Ebola threatening Western Gorilla

GENEVA – The most common type of gorilla is now “critically endangered,” one step away from global extinction, according to the 2007 Red List of Threatened Species released Wednesday by the World Conservation Union.

The Ebola virus is depleting Western Gorilla populations to a point where it might become impossible for them to recover.

Commercial hunting, civil unrest and habitat loss due to logging and forest clearance for palm oil plantations are compounding the problem, said the Swiss-based group known by its acronym IUCN.

“Great apes are our closest living relatives and very special creatures,” Russ Mittermeier, head of IUCN’s Primate Specialist Group, told the Associated Press. “We could fit all the remaining great apes in the world into two or three large football stadiums. There just aren’t very many left.”

In all, 16,306 species are threatened with extinction, 188 more than last year, IUCN said. One in four mammals is in jeopardy, as are one in eight birds, a third of all amphibians and 70 percent of the plants that have been studied.

“Life on Earth is disappearing fast and will continue to do so unless urgent action is taken,” the IUCN warned.

The Western Gorilla’s main subspecies – the Western Lowland Gorilla – has been decimated by the Ebola virus, which has wiped out about a third of the gorillas found in protected areas over the last 15 years.

“In the last 10 years, Ebola is the single largest killer of apes. Poaching is a close second,” said Peter Walsh, a member if IUCN’s Primate Specialist Group, told the AP. “Ebola is knocking down populations to a level where they won’t bounce back. The rate of decline is dizzying. If it continues, we’ll lose them in 10-12 years.”

Female gorillas only start reproducing at the age of 9 or 10 and only have one baby about every five years. Walsh said even in ideal conditions, it would take the gorillas decades to bounce back.

Only one species moved to a lesser category of threat. One of the world’s rarest parrots 15 years ago, the Mauritius Echo parakeet, eased back from critically endangered to only endangered.

That was a result of close monitoring of its nesting sites, and supplementary feeding combined with a captive breeding and release program.