For once, it's nice to welcome the 800 pound gorilla into the room. After a two year study, the Wildlife Conservation Society reported today that about 125,000 Western lowland gorillas were found in a remote area of the Republic of Congo. This discovery nearly doubles the estimated population of this type of primate. Western lowland gorillas have been illegally hunted for bush meat, suffered from outbreaks of the Ebola virus and suffered the effects of human encroachment. The WCS originally estimated that the gorilla population would drop to 50,000 by 2011, but it looks like those numbers may have to be re-thought.
* Doctor Sue Margulis, curator on primates at the Lincoln Park Zoo