More gorillas found!

[qatarperegrine]

125,000 western lowland gorillas have just been found in the Congo by the Wildlife Conservation Society, which our friend Kendra worked with when she was in the Peace Corps in Gabon. This is pretty exciting, since they previously thought there were only 50,000 western lowland gorillas total! Their numbers have been pretty devastated by Ebola and other hemorrhagic fevers in recent years.

Seeing gorillas up close and personal at a WCS research camp was one of the highlights of The Best Vacation Ever, our trip to Gabon in 2007. Also, western lowland gorillas have one of the best species names ever: Gorilla gorilla gorilla. As far as I am concerned, the more western lowland gorillas there are in the world, the awesomer the universe is.


Female and junvenile, Langoué Bai

Comments

[canyonwren.livejournal.com]

My first reaction was glee that there are that many more gorillas! My next reaction was sad that they were discovered, instead of secretly having their mysterious lives. I'm now worried that people will push to remove them from the endangered list, they'll be harassed and exposed to diseases, and weirdly, I'm just sad that one more little secret has been unveiled.

But still, yay gorillas!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_tove/]

To be fair, one can only hide 125,000 gorillas for so long. After a while, the guests start wondering what that scratching noise coming from the cupboard is.

[canyonwren.livejournal.com]

:D Gorillas, climbing out of the woodwork!

I think that's part of the mystique. I love the fact that an enormous amount of gorillas were discovered! It's not like it was a group of twenty. It was enough to populate a freaking CITY! Woo, bring on the City of Lost Gorillas.

[stepleton.livejournal.com]

The commentator on the NewsHour this evening speculated that with rising demand for African mineral resources, human pressure on this habitat is likely inevitable. In that light it's good that we know that the gorillas are there now before the miners show up.

[qatar.livejournal.com]

You know, though, WCS found out about these gorillas from "local hunters," e.g. bushmeat poachers. So now people who want them to LIVE know about them... that's gotta be a good thing.