20. Hippos in trouble
Hippos in trouble
One of the world's biggest hippo in the Democratic Republic of Congo extinction as poachers and armed factions kill them for their meat and teeth, nature body WWF International said Friday.
The Swiss-based body said it was "deeply " about a new census showing the hippo numbers in the Virunga National Park 95 percent to around 1,300 from 29,000 less than 30 years ago.
"WWF is worried that unless trade is controlled and poaching is stopped, hippos will be threatened with extinction," said Susan Liebermann, Director of the World Wide Fund for Nature's International Species Program.
The park, a world heritage site on Congo's eastern border, was at the heart of factional fighting which until this year prevented both the WWF and the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature, which the census, from working in significant areas, WWF said.
But the group expressed that a peace deal signed in April to end four years of bloodshed in Africa's third biggest country would allow the government to put in place proper planning and management of the country's natural .
WWF urged authorities in Congo to work with conservation groups to protect the mountain gorilla also found in the park, and halt the slaughter of hippos "in shocking numbers" as for their teeth increased in the illegal ivory trade.