gorillas

Bad news from Uganda: the mountain gorilla population in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is smaller than previously estimated. Until recently, environmentalists believed 336 gorillas resided in the park. Now it looks like the number has dropped to 302.

Two decades ago, "saving the gorillas" became a cause celebre when researchers announced that western lowland gorilla populations in the Congo had dwindled to critically endangered numbers. Our primate relatives were threatened by a widespread outbreak of the Ebola virus, as well as poachers who hunted the animals for bushmeat.

Estimates at the time of the 1980 gorilla census were in the range of 100,000 individuals, but since then experts believed that the number had dropped to less than 50,000.