In February 1978 the story broke in Europe and America of the killing of Digit, a wild mountain gorilla known by millions outside Rwanda through his appearance on television with Dr Dian Fossey, the American zoologist who has been studying gorillas in the Virunga Volcanoes for eleven years. FPS immediately set up an appeal for funds, to protect the gorillas. This was promoted by the Sunday Times and collected nearly £8000, some from school conservation clubs sending all their savings. Encouraged by this splendid response FPS decided to launch a major Mountain Gorilla Project to help Rwanda to guard the gorillas and the Parc National des Volcans. The goal is £50,000.

But before this could be launched, FPS, working in close association with WWF, needed up-to-date information on the situation in Rwanda and decided to send a small mission to report. The members were Professor Kai Curry-Lindahl, FPS Vice President, world-renowned scientist and conservationist who has worked in the Virungas at intervals since 1952 and knows the problems, especially on the Zaire side; Dr A.H. Harcourt, Coordinator of the Mountain Gorilla Project, who studied gorillas for two years in the Virungas and knew Digit well, and Brian Jackman, whose story in the Sunday Times on the death of Digit was mainly responsible for the money so far donated. They arrived in Rwanda in early August to be greeted with the news that two more gorillas of Dian Fossey's study groups, including “Uncle Bert”, had been killed. They spent a week on their mission, and extracts from their report to FPS are printed below. Since Sabena Airlines very generously backed the mission, travel expenses were minimal and none came out of the Mountain Gorilla Fund. The following are extracts from the Mission's report.

At its 30th meeting, in London in June 1978, the International Whaling Commission began to stumble towards its end as a useful regulator of the whale stocks of the world. In classic Parkinsonian style, it has acquired a full-time secretariat and new offices just at the point when, after thirty years' neglect of its duty to conserve the whale stocks of the world, it has almost no function left. Only the sperm whale stocks remain as anything like the basis of a prosperous whaling industry. Small-scale local coastal whale fisheries will no doubt continue for some years; being less efficient, they take longer to exterminate the stocks on which they depend for their livelihood.

The Arabian oryx may now be extinct in the wild. If so it was exterminated by hunters in four-wheel drive vehicles using automatic weapons. Fortunately the species has bred well in captivity thanks largely to the 1962 FPS Operation Oryx, and now animals bred in the USA are becoming available for return to the wild where practicable. Jordan has already embarked on such a project, and Oman, home of the last oryx herds in Arabia, is now planning to release oryx in the Jiddat al Harasis, a vast stony plateau where the last known wild Arabian oryx were killed. In February 1977, at the request of the Oman Government, Dr Jungius, as Director of WWF's Department of Conservation, made a feasibility study, from the report of which the following article is extracted, followed up by a more detailed investigation in March 1978. One most encouraging aspect of the scheme is that the Harasis people regard the oryx as their tribal property. They want the oryx to return, and are prepared to guard them.

In western Spain, especially in Extremadura, the typical Mediterranean flora and fauna are more abundant, both in species and numbers, than almost anywhere else in the Mediterranean region. For Europe’s birds of prey it is a key area. But all, especially the birds of prey, are gravely threatened, despite excellent protection laws, by reafforestation (with eucalyptus and pines) and industrial development destroying their habitats. The authors, who spent a total of ten months between 1970 and 1977 studying the birds of prey in the region, stress the urgent need to protect at least some of this superb country, which includes primeval cork oak forests and natural vegetation undisturbed by man.

Isla Coiba off Panama's Pacific coast still has one of the country's finest stands of tropical forest, with abundant wildlife. With the threat of logging never far away the authors suggest it should be made a national park.

In Mato Grosso, Brazil, the authors found what may be the largest marsh deer population in South America, numbering possibly as many as 7000 animals. But it is seriously threatened, following three bad breeding seasons, 1975–77, attributable, they suspect, to disease, perhaps brucellosis which is common in the cattle of the area. Heavy flooding has also taken a toll. The marsh deer is already listed in the Red Data Book as a threatened species.

I visited the Galibi Nature Reserve in Surinam, probably one of the most easily accessible turtle reserves for visitors in the world, in the first week of June 1978, accompanied by the resident warden, George Plak.

In 1972 the Tayrona National Park, on Colombia's Caribbean coast, was suddenly threatened with a multi-million-dollar tourist complex to be built within the park boundaries. But Colombians in thousands objected to the plan–over 50,000 signed a petition to the Government. Eventually, in 1976, a presidential decree permanently excluded the proposed tourist development from Tayrona, a victory for conservation that the author believes could have resounding effects in Latin America.

The author spent two months in 1977 studying conservation problems in Maui, in the Hawaiian Islands, especially those of the nene goose project. Captive breeding has been successful in saving this species, and over 400 birds have been released on Maui, but predation and habitat destruction by introduced goats, pigs, rats and mongooses are preventing the geese from building up these wild populations.

In Colombia, despite the protection laws, illegal trade in wildlife products, especially articles made from endangered species, continues in Colombia. The laws are adequate; the difficulty is enforcement. The author, a graduate student in ecology at Rutgers University, USA, describes what he found during a day spent visiting tourist shops where wildlife products were displayed for sale.

The swamps and rivers of Papua New Guinea still have large numbers of both freshwater and saltwater crocodiles, and the Government is fully aware of the value of this resource and committed to conserving it. Both crocodile species can be successfully bred in captivity, but an attempt to establish village crocodile farms, where crocodiles would be raised from eggs laid on the farm as distinct from raising captured young wild animals, was not economically attractive to villagers. So farm breeding continues as a research project, while in the villages the aim is to achieve wise utilisation and conservation of the wild stocks.

Experiments in domesticating fringe-eared oryx on a Kenya ranch suggest they could be an economic proposition in semi-arid areas, where domestic cattle can only be kept for a few months each year. Oryx have also proved superior to eland, at one time believed to be the most promising wild ungulate for domestication, largely because they feed by day, whereas in this climate eland feed at night, a time when domesticated animals have to be penned to protect them from predators, notably lions.

Part One of this survey of the three gorilla races—western lowland, eastern lowland and volcano—was published in the last Oryx (June 1978) and covered the western lowland gorillas. Eastern lowland and volcano are discussed below.

Nigerian people eat meat mainly from wild animals, and the strawcoloured fruit bat is a popular meat in the south-west, where colonies may number a million animals. But the killing methods are inefficient and wasteful, and no management of the populations is attempted. The author suggests there is need to improve the former and embark on the latter if this valuable resource is to be conserved.