Congo Rangers

Category: Mountain Gorillas | Date: Jul 12 2007 | By: admin

Here is a video of the Rugendo family of Mountain Gorillas that was shot recently at Bukima.

Enjoy!

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Category: Mountain Gorillas, Press, Rangers | Date: Jul 11 2007 | By: admin

Yesterday Focus Magazine in Germany published a long story about Virunga National Park, Congo Rangers and Mountain Gorillas. The story was written by Sebastian who visited me in early May with my boss Christophe from FZS. I wrote a post about it back then. Go to the link below and you will see the full story.

http://www.focus.de/wissen/wissenschaft/natur/tid-6786/berggorillas_aid_65963.html

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Category: Rangers, Your Donations | Date: Jul 03 2007 | By: admin

Since my last post about donations on 15th March and until 31st May, I have received the following:

Open donations: $3,703.76

Salary Bonuses - 12

Patrol Rations - 12

Uniforms for Rangers - 7

Patrol Boots - 5

First aid kits - 6

The uniforms and boots are on order from South Africa. I have donations for 19 sets of uniforms and 41 pairs of boots now since I started the blog. I have ordered 50 sets of uniform and 100 pairs of boots from Manchester Outfitters in Nairobi and will make up the difference from the open donations. It is worth ordering in bulk because of the logistics of getting the uniforms to Congo. They have to be flown in ideally because the border crossings can be complicated when you have this kind of equipment. Basically the uniforms look like military uniforms - it is the badge of ICCN that differentiates them - but customs can be complicated because of this.

The patrol rations and salary bonuses are used each month to contribute to the support of the Advance Force of Rangers, who are 49 men in total.

The first aid kits are locally acquired, so that is easy. We provide first aid kits each time the Rangers go on patrol.

In June Chris A also made a $2,000 donation for the Rangers, following the attack of the gorilla sector in the north of Virunga park. Thank you Chris for your amazing generosity, as always.

And thank you to each and every one of you who reads my blog, comments on my blog, and makes donations. It makes the world of difference to have this kind of support both for me and for the Rangers of the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature.

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