Posts Tagged ‘Congo’

Mar
21

Houston Aeros Cell Phone Drive

Posted by in Animal Origins & Fun Facts,Central America,Chimpanzee,community-based conservation,Conservation,Endangered Species,Gorilla,What You Can Do

Spring Break is probably the busiest week of the year for many of us. The zoo is full of visiting guests, families are traveling and the Houston Aeros Hockey Team played 6 home games in 8 nights.

Not only did the Houston Aeros win 5 of those 6 home games, they also assisted the Houston Zoo in our most successful recycled cell phone collection drive ever! Just for general reference, the zoo collected nearly 1,200 phones in 2011. During the week of March 10-18 of this year – the Houston Aeros collected 758 phones before their games at the Toyota Center!

Looks like someone just recycled Edward from Twilight. Score one for Team Jacob

Help Wildlife in the Congo:

Why recycle your cell phone? First, it can help the environment by recycling hazardous waste but it also may help animals in the wild. Columbite-tantalite, or Coltan for short, is a dull metallic ore found in major quantities in the eastern areas of the African Congo. It is used in cell phones, laptops, pagers and other electronic devices. When refined, coltan becomes metallic tantalum, a heat resistant powder that can hold a high electrical charge.  Some types of Coltan mining may occur illegally in protected lands all across the Congo which in turn put wildlife such as Elephants and Gorillas of the Congo region at risk. Eighty percent of the world’s known coltan supply is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There, it is mined by hand by groups of men digging basins in streams, scraping away dirt to get to the muddy coltan underneath. Recycling unused cell phones can help protect the wildlife, since reuse of the phones results in the need for fewer new ones, which reduces the need for coltan mining.
 
Donate your cell phone to the Houston Zoo and the Zoo will have it recycled ensuring that most of these cell phones and their accessories will be reused or properly disposed of.
 
A big thank you to the Houston Aeros and Aeros staff for all their help and support for the Houston Zoo. There are 7 more home games before the season ends on April 15th and the Houston Aeros start their playoff run to the Calder Cup Trophy. Check out their schedule and support Aeros hockey.

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Nov
18

Procrasti-Nation and Cell Phone Recycling

Posted by in Africa,Chimpanzee,community-based conservation,Conservation,Endangered Species,Featured,Going Green,Gorilla,What You Can Do

Have you ever asked yourself: What are all these broken cell phones doing in the  drawer?  And then your “other” voice says:  They are not really in the way, I’ll throw them out later.

I had a friend bring me a bag of 6 phones and chargers last week. They were in a box in his garage for 2 years. 6 phones? There are 2 people in his family! We cannot keep up with the cell phone revolution and our landfills should not have to either. To make matters worse, every phone not recovered and recycled is equal to minerals and resources coming directly out of the African Congo. Everyone says – “What can we do?”. Here is what you can do and it really makes a difference.

Bring your cell phone to the zoo for recycling and help save wildlfe, and people, in Africa. Civil wars and rebel groups thrive on the illegal trade in the resources which make our phones,  laptops, digital cameras, and video games run. There is a mineral in our phones called coltan and it acts as a capacitor in your phone. Armed groups in eastern Congo that control minerals, mines and trading routes generate an estimated $180 million each year by trading four main minerals: tin, tantalum (colton), tungsten, and gold.

And with these groups comes habitat destruction, illegal poaching and bushmeat, as well as the loss of human life due to the civil unrest. Something as simple as a cell phone has created a power struggle over resources. By recycling that resource so that it can be refurbished and re-used, we cut down on the amount of product imported, and hopefully slow down the trade.

Want to start a company wide collection program? Schools, Scout troops? Wildlife can use everyone’s help. Contact conservation@houstonzoo.org for more information.

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Jun
29

Mountain Gorilla: through mud, hills, more mud…

Posted by in Africa,Endangered Species,Gorilla

Three days ago (for those of you with short-term memory loss) I noted that the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project (MGVP) wildlife veterinarians and staff  have some of the most difficult jobs, and most rewarding jobs in the profession. Dr. Jan Ramer, MGVP ‘s Regional Veterinary Manager gives us a brief glimpse into how catching up with a Mountain Gorilla group is not as easy as a stroll in the park:

We got a call from trackers that Agahozo, a 5 year old male gorilla in Pablo group, was coughing and staying behind the group. This is the season when we begin to worry about respiratory disease in the gorillas – the end of the rainy season. It has been rainy and cool recently, and Pablo group is very high on the volcano so it is very cold where they live. We were concerned. Dr. Jean Felix went up to assess Agahozo last Thursday and while he was coughing a bit, and moving a bit slowly, he was not in a life threatening situation. We decided to wait it out, getting reports from the field daily. Unfortunately the next day news was not good – Agahozo had a wound on his neck that smelled bad and was he was far behind the group.

Pablo group has 47 individuals with 3 silverbacks including Cantsbe, one of the oldest and wisest silverbacks in the area. We needed to be very careful. Dr. Magda, Dr. Jean Felix, Dr. Fred and I headed up to the group early the next morning along with Joel from Karisoke and many very experienced trackers. Of course if we decided to do an intervention once we got to the group and re-assessed Agahozo, we would all be garbed in masks and gloves, to protect both ourselves and gorillas from any exchange of disease.

It was a long, difficult climb. We trudged up the slopes of Visoke for over 5 hours, through mud up to our knees and beyond, up and down steep, muddy ravines, over a raging river, finally finding the group above the tree line (above 10,000 feet), eating on either side of a deep ravine. I was exhausted – I had not been in the forest for almost a month, and had not yet re-acclimated to the altitude. Drs. Magda and Jean Felix were in the advance team (I was definitely in the rear guard…) and the reports were good – Agahozo was bright and alert, in the middle of the group, behaving normally and feeding well! No coughing at all. He was cleaning a wound on his neck that looked to be an abscess that had ruptured – no wonder he felt better! After a brief meeting with everyone involved we decided that there was not a good reason for any intervention. We were all relieved, and started the long walk back to the truck. That day I didn’t even see a gorilla.

So you are saying to yourself, the team climbed for 5 hours at an altitude of 10,000, at times through knee deep mud, and she did not even get to see a gorilla! And, yes, they then had to climb back down the same way they came. Visit the complete MGVP update here and scroll down to May 2010 which includes numerous photos and videos from the months event as well as the highs and lows of everyday life for the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Team.

Mountain Gorilla Susa Group photo courtesy S. Kaufman

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