Gorillas on the increase
2004-01-20 10:43
Paris - One of the world's rarest species of mammal, the mountain gorilla of the Virunga Highlands of central Africa, has seen a surprising upturn in numbers, conservationists said here on Monday.
There are 380 gorillas today, a 17% rise since the last extensive estimate, carried out in 1989, they said.
The gorillas' home straddles Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a region that was gripped by warfare for most of the 1990s, unleashing floods of refugees who encroached on the animals' habitat.
"The mountain gorilla is a threatened species, and the increase in numbers is good news for us and the rest of the world," said Fidel Ruzigandekwe, an official with the Rwanda Office of Tourism and National Parks.
The study was carried out by conservationists from the three countries and by experts from the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International (DFGFI), the organisation named after the celebrated American primatologist who was murdered in Rwanda in 1989.
In addition to the Virunga Highlands gorillas, there are 320 other gorillas in Uganda's Bwindi National Park.
Genetic analyses, though, have recently determined that those animals are a distinct sub-species from the Virunga gorillas.