Posted by By CHIDI NNADI, Abuja on
Nigerians and representatives of the United Nations will be in Calabar tomorrow, Sunday, June 5, to mark the liberation of orphaned monkeys, whose mothers where killed for food by poachers.
Nigerians and representatives of the United Nations will be in Calabar tomorrow, Sunday, June 5, to mark the liberation of orphaned monkeys, whose mothers where killed for food by poachers.
To make this project and proposal real, the campaigners and champions of this project of rehabilitating orphaned monkeys plan to set up a rehabilitation centre where the baby monkeys would be taken care of.
Although, world environmentalist have made spirited effort to stop the killing of such mammals, the killers continually argue that it is not wrong to kill them for food, since they are not human beings but monkeys
CERCOPAN, a non-governmental organization based in Calabar, is organising the event as part of this year's world Environment Day.
In CERCOPAN's parlance, the primates were called orphans, since they were captured as a result of the killing of their mothers by hunters, but in reality, they were monkeys kept by the NGO for tourists, as endangered species.
"CERCOPAN provides safe haven to orphaned monkeys that have been victims of habitat loss, and the ever-increasing bush meat trade", Mr Jerry Akparawa, the Senior Education Officer of CERCOPAN explained while fielding questions on the forth-coming event.
Apart from keeping them for tourist attraction, the NGO said it was rehabilitating the monkeys by providing them with an environment that they will find comfortable as their natural habitat.
According to him, the CERCOPAN was prepared to mark the 2005 world Environment Day, beginning with a carnival in the Cross River State capital, while the occasion will be flagged-off by the Chairman of the State House of Assembly Committee on environment, Alhaji Mikhail Asuquo.
While monkeys and other wild animals had been staple food in some homes, Akparawa said the 2005 world Environment Day is aimed to stop people from eating bush meat, since some are found to be become harmful to the body.
In his words, "this year, CERCOPAN is highlighting the sub-theme: ‘Bush meat can be dangerous meat'.
"Current researches have shown that, besides the negative impact to the forest and the extinction of animals, zoonotic viruses are fast jumping from wild animals to human beings", he warned.