Gorillas May Be Extinct By Mid-2020s

A 2002 study predicted that only 10 percent of the gorilla population in central Africa would remain by 2030. A new report finds that the previous study was probably too optimistic. "Gorillas may go extinct in much of central Africa by the mid-2020s—victims of a meat trade, of logging and mining, and even the Ebola virus," CNN reported. The gorilla's habitat continues to be destroyed by illegal logging because the trade of materials taken from central Africa's Congo Basin brings in millions of dollars. As militias fight to control that land, more and more people are driven into refugee camps where they subsist largely on bush meat provided by professional poachers. The report found that, increasingly, that bush meat is coming from apes. "Adding to the gorillas' woes are outbreaks of the Ebola virus that have killed thousands of great apes," CNN reported. "By some estimates, 90 percent of the infected animals will die."

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