Nairobi/Douala - Four rare gorillas who were smuggled into Malaysia are being flown back to their home in Cameroon Friday after five years in exile, a wildlife conservation group said. Abbey, Tinu, Oyin and Izan, the single male of the group, were smuggled to the Taiping Zoo in Malaysia in 2002 using false papers but the operation was foiled by the Malaysian government, which sent them back through South Africa two years later.
They have since been in a South African zoo, awaiting their homecoming plans to be finalized. They boarded a Kenya Airways plane early Friday.
"The message is that these gorillas are important. Illegal wildlife trade is wrong and wildlife should live in their own natural habitat," said Elizabeth Wamba, a spokeswoman for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which organized the return.
The Western Lowland gorilla numbers no more than 100,000 and the species was recently upgraded to critically endangered.
Poaching and illegal animal trade is rife in many parts of Africa, with many animals sent to Asia.
