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Gorillas may become extinct in ten years in central Africa

Washington, Thu, 25 Mar 2010 ANI

Washington, March 25 (ANI): A new UN report has said that gorillas may become extinct across much of central Africa in ten years or so.

 

According to National Geographic News, the report says that among the threats to the gorillas are surges in human populations, the ape-meat trade, and logging and mining as well as the spread of the Ebola virus and other diseases

 

Stretching from the Atlantic Coast to the East African countries of Burundi and Rwanda, the Congo Basin covers much of central Africa and has traditionally been a rain forest refuge for gorillas and other apes.

 

But "with the rate of poaching and habitat loss, gorillas in the region may disappear from most of their present range in less than 10 to 15 years from now," according to the report, co-authored by the international law enforcement agency Interpol.

 

Adding to the gorillas' plight is the shedding of taboos against eating gorilla meat, according to the report.

 

Increasingly, mining and logging camps are hiring professional poachers to provide "bush meat"-wild animal flesh-for their workers and for refugees who have fled nearby conflict.

 

Though gorillas still make up a tiny percentage of the bush-meat trade, losses can be devastating, because gorilla numbers are already so low and their communities are so tightly knit, experts said.

 

"If you kill a gorilla, you can compare it to killing a family member in a human family," said Christian Nellemann, the new report's editor in chief. "In this case, you also disrupt their movement patterns and feeding sites," he added.

 

Also disruptive are pathogenic threats, as many of them worsening as humans stream into formerly virgin forests, according to the report.

 

In addition to naturally occurring pathogens such as the Ebola virus, which "may be contributing substantially to great ape declines in central Africa", human and livestock-based gastrointestinal pathogens such as E. coli can weaken ape immune systems and reproductive success, the report said.

 

"The most threatened Congo Basin gorilla species is the eastern lowland gorilla, which lives mostly in eastern Congo's North and South Kivu regions," said Nellemann, a UN Environment Programme official.

 

The discovery of a previously unknown group of 750 eastern lowland gorillas buoyed hopes in 2009, but overall numbers are still down from about 17,000 in the mid-1990s to 5,000 eastern lowland gorillas today. (ANI)

 


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