gorillas on the decline
This just in from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s red list listing for the western gorilla. This is pretty disheartening and downright sad:
Western gorillas are now “classified as Critically Endangered...a population reduction of more than 80% over three generations... The listing is based on exceptionally high levels of hunting and disease-induced mortality... Most protected areas have serious poaching problems and almost half of the habitat under protected status has been hard hit by Ebola.” They go on to say that because gorillas don’t reproduce very fast, “even an immediate cessation of Ebola mortality and a drastic reduction in the rate of hunting (neither of which seem likely) would not result in rapid population recovery. Rather, under the most optimistic scenarios, population recovery would require on the order of 75 years (Walsh et al. 2003).”
The species has fallen from a red list classification of “Vulnerable” (not quite endangered) in 1986, to “Endangered” in 1996 and finally “Critically Endangered” this year. Was there ever really any hope?
All gorillas in zoos are of this species. And they’re the more numerous of the two species of gorillas. Really hits home for us...
Western gorillas are now “classified as Critically Endangered...a population reduction of more than 80% over three generations... The listing is based on exceptionally high levels of hunting and disease-induced mortality... Most protected areas have serious poaching problems and almost half of the habitat under protected status has been hard hit by Ebola.” They go on to say that because gorillas don’t reproduce very fast, “even an immediate cessation of Ebola mortality and a drastic reduction in the rate of hunting (neither of which seem likely) would not result in rapid population recovery. Rather, under the most optimistic scenarios, population recovery would require on the order of 75 years (Walsh et al. 2003).”
The species has fallen from a red list classification of “Vulnerable” (not quite endangered) in 1986, to “Endangered” in 1996 and finally “Critically Endangered” this year. Was there ever really any hope?
All gorillas in zoos are of this species. And they’re the more numerous of the two species of gorillas. Really hits home for us...