Endangered Gorillas: Only 700 Left In Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable Forest

In the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, an area in Uganda along the country's borders with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, a small population of mountain gorillas live. They are among the last 700 remaining mountain gorillas in the world -- and their number is continually shrinking, pushing the species toward extinction.

Decades of armed conflicts in Uganda and its neighboring countries, and the continual struggle for natural resources, are some of the primary factors endangering the gorilla population.

VBS.TV reports from the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.

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Comments

[Sandra Stipp]

03:51 PM on 07/28/2010

I hate these stories. Makes me angry and upset. How many more species of animals are us humans going to destroy? Something has to be done about saving these animals.

[AnimalLover6]

09:46 PM on 07/26/2010

Where is Bill Gates when you need him? Or some other celebrity with gazillions in the bank and 10 homes? Can't be that difficult to round up these animals and place them in a protected conservation area, can it? Drop in the bucket, I'd think, financially speaking.

When they're gone, they're gone. A world without gorillas.

[nicolerowan]

07:26 PM on 07/26/2010

http://gorillacd.org/

Maybe there IS hope....
looks promising to me.

[Kathleen Goodwin]

08:21 PM on 07/25/2010

such beautiful and incredible creatures, how can we help

[LeFlaneur]

01:45 PM on 07/26/2010

Don't know what anyone can do. They're on a shrinking island of green surrounded by a growing human population.

[Kenz300]

05:18 PM on 07/25/2010

SO SAD !

[SilentSolidarity]

04:36 PM on 07/25/2010

It takes 500 species to survive. Below that, genetic mutations would be too significant. Once we get below 500, I have no hope for gorillas. Let's hope they can get them to recover.

[WilliePilgrim]

04:05 PM on 07/25/2010

I'm in favor of creating a wild lands park that is managed for these creatures in areas that are safe from the kinds of tribulations that seem pretty likely to occur in resource starving Africa. A good place would be to create habitat for them here in the US, or Australia. Should an epidemic of disease, or violence, occur there would at least be other areas with populations that could save the species for later re-colonizations.
As a matter of fact, the cheetah, elephant and plenty of other endangered species would do nicely here in North America just as they had for so many millenia prior to the anthropogene Holocene in which we're currently thriving.

[Morgantheaxe]

07:54 AM on 07/25/2010

I read these posts and just wince. Folks you must have no idea whats going on in that part of the world. The entire place is inhuman. These animals are history. It's a sad sad fact but they are. If you call the inhabitants of that part of the world human then they are soaked with madness. If you call them animals they are rabid with hate and violence. Sit for a moment and try to imagine the most cruel and inhuman things a savage people can do to torture another, and you have just scratched the surface of what the day to day reality is for these people. To save these animals you would have to have a systematic effort in place to protect them. The moment you show interest in protecting them thugs in this region will blackmail you with the lives of the very animals you wish to protect. Pay or the gorillas die will be the response you recieve. They just don't care.

[AnimalLover6]

09:44 PM on 07/26/2010

Absolutely true.

[Grin-and-tell]

03:52 PM on 07/24/2010

There was a line crossed in 2007 when a species died from indirect reasons-- the blind river dolphin in China (with the long spear-like appendage on its cute dorsal snout). No one was fishing them for their meat, but the pressures of pollution eliminating its clean water ecosystem
led to its extinction.

Of course, China would be the perfect place for that indirect extinction. Since China's leaders actually benefit from spreading toxins into our food and our natural world to enhance profitability and political stability too.

The one-child policy is smart, but its not done for high-minded ecological reasons. Its done to relieve pressure on the CCP to not find jobs for a billion extra people in the coming decades.

Meanwhile, their toys are coated with lead-paint, the very same batches of twice-recalled milk with Propelyn Glycol in it to simulate protein was actually resold quietly to children again this year, and now I read that the natural sweetener Stevia has been mixed with the highly-toxic metal ANTIMONY there.

Yup. Even though there is no understandable reason to do this, a company making liquid vitamins for children-- who have difficulty swallowing capsules-- quietly ended a contract with Chinese manufacturers when blood tests showed alarmingly-high Antimony levels in its Stevia-sweetened liquids.

David Quig, PhD of Doctors Data gave an interview on detoxification at http://acam.typepad.com/blog/2010/05/interview-with-david-quig-phd.com that mentions this unreported fact.

[unimatrix0]

02:48 AM on 07/25/2010

Exactly. This is not a species dying off due to survial of the fittist. Human's are not in a struggle for survival against all species, it is merely the side effect of our process to obtain comforts. If lions were hunting the gorillas that would be another issue, mother nature just doing what it does, but this is humans taking away their habbitat and poaching for black markets.

[janie@atthelake]

03:48 PM on 07/25/2010

Bookmarked...good post & I love your AV.

[LHoney]

02:22 PM on 07/24/2010

Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we can't eat money.

Cree proverb.

[Newboyx]

06:28 PM on 07/24/2010

Well said!

[Tiggy]

09:46 PM on 07/24/2010

While you are most likely correct, we must do more to teach the next generation. Go to school teach ins, show up for show n tell. Instead of bounce houses at parties bring in a horse or other farm animals. Instead of Disney for vacation visit the ocean or mountains. There is so much that we can do to help. We can encourage legislation that makes it beneficial for business to redo vacated dilapidated malls instead of clearing habit. Will it be enough? Maybe not, but it is a first step and I hold out more hope for the next generation than I do for this one. Yes, I practice what I preach...www.lifeshapnin.com

[PlayTOE]

11:08 PM on 07/24/2010

The flower power generation has failed to honor the place of flowers and all of nature.
We prevented WW3, but lost the earth to pollution and corporate greed.

[MilesLong]

02:06 PM on 07/24/2010

Too bad no one is brave enough to discuss the overriding reason for the trouble in the area, overpopulation. Were there not the population pressures, and the scarcity of food, water, etc, that warlords are killing, fighting and hoarding over, there wouldn't be this extinction threat to write about.

The world has over twice as many people living on it than it can support without draconian measures in food production that, frankly, will never be done. Of the 6 billion currently living (if you can really call it "living") over half do not have access to adequate nutrition.

Extinctions are the least of the issues of overpopulation that no governing body has the strength to discuss or confront. The massive reduction of life in our seas, the rigors of chemical-based agriculture taking thie toll on the lands and the fact that we have too many people living on the planet is the MOST important survival issue of our times. It's a travesty that we are all too cowardly to address the issue.

Miles "More's The Pity" Long

[AnthropologistAmongApes]

12:06 PM on 07/24/2010

Everyone notice how the right wing never posts on articles that are so morally "indicative" of their worldview? Notice how the right couches the destruction of nature in "rights" and the exercise of "freedom"? I would really like to see just one conservative demonstrate a functional ecological literacy, and a spiritual capacity to value the world of our birth.

[COPerez]

12:13 PM on 07/27/2010

Well sad.

Fanned.

[cosmiCataclysm]

06:39 PM on 07/23/2010

Maybe Ugandans should start worrying more about their gorillas and less about their draconian anti-homosexual agenda..

[Js420]

06:46 PM on 07/23/2010

Tragic. it would probably cost them their lives. i bet any male who comes out in the defense of gorillaz might be labeled as gay.

[bcmom]

06:23 PM on 07/23/2010

These animals are lost forever unless we stop the decline now. The whole world is self-destructing.

[MilesLong]

02:15 PM on 07/24/2010

Blame Wall Street.

For example, look at the manipulation of wheat prices in the recent past fostered by, I believe it was Goldman Sachs, that was directly responsible for the estimated deaths of over a million people because of their price manipulation, the result of their cornering the market.

Since most people rarely, if at all, look at the consequences of their votes and financial support, this kind of thing happens all the time and no one is the wiser. Unfortunately, if one were to profile the worst of the world-wide offenders who propagate the worst of the deprivations on the peoples (read poor) of the planet, the criminal profile would read: rich, white men over forty years of age.

Miles "Statistically Pure" Long

[winningticket]

05:04 PM on 07/23/2010

These are majestic creatures. They deserve much better from their human relatives.