‘Bush burning, land encroachment threaten gorillas’

Okongor, a former director at the National Parks and founder of African Ecological Restoration Foundation in an interview with Daily Trust noted that gorillas in the country were facing threats of extinction as their population had gone dangerously low.
He said: “Today the gorilla population is threatened by bush burning, illegal tree felling and encroachment by farmers. Man is pushing the encroachment beyond the habitats that houses these endangered species.”
Okongor said that gorillas can only now be found in Cross River State in the whole of West Africa sub region, warning that the population was shrieking and could go extinct according to his latest findings.
“There should be legislation to save these rare species of animals in our forests from incessant bush burning and expansive farming, otherwise, if these animals go extinct, we ourselves will be at risk,” he said.
As a way of re-populating this rare species of gorilla, Okongor said: “The strategy for managing rare species, including animals and plants, is that, first of all, identify the habitat requirements of such species and re-introducing those species that naturally occur in those areas.”
He maintained that re-introduction or re-population of species is habitat-specific and specie-specific. “You must know what’s existing here so that when you bring ‘foreign’ species they do not stress too much to adapt to their new environment.”
He said that there are many types of gorillas in Africa, including the lowland gorillas and mountain gorillas with the mountain gorillas found in Rwanda which, according to him, can survive in other countries with no mountains.