Update on "Taiping Four" Gorilla Case

December 2003

In March 2002 IPPL was tipped off about the arrival at Taiping Zoo, Malaysia, of four baby gorillas. Gorillas are (at least on paper) totally protected from trade by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). IPPL began an immediate investigation to find out how the animals got from Africa to Malaysia.

IPPL contacted the Malaysian Wildlife Department and learned that four gorillas had indeed reached Malaysia from Nigeria on "captive-born" certificates. The Department immediately cancelled permits issued to Taiping Zoo to import another two gorillas. The Department stated that it had believed Taiping Zoo’s claim that the gorillas were captive-born.

IPPL was able to obtain documents pertaining to the shipment. One document was an export permit issued by the Nigerian Government falsely stating that the gorillas had been born at Ibadan Zoo. However the only gorilla at Ibadan Zoo was an elderly female! We also found out that South African Airways had carried the animals - and that the South African Government had issued permits for them to pass through Johannesburg Airport.

On 11 November 2002, during the Conference of the Parties to the CITES treaty held in Santiago, Chile, Dr. Imeh Okopido, Nigeria’s Minister of State for the Environment, and Mr. Denis Koulagna Koutou, Director of Wildlife and Protected Areas in Cameroon, presented the Malaysian delegation with a letter requesting the return of the gorillas to Cameroon. The letter went unanswered.

Following a prolonged IPPL campaign, Malaysian authorities decided to confiscate the animals and announced that the gorillas would be sent to Pretoria Zoo in South Africa, a decision IPPL opposed as we believe that they should be sent to a sanctuary in Cameroon, preferably the highly respected Limbe Wildlife Centre.

On 27 August 2003, after learning of Malaysia’s plans to send the "Taiping Four" gorillas to Pretoria, Cameroon’s Minister of the Environment Mr. Tanji Mbianyor sent an official letter to his counterpart in Malaysia requesting the gorillas’ return to Cameroon. The Minister wrote:

As a follow up of the joint letter signed by Dr. Imeh Okopido, the Nigerian Minister of Environment, and my collaborator Mr. Denis Koulagna Koutou, last November in Santiago (Chile) and referring to the four smuggled baby gorillas, I would like to emphasize on the hope of the Nigerian and Cameroonian authorities to see these animals sent back to their native land instead of being exported to a zoo in South Africa as recently reported by Dr. Shirley McGreal of the International Primate Protection League. Let me inform you that two other gorillas smuggled probably by the same network were seized and repatriated to the Limbe Wildlife Centre in Cameroon, in favor of joint efforts by the Nigerian and Cameroonian government and the CITES authorities on May 23rd of this year. This information needs to be given in order to prevent Your Excellency from being convinced that the Pretoria Zoo is the only [zoo] equipped for the rehabilitation of these animals, the argument that seemingly oriented the decision of sending the smuggled gorillas to South Africa.

I would be grateful for any measure you will take for repatriation of the young gorillas to their native land instead of the Pretoria Zoo.

Minister Mbianyor sent a copy of this letter to Dr. Imeh Okopido of Nigeria and the Secretary-General of CITES. No final decision has apparently been made, even though Article VIII 4.B of CITES calls for return of confiscated animals to their homeland whenever this is feasible.