The Week Junior - UK (2022-03-19)

10 The Week Junior • 19 March 2022

Animals and the environment

Electronic gadgets are useful but when they break

or get replaced it’s easy to end up with a collection

of old cables and devices. Recycling electronic

waste, or “e-waste”, doesn’t just clear out your

clutter – it also helps the planet by cutting down

on the amount of rubbish we create and by reusing

valuable materials that devices contain.

The next four weeks are a great time to clear

out your e-waste because from 17 March the

environmental organisations Wastebuster and

Recycle Your Electricals are running a Hidden

Treasure Hunt competition. With support from

Currys and Microsoft, the aim is to encourage

schools and communities to recycle their e-waste.

Take your e-waste to a Currys store and you’ll

receive a Cash for Trash voucher for your family.

Then register your contribution to help your school

win a bundle of new Microsoft tech. You can find

out more about the scheme and how to get

involved by visiting hiddentreasurehunt.org

Time to clear out

electronic clutter.

COLLECT YOUR E-WASTE

E C O T I P

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Elsewhere in Africa, scientists are

celebrating the rediscovery of a rare

bat that hasn’t been seen for 40 years.

A team captured and photographed

the Hill’s horseshoe bat (which had

been feared extinct) during a 2019

survey of caves in Rwanda’s Nyungwe

rainforest, but it took three years to

confirm its species. Horseshoe bats

get their name from the shape of

their noses, which they use to

detect echoes from their high-

pitched calls as they hunt in darkness.

The bongos

are set free.

Big week for bongo rewilding

K

enyan wildlife experts have released the first

mountain bongos into a new reserve, marking

a big step in a project to bring these colourful

antelopes back from the brink of extinction.

Bongos are large antelopes with

long spiral horns, a brown coat and

narrow white stripes that help them

hide in their forest habitats. The

lowland bongo is fairly widespread

in western Africa, although its

numbers have fallen because of

hunting and the felling of trees. The

eastern or mountain bongo is critically

endangered, with fewer than 100

animals still living wild in Kenyan forests.

In 2004, the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy

(MKWC) began an ambitious rewilding

project, bringing mountain bongos from

zoos in the US and slowly reintroducing

them to a habitat where their last

wild relatives had disappeared

10 years earlier. Isaac Lekolool,

head vet at the Kenyan Wildlife

Service, explained that the

first arrivals were essentially

tame and had to depend on

humans for food and water.

As these bongos bred, however,

keepers and wildlife rangers were

able to keep a greater distance from

their offspring, encouraging them to become more

independent and restoring their wild instincts.

Eventually, the project was ready to select its first

bongos for release into the new Mawingu Mountain

Bongo Sanctuary. The animals were picked for youth

and good health, as well as confidence in the wild

and wariness of humans. A total of five bongos –

two females and three males – were released in

early March. “It has been a journey of 18 years and

today it has come to fruition,” said Lekolool. The

MKWC now plans to release further groups every six

months. Eventually, the team hope that they will be

able to move bongos born in the sanctuary to other

parts of Kenya, where they can help boost the small

populations that still survive in the wild.

The distinctive

face of a bongo.

Bat from the brink

The strange-

looking bat.

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