy shelling and gunfire has been taking place in the immediate vicinity of the heart of the gorilla sector in the Virunga National Park and World Heritage site. WildlifeDirect posts almost daily reports on what is happening in the area on a special blog.

The renewed fighting poses a serious threat to the survival of the mountain gorillas, flagship species of this World Heritage site, of which only an estimated 700 remain in the wild. Since the summer of 2007, 10 gorillas have been killed in Virunga and two more are missing. For more than 4 months now, park authorities are unable to enter the gorilla sector and ensure protection and monitoring of the gorilla families.

The current fighting has also added to the human suffering of local communities around the World Heritage site and the humanitarian crisis is starting to take on catastrophic proportions. Already an estimated 425,000 people have been displaced by the fighting, including 70 park ranger staff. As a result of the conflict, a number of makeshift camps of displaced people has sprung up right next to the park, adding further pressure on its natural resources due to people desperately looking for food, firewood and building materials for temporary shelter.

The renewed degradation of the security situation and continued threats to the five DRC World Heritage sites motivated the World Heritage Committee to request the Director General of UNESCO and the Chairperson of the Committee to organize a high-level meeting with the DRC authorities to address the urgent threats to the sites. Currently, the Centre is in contact with the Office of the President to organize this meeting. The Committee also decided to apply the new reinforced monitoring mechanism to all five DRC sites. In August, a UNESCO/IUCN mission visited the site to investigate the January and June gorilla killings.

The World Heritage Centre continues to monitor the situation closely and is in contact with the protected area authority and its conservation partners as well as MONUC to get up too date information on developments. However, there is little that can be done to safeguard the gorillas and secure the management of the site as long as the fighting continues.

Why is the Democratic Republic of the Congo important to the United States?     More

Watch the War Against the Women in Congo from the Award Winning US Television Program
60 Minutes from January 13, 2008.

 

 

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Carlsbad bats "free-tail it" back from Mexico
by Rick LoBello

Second only to the marvel of the caverns themselves, Carlsbad Caverns National Park's
sunset bat flight ranks as one of the most fascinating wildlife spectacles in North America. Although the bats are miniscule in size compared to larger mammals like Alaska's caribou and the Pacific Coast's humpback whales, few wildlife dramas can compare to Carlsbad's "main event."

Every evening from early May through October, swarms of nearly 800,000 Brazilian free-tailed bats exit the cave's natural entrance to feed on night flying insects like moths and mosquitoes.  Park visitors packing the amphitheater are amazed at the sight.  This is definitely the place to be on a New Mexico summer night.

In grand fashion the National Park Service seizes nature's exceptional moment as park rangers present bat fight amphitheater programs.  Every evening rangers answer dozens of questions while correcting popular myths about bats.  For example many people believe that bats are blind.  Actually all bats can see, some better than others depending on their feeding habits. A bat hunting on insects at night does not need to see as well as a fruit eating bat in the tropics. 

As the audience patiently awaits the rising curtain on the Cavern's big show, vociferous cave swallows fly overhead in search of their last meals for the day.  These dive-bombing acrobats must know that soon they will be forced out of the way by an imminent barrage of bats taking over their air space above the entrance to the caverns.

Few people realize that the park's cave swallow colony, about two thousand strong, also has the distinction of being the largest such colony known to the United States.  Nesting along the walls of the natural entrance these beautiful birds, more typical of Mexico, are often at first glance mistaken for bats.  But in stark contrast to the squeaking sounds of the swallows, the near silent exiting of bats is a completely different picture. 

As the flight develops, a large black cloud appears in the summertime sky, the same cloud that first attracted early Carlsbad explorer Jim White to the cave in the early 1900s. 

Come September Carlsbad's bat colony begins to migrate south to spend the winter months in Mexico.  The migration extends into October and sometimes early November as the maternity colony departs the area in smaller groups.  Although much is still unknown about their travel route, we do know that the migration extends at least 800 miles.  Information on Carlsbad free-tailed bats was first obtained during the 1950s when more than 100,000 bats were tagged with wing bands.  Three Carlsbad individuals were eventually recovered.  One traveled to Central Mexico covering over 800 miles in 68 days.

Despite extensive studies in search of banded bats, little is known about the break-up of the colony during the winter months.  Do some of the larger groups migrating from Carlsbad stay together or do most of them break up into smaller groups or separate as individuals?

Learn more about Carlsbad's bat colony on the Carlsbad Caverns National Park website.  You can also support conservation and research on bats by Adopting a Bat from the Carlsbad Caverns Guadalupe Mountains Association. 

 

 

 

 

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