Ebola is Leading Cause of Gorilla Deaths

Last week, the World Conservation Union [known by its French Acronym IUCN] put out the 2007 Red List of Threatened Species. It made for depressing reading. However, there was one spot where the news, while depressing nevertheless, was also surprising. It seems that the decline in the number of great apes, mankind’s closest relatives, is only partially the fault of human beings. The biggest killer of these animals is the Ebola virus.

It’s no secret that gorillas, orangutans and chimps are not flourishing. 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.” Even if one could eliminate all the factors contributing to the declining populations, the biology of great apes works against a rapid rebound. Female gorillas, for example, don’t breed until they are about 10, and they have one baby every five years or so. With that kind of breeding restraint, a recovery to levels seen just 100 years ago would take a very long time.

Usually when an animal species vanishes, the media and environmentalists say that human activity was responsible. Often, this is so. This journal reported on the likely passing of the Yantgze river dolphin, the baiji recently. The culprit was “incidental mortality resulting from massive-scale human environmental impacts - primarily uncontrolled and unselective fishing,” according to the scientific report.

In the case of the Western Lowland Gorilla, the main subspecies of the Western Gorilla, though, human activity is only part of the story. Peter Walsh, who works with Dr. Mittermeier in the IUCN’s Primate Specialist Group, told the AP, “In the last 10 years, Ebola is the single largest killer of apes. Poaching is a close second. 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.”

And here is a hard fact to accept: species extinction is part of evolution. Humanity gains nothing by wiping out the great apes, but even if all poaching were to stop, this disease could permanently undermine the gorilla population of the planet. That is how evolution works. New species will arise through mutation to continue the biodiversity of the Earth. It’s just hard to imagine a new species as charmingly human yet distinct from mankind as the gorilla.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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