The popularly named “Taiping 4 Gorillas” are set to return to Cameroon in the early hours of Friday morning (30 November 2007).

The return will effectively mark the end of a five-year saga surrounding the four gorillas (a male and three females) that have made international headlines ever since they were found to have been smuggled to the Taiping Zoo in Malaysia using forged documents in 2002. The gorillas were subsequently confiscated by the Malaysia government and sent for safekeeping to National Zoological Gardens of South Africa in Pretoria.

“Although the exact circumstances of how the Taiping 4 gorillas were originally captured as infants remain unclear, what is clear is that trade in endangered species and violating the rules of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is fast leading to the extinction of entire species,” said Christina Pretorius of International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW – www.ifaw.org).

The return of the gorillas marks a watershed moment for cooperation between the governments of South Africa, Cameroon and Malaysia, the international NGO community represented by IFAW, and civil society, who have worked closely to resolve the issue of the T4.

Ends