Congo Rangers

Category: Active Service, Crises, Hippos | Date: Dec 15 2006 | By: admin

I have just come back from a patrol with the Advance Force which was deployed for the first time today at Vitshumbi. Within 3-4 hours of getting on the ground, they had arrested their first hippo poacher who they found hacking meat from a carcass and loading it onto a small fishing boat.  He has been transported back to the station and is currently undergoing questioning.  The Congolese Wildlife Authority has now decided to send down a second troop to support the intervention, and they should arrive within the next 48 hours.

Before deploying, we met briefly with the commander of the marines and the infantry based at Vitshumbi.  Neither seemed in a hurry to help the ranges, and the marine told of how he had called his commanding officer when he first saw the Mai Mai approaching, guns blazing, in four motorised speedboats.  The marine was told in no uncertain terms that as long as the Mai Mai did not start shooting at the local population, they were not to get involved.  The massacre continued relentlessly for three days and three nights, right in front of the fishing village, until they had shot every hippo in sight.   

After the meeting, the rangers wasted no time getting out on patrol and found illegal fishing boats hidden in the grass, and wooden wheel barrows used to transport hippo meat.  Bones lay everywhere and hippo skin had been rolled up like thick doormats and thrown under the bushes.  The stench was unbearable. As well as the poacher, they found and arrested several illegal fishermen, and when questioned they said that they were fishing for the marine commander we had spoken to earlier.  This is not going to be easy, but the Advance Force is determined and their efforts represent the park’s last real hope of saving Virunga’s hippos.