A DRC wildlife protection group has vowed not to rest until the perpetrators responsible for the kidnapping of three baby chimpanzees earlier this month face prosecution.
“It’s so sad to announce that two of the three kidnapped baby chimps at the sanctuary [Jeunes Animaux Confisques au Katanga (JACK)/ Young Animals Confiscated in Katanga] were initially rescued by the team @ConservC in Kinshasa. This is a setback in our work and no stone shall be left unturned until culprits are prosecuted!” Conserv Congo founder Adams Cassinga tweeted on Saturday.
The activist urged the International Primate Protection League, US, European, British and Dutch diplomats, the Olsen Animal Trust and National Geographic to become interested in the case.
In an interview with Mongabay News earlier this week, the founder of the anti-poaching, anti-wildlife trafficking group expressed astonishment over the brazen kidnapping, saying the incident was “very rare,” and the first of its kind that he’d ever heard of. “These criminals have taken wildlife crime to an entirely new level. And it demands that law enforcement agents step up their games as well,” Cassinga said.
JACK founder Franck Chantereau told media that the kidnappers got hold of the chimps after breaking into the rehabilitation center at about 3am on 9 September, and subsequently sent messages and a video threatening to kill the primates, who are between two and five-years old, unless a six-figure ransom was paid.
The kidnapped chimps are named Cesar, Hussein and Monga.
“It is a nightmare…it was a disaster,” Chantereau said. “We have faced a lot of challenges for 18 years now. But we have never experienced anything like this: the kidnapping of apes. They also threatened to kidnap my own kids and wife,” the animal lover said.
“Obviously, it is impossible for us to pay the ransom,” Chantereau said in a separate interview with CNN on Friday. “Not only do we not have the money, but you need to understand that if we go their way, they could very well do it again in two months, and also we have no guarantee that they will return the [chimps] to us,” he explained.
The sanctuary owner added that paying the ransom could put 23 other primate sanctuaries across Africa at risk. JACK provides sanctuary to about 40 chimpanzees and 64 other primates, and is one of three ape sanctuaries in the DRC.
Chantereau's wife Roxane, who runs JACK with him, said she was “quite sure” that the perpetrators were connected to their staff somehow. “I still hope the babies are alive. They had been through so much trauma before we rescued them. We were so happy we could finally offer them a better life. But human greed has again changed the course of their life and brought them to deep trauma again,” she said, speaking to The Mail.
A spokesman for DRC’s environment ministry called the abduction “inhumane and unnatural”, and vowed that Kinshasa “will not give in to this kind of demand”. The spokesman confirmed that this "chimpnapping" is “the first of its kind in the history of the DRC”.
Financial Incentive
Chantereau stressed that catching baby chimps in the wild is no easy task: poachers first have to kill up to 10 apes who will form a defense to protect their young, and then many babies die before they can be sold to wealthy collectors who keep exotic animals. Chimpanzees go for between $15,000 and $70,000 on the international black market. The global animal-trafficking industry is estimated to bring criminals around $22Bln in profits every year.
JACK has been attacked before, with the sanctuary’s education center set on fire in September 2013. Shortly after the sanctuary’s founding in 2006, unidentified antagonists broke into the estate and set its baby chimps’ sleeping quarters on fire, killing two.
The "chimpnapping" is the second reported act of violence against an animal welfare organization in DRC this month after a suspected arson attack on the APPACOL-PRN in Lodja. The Congolese NGO raises awareness of animal trafficking, confiscates the body parts of protected animals killed by traffickers, and regularly works with JACK.