125,000 Endangered Gorillas Discovered In Congo

A recent census of the forests of the northern Congo Republic revealed a thriving community of 125,000 western lowland gorillas. Discovered through a collaborative effort between the Wildlife Conservation Society and Congolese biologists, this exciting news arrives as 48% of the world's primates face extinction. In the 1980's estimates revealed that 100,000 gorillas lived in the region, however, the numbers are said to have diminished to 50,000 in the 1990's due to outbreaks of the Ebola virus and rampant hunting. In 2007, the gorillas were listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

NPR reported on the significance of the "mother lode" of uncovered gorillas.

"We have found the mother lode of western lowland gorillas," said Steven Sanderson, president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which led the research. "We had no idea that these great densities, that is numbers per square kilometer [of the gorillas], were possible in central Congo."

The discovery comes even as other gorillas living in central Africa are being pushed toward extinction. Sanderson says there are few signs that the gorillas in Congo's northern forests have been affected by the problems that have all but wiped out gorilla populations in other parts of Africa -- wars, commercial poaching, massive logging operations and disease epidemics linked in part to frequent contact with humans.

Biologists view this discovery as an opportunity to protect the endangered gorillas. Currently, 634 primate species are categorized as endangered: 11% are Critically Endangered, 22% Endangered and 15% Vulnerable.

"This is the light of hope you look for," said Richard G. Ruggerio, a conservation biologist at the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. But he cautioned that the large gorilla populations in the two studied tracts, which cover 18,000 square miles, should not lead to complacency. "It's a different kind of alarm call, an opportunity that is increasingly rare on this planet -- to do something before there's a crisis," he said.

In his Dot Earth blog, Andrew C. Revkin reflects on the western lowland gorillas' second-chance:

In this increasingly human-dominated world -- with its increasingly sharkless seas, its temperate forests nibbled bare by unstalked deer, its jungles silenced by bushmeat snares -- it may well be that the rarest thing in nature these days is abundance.

That is why so many primatologists were happily stunned by the results of a gorilla survey in northern Congo Republic.

Related:

::Watch the Wildlife Conservation Society's video on the Congolese gorillas.
::Read Treehugger's report on what can be done to save primates.
::More about the environment from the Huffington Post.

Comments

[westreal]

Nice, tell everybody so we can go kill them or put them in zoos to "protect" them.

[NoSillyName]

Poor creatures should NOT have been "discovered".

[dogbane]

Was a scion of English nobility living among them wearing a leopard skin loincloth?

[Triangle1]

So we all want to desperately protect these creatures on the one hand. On the other, we want big spacious houses, fine cuisine, imported luxuries, paper, furniture, 10 times as many clothes as we need, etc. etc. The only thing that's really going to save all of these rare excellent species is human population control. If the planet had say 2 billion instead of 6 billion hungry mouths to feed, we could do our thing, they could do theirs. Global warming is just one slice of the pie. The human virus is ravaging the planet. We're smart enough to make changes. We just find it inconvenient to do so. The day all of these gorillas are slaughtered or starving to death because of humanity, we'll all be too busy listening to our iPods, chatting on the cell phones, drinking our Starbuck's coffee or watching reality tv to care. http://mespace.wordpress.com/

[TheBlackCat]

We also have to remember that its not JUST a matter of individuals not wanting to change their over consuming behavior. Yes the way we use resources MUST change. However....

Enabling women's rights is the #1 way in which we can reduce our world population, especially when overpopulation is the biggest problem in developing nations. Women there don't have a CHOICE on whether or not they have 2 kids of 10. They are baby making machines with no concept of personal choice or the fact that they are human beings just like men, no means of being self sufficient (so they HAVE to stay with a husband that treats them like a breeding slave), never mind access to birth control.

[felixtkatz]

The Wildlife Conservation Society just doomed these beautiful creatures to a horrible death. They now owe it to them to protect them from us!

[kellygrrrl]

Leave Them Alone!!!!!!!

why do we need to blow their cover?

[KillTheMessenger]

Now that they have been discovered, they will be hunted down and killed even faster. Not much of hope here.

[ibsteve2u]

Or gold or diamonds will be discovered there...or that area will turn out to be the world's best place to grow cocaine or coffee...

Or thousands of tourists will flock in, and a human flu strain will make the transgenic leap and wipe them out in the blink of an eye...

Or oil will be discovered there and some future Republican President will annouce the area harbors terrorists and bomb the crapola out of it in order to finish the gorillas off and remove any possibility that animal rights activists will have a species to protect....

Or they'll simply hang on for fifty or so years and the growing human population will crowd them out.