Web charity helps save Congo's gorillas
Donations made on the Wildlife Direct website pay the salaries of the park rangers who protect the endangered apes.
from the March 9, 2007 edition
Page 4 of 4
Donations via Wildlife Direct paid for the $1,000 operations tent, two of the laptops the rangers will use, and will fund the satellite link when it comes online.
Five of the rangers, including Mr. Kambale, will soon be blogging about their work, hoping that more donations will soon be flowing, and their work will be given the shot in the arm it needs.
Aloma, the ranger sponsored by the Colorado students, is already blogging. He sends photos and answers questions the students send in, including one from Kori: "Do you ever cry when you do your job?"
One of the children's teachers in Colorado Springs, Melissa Stull, says the students have raised more than $700 in two months, and that they will soon launch "Pickles for Primates" to sell dill pickles to raise more money. They're also planning to auction a bicycle donated to the school.
"If they weren't so excited about it, we wouldn't have raised this kind of money," says Ms. Stull. "The kids are learning tons. We'll keep going for as long as we can."
Back in Congo, the gorillas may be sensing the window of peace that has now opened. Close to the clearing, which is to be named Camp Karema after one of the dead silverbacks, one of the eight females in a 32-strong family is suckling a 3-month-old baby.
Another family nearby has a 2-week-old baby; to have two infants born so close together is rare in Virunga National Park.
"If this peace lasts a long time, we know we can do our work and the gorillas will be safe for the first time in so many years," Kambale said last weekend, when the Monitor became the first outsiders to visit since Nkunda's troops pulled out.
"Things were so hard before," says Kambale. "We had no uniforms, no equipment, and no patrol rations. Now things are completely different. We have all that we need."
• Matthew Clark contributed to this report.
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