Can one baby gorilla rescued in Istanbul stop the deadly great ape traffic?

The Istanbul baby gorilla is one among thousands bootlegged out of war-torn central Africa

ISTANBUL,  Turkey––An approximately eight-month-old baby western lowland gorilla,  rescued from a coffin-like wooden crate on December 22,  2024 at the Istanbul Airport in Turkey,  may be the “missing link” between two of the other horrific stories in the news that day.

“Children executed and women raped in front of their families as M23 militia unleashes fresh terror on the Democratic Republic of Congo,”  headlined Guardian writer Mark Townsend from Goma,  DRC,  and Kigali,  Rwanda,  detailing the latest explosion of violence in western gorilla habitat.

The Thai connection

The other horrific story,  from Georgie English,  foreign news reporter for the British tabloid The Sun,  detailed how “One of the loneliest gorillas in the world is set to spend her 41st Christmas trapped in a tiny concrete cage” on an upper floor of the Pata Pinklao Department Store Zoo in Bangkok,  Thailand,  opened in 1983.

The then-infant male western lowland gorilla Bwana,  from his arrival in 1984,  was the star attraction.  But Bwana,  who died young,  was not Bua Noi,  the female western lowland gorilla who has been there since 1987.

Bua Noi,  imported from Equatorial Guinea,  has actually been at the Pata Pinklao Department Store Zoo for “only” 37 years,  according to Daniel Stiles,  a wildlife trafficking investigator who formerly worked with the late Esmond Martin to document the global trade in poached elephant ivory.

(See Who killed ivory trade investigator Esmond Martin, why?)

“Bua Noi” is widely believed to be the Thai iteration of the Swahili word bwana,  meaning “boss” or “master,”  whose name was changed from Bwana to Bua Noi around the time that “Bwana” fell into disrepute as a term associated with racist colonialism;  but neither Bua Noi nor Bwana were ever in their lives “boss” or “master” of anything.

“Bua Noi,”  Stiles and the Pata Pinklao Department Store Zoo management agree,  is a sound-alike term meaning “Little Lotus.”

The baby gorilla confiscated from traffickers at the Istanbul Airport,  Bwana,  and Bua Noi were captured from the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo,  at probable cost of the massacre of their parents and extended families,  who would have fought to try to save them,  and may have ended up in the cooking pots of soldiers,  loggers,  or miners.

Traded for guns & ammo?

All three western lowland babies may have been traded westward for guns and ammunition,  among other commodities in urgent need among the combatants and exploiters of central Africa.

Both Bwana and the baby gorilla rescued in Istanbul were likely flown out of Lagos,  Nigeria,  after passage by truck through the Central African Republic and Cameroon.

Bua Noi,  according to Stiles,  “was trafficked [to Thailand] from Equatorial Guinea,”  west of the DRC and south of  the Central African Republic and Cameroon.

The central African region,  bisected by the Congo River, has been wracked by recurring mayhem overtaking both apes and humans since 1885,  when King Leopold II of Belgium claimed it as the Congo Free State and ran it until 1908 as his own personal slave plantation without ever actually setting foot there.

Master Pongo

Even before Leopold,  gorilla exports had begun with Master Pongo,  shipped through Angola to Berlin in 1876.

Master Pongo,  however,  died at age three in November 1877,  after just a year in captivity.

The Bristol Zoo gorilla Alfred arrived at about age two in 1930.

Surviving until 1948,  Alfred’s popularity touched off 35 years of competition among zoos and private collectors worldwide to obtain gorillas.

The various United Nations member nations eventually adopted and ratified the 1975 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species,  putting gorillas off limits to commercial traffic,  but implementing the trade ban took more than a decade.

Gorillas In The Mist

The race to grab gorillas was actually intensified by the success of gorilla advocate Dian Fossey’s 1983 best-selling book Gorillas In The Mist and the 1988 film dramatization of the book,  starring Sigourney Weaver.

Together the book and film made saving gorillas an international cause celebre––and enabled zoos quick to cash in on gorilla notoriety to claim that every gorilla obtained by whatever clandestine illegal method arrived as a “rescue.”

Fossey blamed poachers for the decline of both mountain gorillas and western lowland gorillas throughout their habitat in the mountains of Rwanda,  Uganda,  and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Murder for minerals

This was accurate enough in close focus,  from Fossey’s perspective at the Karasoke research station in Rwanda,  but neither Fossey nor anyone else prominent at the time did much to expose the population pressures in overcrowded Rwanda,  the political pressures resulting from the murderous reign of dictator Idi Amin in Uganda,  1971-1979,  and the poverty and instability in the DRC that drove the poaching.

As Townsend explained in his December 21,  2024 Guardian exposé,  “Eastern DRC holds huge, widely coveted reserves of precious minerals.  The battle over billions of dollars worth of minerals, alongside the settling of old scores,  has plunged eastern DRC into near continuous conflict,”  gaining in ferocity since the 1994 massacre of at least 800,000 members of Tutsi tribe by members by Hutu tribe in Rwanda.

Génocidaires

Since then,  Townsend summarized,  “More than six million people are thought to have died and a similar number forced from a swathe of the DRC,  whose government has lost control in the east” to a multitude of militias,  of which M23 is currently the strongest.

“Shortly after the massacre,”  Townsend wrote,  after newly armed Tutsi survivors fought back,  “more than a million Hutus fled to DRC,  including many responsible for the slaughter.

“Twice,  Rwandans invaded their neighbor,  ostensibly to hunt down the génocidaires.

“In turn, Hutu militias linked to the carnage started to regroup,  plotting a return to Rwanda to seize power.  To counter this threat,  Rwanda began arming Tutsi militias – forerunners to the M23 – inside the DRC.”

Turkey tracked the flight

Meanwhile,  on the morning of December 21,  2024,  the Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah reported,  “Customs enforcement teams from the Ministry of Trade intercepted the attempt to smuggle” the rescued baby gorilla via Istanbul Airport.

“According to a statement from the ministry,”  the Daily Sabah said,  “the Customs Enforcement Smuggling & Intelligence Directorate at Istanbul Airport tracked a cage-type cargo shipment departing from Nigeria, destined for Bangkok,  Thailand,  as part of risk analysis efforts aimed at protecting wildlife and natural habitats.

“Upon inspection,  the team discovered that the cage,”  actually just a wooden box with air holes in the sides,  “contained a western gorilla,  a species listed under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora,  indicating her critically endangered status.

“Who ordered this animal?”

“The baby gorilla has been handed over to the relevant units of the Ministry of Agriculture & Forestry,”  the Daily Sabah finished.

As the baby gorilla cannot be safely repatriated back to her family,  probably long since massacred in her war-torn and politically unstable homeland,  she will probably be kept at one of the better of around a dozen public zoos in western Turkey.

From Bangkok,  Wildlife Friends Foundation of Thailand founder Edwin Wiek posted to Facebook,  “Who ordered this animal and who shipped her?  We need serious investigations going both ways!”

Replacement for Bua Noi?

A reasonable guess might be that the baby gorilla intercepted between flights in Istanbul might have been intended for delivery to the Pata Pinklao Department Store Zoo,  as a possible companion and eventual replacement for Bua Noi,  who is now in late middle age as gorillas go and in an unknown state of health.

Indeed,  the Pata Pinklao Department Store Zoo could reap a bonanza of naively favorable publicity by sending Bua Noi to a sanctuary before her eventual terminal decline,  with no loss of patronage if another gorilla occupies her cage.

“Even the environment minister of Thailand,  Varawut Silpa-archa,  has made clear he wishes to see Bua Noi moved to a sanctuary,”  wrote Georgie English.

“We collected donations from Bua Noi’s supporters. But the problem is that the owner refuses to sell Bua Noi,”  Varawut Silpa-archa told English.

“One of the worst zoos in the world”

“When he does agree to sell her,  the price is too high.  Bua Noi is considered private property so we cannot do anything to remove her,”  Varawut Silpa-archa said.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,  International Animal Rescue,  and the International Primate Protection League,  among others,  have campaigned unsuccessful for the Tahi government to close the Pata Pinklao Department Store Zoo and rescue Bua Noi almost since her arrival from the DRC by way of Germany at approximately age one.

“Pata Zoo is not only home to the somber gorilla,  but also more than 200 other animal species including tigers,  bears,  and pythons,”  wrote English.

“Many of the animals live in similar conditions to Bua,  in what Jason Baker,  PETA senior vice president for Asia,  calls “one of the worst zoos in the world.”

Another baby gorilla died at the Pata Zoo

In August 2017 a grossly erroneous but internationally distributed news story, originating from a careless headline above an otherwise accurate report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation,  announced that Bua Noi and the other Pata Zoo animals would be freed from what Baker calls “pitifully small, barren enclosures,”  on the sixth and seventh floors of the shabby shopping center tower,  “denied sunshine,  fresh air,  and opportunities to exercise or engage in behavior that is meaningful to them.”

Some premature “victory” announcements followed,  but nothing actually changed.

Subsequent to Bua Noi’s arrival,  a 2009 Asian Animal Protection Network posting from U.S. gorilla rescuer Jane DeWar mentioned that,  “Some time ago a baby gorilla was acquired by the Pata Zoo,”  as an intended companion for Bua Noi,  “but died shortly after.”

Sister Zira?

Bwana,  the predecessor to Bua Noi at the Pata Zoo,  appears to have been captured and exported from the DRC around the same time as another female baby western lowland gorilla named Zira.

International Primate Protection League founder Shirley McGreal learned in mid-1983 that Zira had been exported from Cameroon to the Granby Zoo in Quebec.

The zoo had obtained a permit for the transaction,  as required by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species,  but McGreal contended that the permit was issued in violation of the intent of CITES,  if not in violation of the actual letter of the treaty.

Zira meanwhile contracted avian influenza from the exotic birds with whom she was housed. McGreal asked Quebec newspaper columnist Bernard Epps to expose Zira’s plight.

Epps,  who died in July 2007,  passed the assignment to then-Sherbrooke Record farm and business reporter Merritt Clifton,  now coeditor with his wife Beth Clifton of ANIMALS 24-7.

Epps wrote supporting commentary while Clifton produced a series of exposés that culminated in a complete change of the Granby Zoo management and the transfer of Zira to the Toronto Zoo,  where she was restored to health and raised with other young gorillas.

(See International Primate Protection League founder Shirley McGreal, 87.)

“Highly organized criminal activity”

Meanwhile,  warned Eric Kaba Tah of the German organization Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfe,  citing cases from the 2005-2012 time frame,   “In recent years, the trafficking of Afri­ca’s apes has evolved into a highly organized criminal activity, demonstrated by the manner in which powerful traffickers use their perfected operational skill to run the illicit trade alongside other illegal ac­tivity such as the trade in drugs.

“The connection between drugs and wildlife trafficking,  and increasing prices for wildlife products,”  Eric Kaba Tah wrote,  “are attracting criminal syndicates with vast experience in organized crime,  as is typical for drug syndicates.”

Agrees Natasha Tworoski of the Pan-African Sanctuary Association,  via the PASA website,  “The great ape crisis is rapidly escalating.  Eastern gorillas,  western chimpanzees,  and Bornean orangutans were recently downgraded from endangered to critically endangered,  joining Sumatran orangutans and Western gorillas.  Other chimpanzee subspecies,  as well as bonobos, are currently listed as endangered.

Apes Seizure Database

“The United Nations Environment Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre and the Great Apes Survival Partnership [GRASP] have created an Apes Seizure Database in order to get a more thorough understanding of how the specific threat of ape smuggling is currently affecting great apes,”  Tworoski wrote.

Through GRASP,  Tworoski said,  “1,800 great apes seized in illegal live traffic since 2005 were uncovered who had previously not been counted in international databases,  such as those managed by CITES.

“How could the numbers be so under-reported?  The majority of seizures,  over 90%,  took place within national borders and therefore were not counted by international conservation organizations.

“Now that Eastern gorillas,  Western chimpanzees and Bornean orangutans have been downgraded from endangered to critically endangered,”  Tworoski predicted,  “the next step will be extinction.”

Prices for great apes have quadrupled

Updated Rachel Nuwer for National Geographic on May 9,  2023,  “Working with a network of undercover investigators and informants,  Daniel Stiles found that advertisements for live baby great apes are on the rise on WhatsApp and social media.

“Since 2015,”  Nuwer wrote,  “Stiles documented 593 ads for great apes posted by 131 individuals in 17 countries.  Prices for the animals have quadrupled compared to a decade ago,  with chimps now selling for up to $100,000,  bonobos for up to $300,000,  and gorillas for up to $550,000.

Rising demand from China

“Most of the African apes go to China,  Pakistan,  Libya,  or the Gulf States—especially the United Arab Emirates—where they become pets or,  increasingly, attractions at private zoos.

“Some 10,000 zoos opened in China between 2013 and 2020,  nearly doubling the total number,  Stiles reports.

The 23-member Pan African Sanctuary Association and Stiles were severely critical,  to Nuwer,  of alleged Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species [CITES] indifference toward the escalating great ape trade.

Summarized Nuwer,  citing Stiles,  “Representatives from Niger,  Ivory Coast,  Kenya,  and Uganda did attempt to create a CITES working group dedicated to great apes, in 2014 and 2016. But these requests,  Stiles says,  were ‘refused’ by the CITES representative chairing the meeting.

(See Who killed ivory trade investigator Esmond Martin, why?)

“Threatening the survival of our closest relatives”

Iris Ho,  representing the Pan African Sanctuary Association,  told Nuwer that  “In March 2022,”  Nuwer continued,  “Gabon,  supported by Senegal,  Guinea and Nigeria, requested—to no avail—that great apes be put on the agenda for CITES.  She says the U.S. also emphasized the importance of paying attention to this issue.”

Cautioned Stiles,  “If the international community does not begin to take great ape trafficking seriously,  it will continue to grow,  threatening the survival of our closest relatives.”

The baby gorilla rescued in Istanbul on December 21,  2024 brought global attention to great ape trafficking.

But only time will tell whether one baby gorilla can turn the great ape trafficking crisis around.

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