Delighted conservationists said on Friday that they had found conclusive
proof of the existence of a rare giraffe-like creature in Congo's Virunga
National Park that has defied the odds of survival in a region battered by
savage conflict.
Okapis are seen in the
Ituri forest in the Congo in an undated file photo. Delighted
conservationists said on Friday that they had found conclusive proof of
the existence of a rare giraffe-like creature in Congo's Virunga National
Park that has defied the odds of survival in a region battered by savage
conflict. [Reuters] |
First discovered in what is now Virunga in the eastern Democratic Republic of
Congo in 1901, the shy forest-dwelling okapi had not been found in the park
since 1959.
It was known to be present elsewhere in the Congo, but there were concerns it
had gone extinct in the place of its discovery because of violence and
lawlessness.
But a recent survey of the area by conservation group WWF and the Institut
Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN) found 17 okapi tracks and
other evidence of its presence.
No sightings of the elusive animal, which resembles a cross between a giraffe
and a zebra with a striped behind and legs and a long neck, were made but its
tracks were taken as absolute proof of the creature's recent activity in the
park.
It is only found in the secluded forests of eastern Congo and is considered
the giraffe's closest living relative.
"The rediscovery of okapis in Virunga National Park is a positive sign," said
Marc Languy, of WWF's Eastern Africa Regional Programme.
"As the country is returning to peace, it shows that the protected areas in
this troubled region are now havens for rare wildlife once more," he said.
The animal's eastern Congo home has been the scene of incessant conflict
including a brutal civil war that erupted in 1998 and then escalated to engulf
several other African states at a cost of millions of lives.
The Congo hopes to put the bloodshed and chaos behind when it holds its first
free elections in four decades next month, but marauding rebels and militia
continue to fight on in the remote east.
"Except for mountain gorillas, which have shown an increase in population due
to important conservation efforts, most wildlife in the park (Virunga) have
heavily suffered from poaching," said WWF.
"The population of hippopotamus, for example, has dropped from 29,000 in the
mid-1970s to less than 1,000 today," it said.
