Category Archives: Okapi

Okapi, Striped Enigma – We looked West, She stepped East

Junior placing a camera trap. It was the 15th of December 2016. Junior Amboko was in the Mpechi forest between the Lualaba and the Lomami Rivers. He was downloading videos from camera traps: Junior: “When I opened the video and saw the okapi, I could not believe it was real. I watched it twice. Went […]

Morgan is Dead! What follows for Congo’s Forests?

Morgan (with gun) and some of his men in a gold camp in the Ituri in 2013. Last Saturday (April 12th), Morgan (alias Paul Sadala) with more than forty of his men, all armed, came out of the forest and presented themselves to the local authorities at Badengaido, a small village 50 km west of […]

Okapi Attack Sends Shock Waves through the Ituri Forest

The picture was taken more than a year ago by Kim Gjerstad. This Okapi was shot dead a week ago. At 5 o’clock Sunday morning, the 24th of June, at least 50 men, mostly naked and draped in leaves entered Epulu, the headquarters of the Okapi Faunal Reserve, a World Heritage Site in the Ituri […]

Bicycle Trip to the Top of the World

where a National Park should be. View from the wrinkled brow of an inselberg. The last decade has been hard on the Okapi Reserve. Illegal Miners. Poachers! The elephant population was nearly cut in half during the first years of this century. Even the solitary Okapi was heavily poached. Rosmarie Ruf has been caring for […]