{"id":18606,"date":"2011-01-20T09:00:50","date_gmt":"2011-01-20T14:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sierraexpressmedia.com\/?p=18606"},"modified":"2011-01-20T09:00:50","modified_gmt":"2011-01-20T14:00:50","slug":"chimpanzee-and-gorilla-heads-seized-in-gabon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/?p=18606","title":{"rendered":"Chimpanzee and gorilla heads seized in Gabon"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">One of the biggest hauls of illegal  ape parts in Central Africa has been seized by officials in Gabon, the global  campaign group WWF says.<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Five people were arrested for the cache which included the head and hands of  an endangered gorilla, 12 chimpanzee heads and 30 chimpanzee hands.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">WWF called for a tough judicial approach to act as a deterrent.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Africa&#8217;s wildlife is often poached for the profitable bushmeat trade or for  use in traditional good luck charms.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Gabon&#8217;s rainforests teem with wildlife, including lowland gorillas and forest  elephants &#8211; and national parks make up around one tenth of the country.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">Those arrested for the  possession of illegal animal body parts are expected to appear in court this  week<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>&#8216;Highly disturbing&#8217; <\/strong><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The raids were conducted by Gabon&#8217;s water and forestry and defence ministries  with the help of various environmental aid groups.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Conservation Justice, one of the environmental groups involved, said the  crackdown is significant.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;The problem of illegal wildlife poaching and trade is not specific to Gabon;  such specialised dealers exist throughout Western and Central Africa. But these  arrests demonstrate that stopping them is possible with effective law  enforcement,&#8221; Luc Mathot, from Conservation Justice, said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Other confiscated items include 12 leopard skins, a portion of lion skin,  snake skins and five elephant tails.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;The massive collection of protected species confiscated in this operation is  highly disturbing,&#8221; WWF&#8217;s Africa great ape manager David Greer said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;To my knowledge, there has not been a seizure of great ape body parts of  this magnitude in Central Africa in the last 10 years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">According to WWF, the suspects are expected to appear in court this week.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Experts say in rural areas of Central Africa, bushmeat provides up to 80% of  protein in peoples&#8217; diets.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">There are also markets in Central and West Africa where animal parts are sold  for use in juju (black magic) and traditional remedies.<\/p>\n<p><em>BBC News<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the biggest hauls of illegal ape parts in Central Africa has been seized by officials in Gabon, the global campaign group WWF says. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[751,1],"tags":[6257,4708,6609,6610,6611],"class_list":["post-18606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global-news","category-uncategorized","tag-african-news","tag-gabon","tag-illegal-ape-parts","tag-poaching-animals","tag-wwf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}