THE PLIGHT OF CUTE 'LIL NDAKASI

How sad is this? We'd like to think that Papa H would've saved this little baby mountain gorilla that was found clinging to body of his mother which was executed by rebels in The Congo.

The Daily Mail of London reports that wildlife rangers are battling to save this adorable gorilla that was found clinging to her dead mother, shot in the back of the head at point-blank range.

The two-month-old ape has been named Ndakasi by conservationists who are looking after her in Goma and feeding it baby formula from a bottle.

Paulin Ngobobo, senior warden in eastern Congo's Virunga National Park says the cute little ape is basically okay. "It is certainly a worrying situation, but not hopeless."

Ndakasi, who was born on April 15, would normally have suckled for up to three years.

But it's hard out there for a chimp -- only 700 mountain gorillas survive in the wild, more than half of them in Virunga. Reports have at least two being killed and eaten already this year by rebels who live off the land as militia fighting drags on despite the official end of Congo's five-year war in 2003.

But it remains unclear who killed this new adult female or why - especially "execution-style." More importantly, why was she left at the scene rather than taken away to be eaten, asks Emmanuel de Merode of conservation group Wildlife Direct.

"It looks like she was lured with bananas because we found bananas at the site," he said. "A second gorilla was probably shot because there was a trail of blood nearby and three gunshots were heard. The other was probably wounded and got away."

Ah, but the plot thickens. Last month, The nearby Wildlife Direct said that Mai Mai rebels had attacked patrol posts in Virunga park, killing one wildlife officer and critically injuring three others, and threatened to slaughter gorillas if park rangers retaliated.

Throughout the last decade, more than 150 rangers have been killed while protecting Congo's parks from poachers, rebel groups, illegal miners and land invasions and working through the war without pay.