For a while Bibisi clung to the lifeless body of her mother. The one-year-old infant kept tugging gently at her fur, trying desperately to wake her. But the poachers had no time for Bibisi's desperate efforts.

They tore the little gorilla from her mother's breast and dragged her kicking and screaming into the depths of the jungle, well-pleased with their morning's work. Bibisi would fetch at least $100,000 from a private collector.

The other gorillas looked on helplessly at the bloody aftermath of the poacher's raid on the clearing. Two of their number had been gunned-down as they tried to rescue Bibisi. One lay in a pool of blood, panting out her last breaths. The other, hit by two bullets, was trying desperately to climb a tree to safety.

Bibisi - named after the BBC crew who filmed her first days of life back in 2000 for the television series 'Cousins' - was one of only 650 mountain gorillas left in Africa. Found only in Rwanda and the Congo, they are the original 'Gorillas in the Mist' studied by Dian Fossey, the American naturalist played by Sigourney Weaver in the acclaimed film.

Bibisi's mother, Muraha, was even named by Fossey, who watched her birth. Now, 100 years after their discovery, the gorillas' very existence is threatened by an upsurge in poaching in the lawless border between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Experts reporting in the scientific journal Nature recently warned that these charming and beautiful creatures will be virtually extinct within a decade.

Already the lowland gorillas, which live just 60 miles away, have been slaughtered to the edge of extinction. Three years ago they numbered 17,000. Now there are less than 2,000. Nature reports that they are being slaughtered for food, their jungle home logged for timber, and the ground beneath their feet mined for precious minerals such as coltan. Their dwindling population is also falling prey to the deadly disease Ebola.

'We do our best to protect the gorillas,' says Dr Tony Mudakikwa, one of the vets who cares for the wild gorillas in Rwanda's Volcanoes' National Park. 'But if a private collector is willing to pay $100,000 for a baby gorilla then someone will try to capture one. Some will succeed. It's a serious problem for us.'

Dr Mudakikwa was the first person on the scene after Bibisi's abduction. He immediately dispatched teams to pursue the poachers and then began following the trail of blood from a gorilla wounded during Bibisi's abduction.

He quickly caught up with the gorilla only to find that she was dead. But to his amazement, Dr Mudakikwa saw a baby gorilla nestling under her arm and trying to suckle on her mother's breast.

'She was terrified when she saw me,' he says. 'But she was too frightened and weak to know what to do. I could feel her shaking when I lifted her up and took her back to the group.'

He named her Ubuzima, which means 'life' in the local dialect. To his surprise, the other gorillas instantly took on the role of collective mum. They began gathering the tastiest and sweetest fruit for Ubuzima and showed her how to peel and eat it. They all took it in turns to cuddle and groom her. Not for a second was she left alone.
 
That night the gorillas built a special nest for the baby and Ubuzima's brother and another silverback male snuggled up with her.

'I spent the whole night keeping watch over Ubuzima but it soon became obvious that she no longer needed me,' says Dr Mudakikwa.

Ubuzima was luckier than Bibisi who is still missing despite intensive efforts by Dr Mudakikwa and the Rwandan Police to find her. She is thought to have been taken to the town of Goma, just over the border in the Congo.

Goma is the true heart of darkness: a place where people come from all over Africa to trade weapons, diamonds and valuable minerals like coltan - and increasingly - baby gorillas.

'There are rumours that a group of middle-eastern businessmen wanted to buy a baby gorilla,' says Dr Mudakikwa.

'We know that a man from the Middle East was in the town a few days before Bibisi's abduction. He left shortly after. We have also heard that a German who operates out of Nairobi may have acted as an intermediary. Again we have no hard evidence but the two seem connected in some way.'Several witnesses saw a group of men loading a packing case on to the back of a white pick-up truck. One of the witnesses said he heard the cries of an animal and the truck was then seen leaving Goma at high speed in the direction of Uganda, 100 miles to the south.

At the border there was another sighting of Bibisi's abductors. One of the men was seen with a syringe and a long needle. He apparently climbed onto the back of the pick-up truck, pulled back a tarpaulin and injected an animal. Whether it was Bibisi or not nobody knows.Smuggling a baby gorilla over the border to Uganda would not have been a problem. The border guards have not been paid for three years and a few dollars will ease any passage across the border.

From Uganda it is likely that Bibisi would have been flown to the Middle East by private plane from a small airfield in the jungle. And if she survived the trip, the little gorilla, torn from her family and the wild and beautiful environment she was born into, is now most likely the prime exhibit in a private collection of the world's rarest and most endangered species.

"We can save the last gorillas," says Dr Mudakikwa. "But the local people have to see some benefit from them through tourism and other industries. If they don't, then they will continue to be tempted by the vast amounts of money foreign collectors are willing to pay for gorillas - both dead and alive. Their future is in the hands of the rich world."

To find out more about the plight Rwanda's ‘gorillas in the mist' visit www.gorillas.org
 

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