Last stand of the hippo as rebel militia slaughter hundreds a week
By Michael Horsnell



HIPPOS are facing annihilation from an African nature reserve that once boasted their greatest concentration, wildlife experts said yesterday.

The animals are the victims of a Congolese militia group that has helped to slaughter half of their number since setting up a base in the Virunga National Park two weeks ago, according to conservationists at the Zoological Society of London.



During the past fortnight, more than 400 hippopotamuses have been killed as well as a number of buffaloes, elephants and other animals.

The main cause of their calamitous decline is the behaviour of the rebel group, known as the Mai Mai. The rebels eat and sell hippo meat and ivory found in the hippos’ canine teeth. Other poachers include former Hutu rebels, poorly paid Congolese soldiers and local militia groups.

The sale of hippo meat is illegal, but black-market sales are difficult to track and the trade is very lucrative. The rebel group has also attacked a number of conservation rangers and their families.

Years of conflict have already had a devastating impact on the hippo population. Warnings were first posted after the war in neighbouring Rwanda more than ten years ago, and the subsequent huge influx of refugees from that country, which led to deforestation and poaching at the site.

Many members of the park staff, who lack the means of patrolling its two million acres and 400-mile-long boundary, have spent long periods without pay.


The 180-year-old Zoological Society of London, which runs London Zoo and Whipsnade Wild Animal Park and has conservation projects in more than 30 countries, is helping to supplement the income of the park rangers and is training them in conservation and anti-poaching techniques with the help of EU funding.

A recent survey sponsored by the society reported fewer than 900 remaining hippos in the park, a huge decline from the 22,000 recorded there in 1988. If the killing continues at its present rate, field workers fear that there will be no hippos left in many parts of the national park by Christmas.

An elite ranger team of the Congolese Conservation Institute has already been established to protect wildlife in Virunga after a recent project between the zoological society and other conservation organisations. The society says that it will continue to work with the institute.

Lyndsay Gale, bushmeat and forests conservation programme co-ordinator for the society, said: “This is one of the biggest challenges the park rangers have had to face since the war. It comes as a devastating blow after recent surveys indicated that wildlife populations were beginning to recover from over a decade of civil war, due to the commitment and dedication of the rangers. They need our support.â€

The society is launching an appeal to raise funds for extra ranger training needed in the park to safeguard the remaining hippos. The park, which was established in 1925, remains the most species-rich park in Africa and once boasted the highest density of large mammals in the world before a wave of unrest and poaching began to afflict the region.

The conservation organisation World Heritage reports that since the 1960s the park’s populations of elephants, hippos and buffaloes have declined dramatically, with the heaviest levels of poaching occurring in 1980s and during the past ten years since the beginning of the country’s civil war in 1996.

The park’s once abundant elephant population, estimated at 4,300 in the 1960s, had been reduced to a few hundred by 2003.

But the most recent census,conducted this June and funded by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, found that efforts to protect the park’s wildlife seem to be reversing this trend of decline, and that most of the park’s large mammals have increased in number since the last census in 2003.

Elephants had increased to 340 from 265 in the past three years. The census also found approximately 3,800 buffaloes (up from 2,300 in 2003).

More than 100 guards in Virunga have been killed since 1996 while trying to prevent poaching, and one was killed as recently as this May. The guards were being given only about 55p per month from the Government, although this was increased to about £15 per month with funds from Unesco. Additional support will come from the European Union in the near future.

Virunga National Park has been the major destination for tourists in the country since it was created, but recent unrest over the past decade has resulted in a decrease in tourism revenue as well as wildlife.

A hippo is approximately the same size as a white rhinoceros, and experts are divided about which is the next largest land animal after the elephant. Until 1985, naturalists grouped hippos with pigs, based on molar patterns. But further evidence shows that the hippo’s closest living relatives are cetaceans, such as whales and porpoises.

A VERY PECULIAR SPECIES


The hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) is a large, plant-eating African mammal, one of only two extant, and three or four recently extinct, species in the family Hippopotamidae

It lives in groups of up to 40 animals, called a pod, herd, school or bloat

A male hippo is known as a bull, a female, a cow, and a baby, a calf. A hippo’s lifespan is typically 40 to 50 years

Hippos average 3.5 metres (11ft) long, 1.5 metres (5ft) tall at the shoulder, and weigh up to 3,200kg (7,000 lb)

The eyes, ears and nostrils of the hippo are placed high on the roof of the skull, allowing it to spend most of the day with most of its body submerged in water to stay cool and prevent sunburn

For additional protection from the sun, a hippo’s skin secretes a red substance that is a natural sunscreen

Hippos are still found in the rivers and lakes of Uganda, Sudan, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, The Gambia and also in southern Africa

Three species of hippo became extinct within the Holocene epoch in Madagascar, one of them as recently as about a thousand years ago

A dwarf species, Phanourios minutis, existed in Cyprus but became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene era.

The Mai Mai rebels have much the same belief system as the Maji Maji rebels whom the Germans defeated in Tanzania 100 years ago.

Their witch doctor prepares a potion for them that they believe makes bullets turn to water. This makes them brave in battle. The problem the Congolese army has is that many of their recruits believe it too.

So whenever the Congolese army captures a Mai Mai rebel they frequently shoot him in front of their troops to show them the bullets don't turn to water. Its called learning by doing.

They had the same belief during the Congo troubles just after Independance when the Simbas took Stanleyville and a large portion of the country. The (often unarmed) simbas used to get doped up and just walk towards the Govt forces using the same chant. - (It actually means water). Mike Hoare imported a large team of mercenaries who eventually sorted them out. - But not before a lot of white people got slaughtered in the most horrendous fashions....

Couple of books to read on the subject are 111 days in Stanleyville by Stanley Reed and Congo Mercenary by Mad Mike himself.....

They must be hard up if they're eating hippo though - it's bloody awful!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Hoare

http://www.shimabuku.com/wildgeese.html

http://images.google.no/images?q=tbn:G9icNGWiAmbjKM:http://www.kriegsreisende

http://images.google.no/images?q=tbn:51lTB8jK8w2MmM:http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/

Here is some more info on Mad Mike .

A year and a half ago I visted the house in Isiro where the Wild Geese used to execute the captured Simbas every day after lunch. John Valk and Goetz von Wild , who were there at the time, took me on a tour.

Von Wild had a great deal to do with the defeat of the Simbas,maybe more than Mike Hoare, but that is an untold story. The fictional book about the congo war "The Wild Geese" is a complete fiction and bears no relation to fact at all.

An interesting thing about Mike Hoare is he was with the British when they defeated the communists in Malaysia.

The simple principals he used to retain discipline among his soldiers were developed by Roger Rangers for fighting Indians in eastern North America. They are also used by American Rangers.

This is ironic because the original Colonel Rogers defected and went to the British side during the American revolution. His ancestor Ted Rogers, owns Rogers Communications based in Toronto.

The original Colonel Rogers was considered to be one of the biggest crooks of his day, an out and out scoundrel.

A reminder of the trouble in the Congo from the eternal Warren Zevon;


Roland was a warrior
from the land of the midnight sun
with a Thompson Gun for hire
fighting to be done.

The deal was made in Denmark
on a dark and stormy day
so he set of for Biafra
to join the bloody fray.

From 66 and 7
they fought the Congo War
with their fingers on their triggers
through the blood and gore.

Days and nights they battled
the bantu to their knees
they killed to earn their living
and to help out the Congolese.

Roland the Thompson Gunner (2x)

His comrades fought beside him
Van Owen and the rest
but of all the Thompson Gunners
Roland was the best.

So the CIA decided
they wanted Roland dead
that son of a bith Van Owen
blew off Roland's head.

Roland the headless Thompson Gunner
Norway's bravest son
you can still see his headless body stalking through the night
in the muzzle flash of Roland's Thompson gun (2x)

Roland searched the continent
for the man who done him in
he found him in Mombassa
in a bar room drinking Gin.

Roland aimed his Thompson Gun
he didn't say a word
but he blew Van Owen's body
from there to Johannesburg.

Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner (3x)
Talking about the man
Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner

The eternal Thompson Gunner
still walking through the night
now it's ten years later
but he still keeps up the fight.

In Ireland, in Lebanon,
in Palestine, in Berkley...
Patty Hearst
heard the burst
of Roland's Thompson Gun and body...

quote:

Originally posted by oupa:
A reminder of the trouble in the Congo from the eternal Warren Zevon;

Probably my favorite Zevon, although Lawyers, Guns, and Money isn't bad either.

Most of the Wild geese were white riff raff from South African jails. They were not freedom fighters helping the Congolese. Goetz von Wild said you could hear then coming as they reached Isiro because of the explosions along the way. They weren't attacking the Simbas. They were robbing Greek traders and the explosions were the charges they set off to open the safes of the Greek traders.

But hard times demand hard men , And Mad Mike hoare was the right man on the right time at the right place.

Goetz von Wild said Mike Hoare was a good soldier and had a good sense of humour. He mostly had very poor troops to make into an army. Bob Denard was a French naval non commissioned officer. He was not a good soldier, not reliable at all, and he got alot of people killed. Che Gueverra was not much of a soldier and he was riddled with tuberculosis by the time he was routed from the Congo. He would have soon died a natural death had he not been killed in Bolivia. The Simba leaders around Isiro were North Korean trained and were very cruel but their troops were just poor African kids with nothing better to do. Some were not armed. According to Goetz the best officers in the Congo war were a Belgium regular army officer whose name I forget and a Spanish officer who was killed in error by Mobutu who thought he was part of a revolution. In fact it was just a bugger up that had been created by Bob Denard and it cost all the Wild Geese in Kinshasha their lives. They were all killed and dumped into the Congo River.