--CWH--
Port Lympe: Western Lowland Gorilla
The Western Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) has suffered exceptionally high levels of hunting- and disease-induced mortality (over 90% in some areas), which combined are estimated to have caused an overall decline of more than 60% over the last 20 to 25 years. Most protected areas have serious poaching problems and Ebola has hit almost half of the habitat under protected status. Both these threats are not readily mitigated.
Because gorillas are long-lived and their reproductive rates are extremely low (maximum intrinsic rate of increase about 3%, Steklis and Gerald-Steklis 2001), they are particularly susceptible to even low levels of
hunting. Moreover, perhaps 20 to 30 years into the future, in addition to on-going habitat loss and degradation, climate change may well become another major threat. (2008 IUCN Red List, Walsh, P.D., Tutin, C.E.G., Baillie, J.E.M., Maisels, F., Stokes & E.J., Gatti, S).
Estimates from the 1980s placed the entire population, which occurs in seven Central African nations, at fewer than 100,000. Since then, scientists believed this number had dwindled by at least half, due to commercial hunting and disease, particularly outbreaks of the Ebola virus, which have extirpated gorillas from a great deal of otherwise intact forest. In early 2008, the estimate of the world’s population of critically endangered Western Lowland Gorillas received a boost with the discovery by WCS teams of large numbers of gorillas in remote and not easily accessible swamp forests in the northern part of the Republic of Congo, bringing the population estimates for north eastern Congo to 125,000. Current estimates of the total population are in the order of 150,000 -200,000 individuals.
Text from yog2009.org
Image is low resolution, for high resolution please contact me.
Port Lympe: Western Lowland Gorilla
The Western Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) has suffered exceptionally high levels of hunting- and disease-induced mortality (over 90% in some areas), which combined are estimated to have caused an overall decline of more than 60% over the last 20 to 25 years. Most protected areas have serious poaching problems and Ebola has hit almost half of the habitat under protected status. Both these threats are not readily mitigated.
Because gorillas are long-lived and their reproductive rates are extremely low (maximum intrinsic rate of increase about 3%, Steklis and Gerald-Steklis 2001), they are particularly susceptible to even low levels of
hunting. Moreover, perhaps 20 to 30 years into the future, in addition to on-going habitat loss and degradation, climate change may well become another major threat. (2008 IUCN Red List, Walsh, P.D., Tutin, C.E.G., Baillie, J.E.M., Maisels, F., Stokes & E.J., Gatti, S).
Estimates from the 1980s placed the entire population, which occurs in seven Central African nations, at fewer than 100,000. Since then, scientists believed this number had dwindled by at least half, due to commercial hunting and disease, particularly outbreaks of the Ebola virus, which have extirpated gorillas from a great deal of otherwise intact forest. In early 2008, the estimate of the world’s population of critically endangered Western Lowland Gorillas received a boost with the discovery by WCS teams of large numbers of gorillas in remote and not easily accessible swamp forests in the northern part of the Republic of Congo, bringing the population estimates for north eastern Congo to 125,000. Current estimates of the total population are in the order of 150,000 -200,000 individuals.
Text from yog2009.org
Image is low resolution, for high resolution please contact me.