Latest Okapi Stories

Plan to Build Upon Legacy Established by Howard Gilman YULEE, Fla., March 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The Howard Gilman Foundation announced that it has completed the sale of White Oak, a 7,400-acre wildlife conservation facility, resort and conference center, to Mark and Kimbra Walter, whose philanthropy already supports conservation and wildlife programs across North America. The Walters intend to continue and expand the internationally renowned wildlife sustainability programs that...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online New statistics show that the elephant population in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has declined by 37 percent in the last five years. According to wildlife surveys by the Wildlife Conservation Society and DRC officials, only 1,700 elephants now remain in the DRC, which holds the largest remaining forest elephant population. Scientists at WCS warn that if people continue to poach forest elephants in DRC, then the species...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., June 25, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Early in the morning on Sunday, Simba rebels (Mai Mai) attacked the Institute in Congo for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN) and headquarters for the Okapi Wildlife Reserve near the village of Epulu in the northeastern area of the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the Okapi Conservation Project, at least five guards were killed, and destruction of buildings and looting has occurred. Fighting his way past the...

Humans play a far greater role in the fate of African elephants than habitat, and human conflict in particular has a devastating impact on these largest terrestrial animals, according to a new University of British Columbia study published online in PLoS ONE this week. In some of the best-documented cases to date, the study shows the elephant population in the Okapi Faunal Reserve – one of the last strongholds of forest elephants in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – saw a 50 per...

The Denver Zoo has welcomed its fifth baby okapi, the first of the species to be delivered at the zoo since December 2007. The okapi, the only surviving species closely related to the giraffe, is native to the Ituri Forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it is threatened by a long running civil war. The zoo announced Thursday the latest arrival, a female named Kalispell, was born June 27. At the moment, Kalispell is still in seclusion with her mother. The okapi, which stands about...

By Jerome Taylor A Pounds 70m plan to create one of the world's most radical zoos on the outskirts of Bristol is set to do for wildlife what the Eden Project did for plantlife. Jerome Taylor reports Walking through the thick jungle canopy of the Aceh rainforests, a troop of jealously territorial gibbons calls out from the tree tops with shouts that can be heard more than a kilometre away. Down past a row of traditional stilted long houses and beyond a seismic chasm, a family of critically...

Researchers confirmed the discovery of an African animal so secretive it was once believed to be a mythical unicorn has been caught on camera in the wild.Rare pictures of the wild Okapi were snagged with camera traps set by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) in the Democratic Republic of Congo.Measuring up to 8 feet in length and standing up to 6 feet at the shoulder, the okapi has striped legs that give the animal a superficial resemblance to a zebra but it is, in fact, a close relative...

Excerpt from report entitled "Nord Kivu: Cholera prevails in various health zones" published by DRCongo's UN-sponsored Radio Okapi website on 13 June Some 120 cholera cases, including six deaths were recorded between 21 May and today in various health zones, the provincial health inspection office said during an epidemiological meeting in Goma on Thursday [12 June]. Displaced persons are the most affected by the epidemic. [Passage omitted] Originally published by Radio Okapi website,...

BROOKFIELD, Ill. (AP) - The Brookfield Zoo announced this week the birth of a baby okapi - an endangered African animal that looks as if it were put together by committee.With a dark brown body and striped upper hind legs, the 1-month-old female looks a bit like a zebra, but claims closer ties to a giraffe. Her name, Sauda, means "dark beauty" in Swahili.Not yet on public display, except through a video feed from her quiet nesting area with her mother, baby Sauda will make her debut...

By Ed Stoddard JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Delighted conservationists said on Friday that they had found conclusive proof of the existence of a rare giraffe-like creature in Congo's Virunga National Park that has defied the odds of survival in a region battered by savage conflict. First discovered in what is now Virunga in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 1901, the shy forest-dwelling okapi had not been found in the park since 1959. It was known to be present elsewhere in the...