Limbe Wildlife Centre

Category: Cameroon, Gorilla, Simone de Vries, endangered species | Date: Dec 31 2008 | By: limbewildlifecentre

Although I wrote an optimistic blog last week, I have some very sad news this time. On the morning of Christmas day we found Izan sick again, passing loose stool. We started treating him again, but his condition became worse and two days later he died. We are all devastated.

This is the PASA press release that came out a few days ago: 

Izan, a male Western Lowland gorilla that became an international symbol of illegal trade and African heritage as part of the so-called “Taiping Four,” died December 26 at the Limbe Wildlife Center in Cameroon following a lengthy illness.

An autopsy was performed following Izan’s death, and it is hoped laboratory tests in Europe will provide answers as to the cause. It is believed that stress and a lack of immunity to endemic pathogens may have contributed.

“We are all deeply saddened by the passing of Izan and our hearts go out to the staff of the Limbe Wildlife Center, which battled mightily to save him,” said Doug Cress, executive director of the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance (PASA). “Gorillas are fragile animals that are extremely susceptible to stress, and it could be that the ordeal of Izan’s original capture from the wild and his subsequent travels left him vulnerable.”

The Taiping Four gorillas were one male and three females that were illegally captured as infants from the wild in Cameroon in 2001 and smuggled across the border to Nigeria. From there, the gorillas were transferred under forged CITES permits to the Taiping Zoo in Malaysia. After the deal was uncovered, the Government of Malaysia confiscated the gorillas and sent them to the Pretoria Zoo in South Africa – despite repeated requests from the Government of Cameroon for the return of the gorillas. In support of Cameroon’s request, a consortium of animal conservation and welfare organizations lobbied aggressively for the repatriation of the gorillas, and the Taiping Four were sent to the Limbe Wildlife Center in late 2007. Their return was viewed as a national victory for Cameroon against the international wildlife trafficking menace that continues to threaten the species’ survival.

Last June, Oyin, another of the Taiping Four gorillas, died from intestinal problems similar to those that plagued Izan.Although the Taiping Four gorillas joined Limbe’s 12-member gorilla social group within months of their arrival in Cameroon, Izan was noticeably more shy and susceptible to stress than the others. He first became ill in July, and ultimately required treatment four times over the next five months just to maintain his health. Limbe officials were in constant contact with primate health experts in Africa, Europe and North America throughout Izan’s illness and treatments. “This is a terrible loss for us all,” said Felix Lankester, manager of the Limbe Wildlife Centre. “We did absolutely everything we could to save Izan and uncover the source of his illness, but by the end he was just too weakened to recover. We shall miss him very much.”Added Lankester: “The initial findings from the necropsy of Izan were similar to those found in the necropsy of Oyin, suggesting that there could be a common cause to these two deaths. We shall be sending tissue samples to labs in an attempt to ascertain the cause.”

PASA was formed in 2000 to unite the rescue and rehabilitation facilities across Africa that care for chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos and literally thousands of other endangered primates. For more information, please contact PASAapes@aol.com or visit www.pasaprimates.org.

Best wishes,

Simone de Vries

Assistant Project Manager