Gorilla fundraising drive targets social networking sites

Animal-lovers will be able to “befriend” endangered mountain gorillas on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook as part of a fundraising drive, conservationists in Uganda said today.

Each person who links to an individual gorilla must pay a minimum of one dollar to be able to track it and receive updates on its progress.

The Uganda Wildlife Authority hopes that money raised from the campaign, which was launched last Friday, will help pay for more rangers to protect the gorillas and help fund the purchase of land to secure the animals’ habitat.

Spokeswoman Lilian Nsubuga said Uganda has the largest population of mountain gorillas in the world. There are thought to be only 740 mountain gorillas left and 340 of them live in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park.