Four mountain gorillas shot dead in Congo park

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Four rare mountain gorillas have been shot dead in the Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) said on Thursday.

The silverback male and three females were shot on Sunday in the southern sector of the park, which contains more than a fifth of the world's population of 700 mountain gorillas, according to WWF.

Park authorities are carrying out autopsies but it was not immediately clear who killed the gorillas or why. Earlier this year, two silverback male gorillas and a female gorilla were shot in Virunga, apparently by Congolese rebels for bush meat.

"Seven gorillas killed in seven months is a horrifying statistic and a trend that cannot continue," said Kwame Koranteng, regional representative of WWF's Eastern Africa Regional Program Office.

According to U.N. Radio Okapi in Kinshasa, conservation officials said two more gorillas from the same family as the four shot were also missing from Virunga, the oldest national park in Africa and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Virunga was a significant tourist attraction before Congo's 1998-2003 war, which devastated the east of the vast Central African country, triggering a humanitarian disaster that has killed more than 4 million people.

With support from the army, Congolese wildlife authorities were stepping up patrols to protect mountain gorillas within Virunga, the WWF said. Guard posts are being constructed to provide 24-hour surveillance.