One of Uganda’s best known mountain gorillas, Rafiki, has been killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Four men have been arrested, and they face a life sentence or a fine of $5.4m (\u00a34.3m) if found guilty of killing an endangered species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Investigations showed that Rafiki was killed by a sharp object that penetrated his internal organs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are just over 1,000 mountain gorillas in existence and the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) described Rafiki’s death as a “very big blow”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The silverback, believed to be around 25-years-old when he died in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, was the leader of a group of 17 mountain gorillas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This group was described as habituated, meaning that its members were used to human contact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The death of Rafiki leaves the group unstable and there is the possibility that it could disintegrate,” Bashir Hangi from the UWA told the BBC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It has no leadership at this time and it could be taken over by a wild silverback.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If that happened, the group would not want to come into contact with humans, which ultimately could affect tourism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The mountain gorillas are a popular draw for visitors to the country and the UWA relies on the tourists for revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rafiki himself was very popular with people who had come to the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Mr Hangi said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He went missing on 1 June and his body was discovered by a search party the following day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A UWA team tracked a suspect to a nearby village, where he was found with hunting equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He admitted that he, and three others, had been hunting smaller animals in the park and that he killed Rafiki in self-defence when he was attacked, the UWA said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The four men are expected to be charged under a wildlife protection law that was passed last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The mountain gorilla species is restricted to protected areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They can be found in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and a network of parks in the Virunga Massif range of mountains which straddle the borders of the three countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2018,\u00a0the mountain gorilla was removed from the list of critically endangered species\u00a0by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, after intensive conservation efforts, including anti-poaching patrols, paid off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The IUCN now classifies the species as endangered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BBC Africa<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of Uganda’s best known mountain gorillas, Rafiki, has been killed. Four men have been arrested, and they face a life sentence or a fine of $5.4m (\u00a34.3m) if found guilty of killing an endangered species. Investigations showed that Rafiki was killed by a sharp object that penetrated his internal organs. There are just over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27983,"featured_media":15682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_paywall_metabox":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27983"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15683,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15681\/revisions\/15683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}