World's Largest Ape Is Added To Critically Endangered List

[inanna]

Source: NPR

September 4, 20163:00 PM ET

A subspecies of eastern gorilla that lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo now faces "an extremely high risk of extinction," wildlife experts say. Grauer's gorilla, the largest great ape in the world, is now listed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's "red list" of threatened species.

Populations of Grauer's gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri — formerly known as the eastern lowland gorilla) totaled only around 3,800 individuals in a survey that was released this past spring — a 77 percent reduction in a single generation that easily exceeds the drop required to be deemed critically endangered.

Humans are largely to blame for the animals' decline: Poaching, habitat loss, and civil unrest are three of the main threats the gorillas face, along with disease and climate change, according to the IUCN. Much of the illegal hunting has been linked to laborers at mines.

The formal change to the gorilla's status was announced Sunday at the IUCN World Conservation Congress that's being held in Hawaii. With the listing, both of the gorilla species (eastern and western) and all four subspecies are now considered critically endangered — one step away from being extinct in the wild.


Read more: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/04/492622726/worlds-largest-ape-is-added-to-critically-endangered-list

[progree]

1. Elephants going fast too

Africa Has Lost a Third of Its Elephants in Just 7 Years
https://www.yahoo.com/news/africa-lost-third-elephants-just-7-years-191349955.html

Earlier this week, the hacked-up bodies of at least 26 elephants were discovered in Botswana’s heavily protected Chobe National Park, the largest and most brutal poaching event the park has ever experienced.

This shocking slaughter is just the latest incident in the poaching crisis that has devastated the populations of both African elephant species. New data published Wednesday reveal that poachers killed off 30 percent of Africa’s savanna elephants between 2007 and 2014—about 144,000 animals—and that their numbers now continue to fall at an additional 8 percent per year.

Meanwhile, a second study found that the second pachyderm species, African forest elephants—which lost 62 percent of their population between 2002 and 2011—will require at least a century to recover because they breed significantly slower than thought. Scientists estimate that fewer than 100,000 forest elephants remain.

... Although the census found that 84 percent of savanna elephants live within officially protected areas, it also noted that they offered little protection and that elephant carcasses were frequently observed in national parks and other supposedly secure areas.

[Brainstormy]

2. Thought you were talking about the human

thought to myself: so where's the news? Guess we're not the world's largest ape. But still maybe the dumbest.

Thanks for the link. I'll read slower.