Sorry if this is the type of esoteric and non-folk, fact-based discussion topic that gets about 5 responses, but a Sixty Minutes Story made me wonder about something, and I was wondering if others had a point of view.
In several impoverished and war-plagued parts of Africa, the remaining numbers of mountain gorillas are being decimated by those who kill them for their hands, objects that are purported to have medicinal properties. Dismissing for a moment the bizarre nature of the motive for killing the gorillas, the difficulty in protecting them is exacerbated by the relative low pay and motivation of their protectors, and the general weakness of the protecting governments in stopping this.
Why, I wondered, can't a significant number of the remaining 1200 gorillas be transplanted to a place where there are significant climate and food resource similarities to their natural environment, but in a country or region better able to protect their reamining numbers? Could Kenyan gorillas be transplanted to remote but secure areas of Brazil, or Argentina, or Costa Rica? Has such a thing been attempted?
I realize that such a notion wouldn't apply to all or even most threatened species. But would a sufficiently motivated government in concert with and with the support of other like-minded governments be willing to "adopt" a mountain gorilla colony?