Mountain Gorilla Research Paper

The mountain gorilla has been faced with adversities since the 1960’s when war took over Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. These difficulties began when masses of refugees and rebels migrated into the habitat of the mountain gorilla. This lead to destruction of their habitat and poaching. Poaching is the “illegal practice of trespassing on another 's property to hunt or steal game without the landowner 's permission”. (Dictionary) The difficulties within the country still effect the mountain gorillas today. Parts of the land that were inhabited by gorillas have been taken over by rebels, making survey and conservation work difficult and dangerous. Since 1996, one-hundred and forty Virunga rangers have been killed in the line of

Organizations such as the Karisoke Research Center have been working persistently to remove these traps from the Virunga National Park and reported to find and destroy one-thousand of these traps a year. With mountain gorillas being constantly on the move every day, it is extremely hard for the conservator organizations to fully protect these gorillas from the dangers of these traps. In the 1960s Hunting of mountain gorillas was a recurring act especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo but the hunting of mountain gorillas has slowly become reduced, since poachers have recently had the tendency to capture infants to sell illegally. Virunga National Park in Congo has had a history of many mountain gorilla deaths due to poachers. In the years between 1990 and 1994, hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees migrated and took camp near the edge of the Virunga National Park, in those four years, three silverback gorillas were killed causing mayhem and more deaths in multiple mountain gorilla social groups. In 2002 there were numerous incidents where poacher killed mountain gorilla; including a poaching situation in which six mountain gorillas were killed and three infants were stolen. In January 2003 three poachers were fined and even sentenced to four years in prison and also six others that found to be accomplices were fined and given up to two years in prison. With legal action finally taking place against poachers, we have begun to see less gorillas getting killed for sport. The mountain gorilla is a protected species in both National Parks, so enforcement of law is essential for the mountain gorilla survival, especially since the funds from the national is little to