KEY POINTS:
A unique and critically endangered sub-species of mountain gorilla came one step closer to extinction this week after a band of suspected African rebels attacked ranger posts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Virunga National Park killing one wildlife officer and wounding four more.
The group, said
to be part of the Mai Mai rebel movement which has been known to eat gorillas and believes it is impervious to bullets, then threatened to kill mountain gorillas in the area if there were any reprisal attacks by the rangers or the government.
The Mai Mai have, in the past, turned to killing the park's endangered wildlife, particularly hippopotami, to raise their political profile.
"This was an unprovoked attack on our rangers and other wildlife officers who protect Virunga's wildlife," said Virunga National Park Director Norbert Mushenzi.
"The Mai Mai said that if we retaliate, they will kill all the gorillas in this area."
The exact details of the attack are difficult to the make out owing to the remoteness of the region but park rangers said a group of at least 200 rebels, commanded by a man known as Jackson, launched an assault against three posts in the Mount Tshiaberimu area of Virunga.
One ranger was killed and thirteen people were taken hostage and later released.
A separate report said that shortly after the attack, the wife of one of the rangers, Katungu Kayisumbirwa, died while giving birth to her sixth child.
The remote patrol posts at Mount Tshiaberimu protect a tiny population of just 21 gorillas, who some scientists say are a unique sub-species of the Eastern lowland gorillas.
Conservationists are particularly concerned that the type of rebel violence more common in the southern regions of the Virunga National Park may now be spreading further north.
"This is a major tragedy for this unique set of gorillas," said Greg Cummings, executive director of the Gorilla Organization, one of the first conservation groups to begin operating in the Mount Tshiaberimu region.
"This group is particularly distinctive. They are smaller in size than normal mountain gorillas, have jet black shaggy hair and beautiful long noses almost like a mandril."
Despite the threat issued by the rebels to target the gorillas if there are any reprisals, the DRC government has sent two of its elite ranger units to hunt down the armed group.
The Mai Mai group has been known to target the park's animals in the past but not all attacks are conducted by rebel groups.
Disgruntled locals, forced from their land when the national park was created, and poachers have also been known to attack park rangers.
More than 120 rangers have been killed by rebel groups over the past ten years and some have begun arguing that the DRC needs to take a tougher stance against armed groups in the region.
But the Gorilla Organization says the increasingly gung ho attitude taken by some conservation groups and elements within the government to the rebels risks inflaming an already tense situation and could have a catastrophic effect on the local gorilla populations.
"Sending gun-toting paratroopers to hunt down these rebels is ripping a hole out of the last ten year's conservation work," said Greg Cummings.
"There are more than 10 million people within the Congo basin and there are real population conflicts within the protected areas. I'm blaming us conservationists just as much as anyone else for not spotting growing tension within the local population but this macho approach to policing the park is not the way to do it."
Virunga National Park was established as Africa's first national park in 1925.
It was placed on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in danger in 1994 after up to 1.5million refugees fled from Rwanda during the genocide.
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