{"id":9745,"date":"2018-11-16T22:28:15","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T22:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/?p=9745"},"modified":"2018-11-16T22:43:27","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T22:43:27","slug":"central-african-mountain-gorillas-staging-a-remarkable-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/central-african-mountain-gorillas-staging-a-remarkable-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"Central African Mountain Gorillas Staging A Remarkable Recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

A rare bit of good news was announced this week regarding the continuing battle to save the planets endangered species. The once\u00a0‘critically endangered’ Central African Mountain Gorilla\u00a0has been moved from this status to merely endangered – still worrying but a welcome step in the right direction.<\/p>\n

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has announced that in a recent survey the number living in the protected areas have increased from 680 in 2008 to around 1000 now. Not a huge\u00a0rise in 10 years but significant in percentage terms and a rare achievement\u00a0given most species on the critically endangered list are still seeing declines in numbers.<\/p>\n

This in no way ensures their continued survival and they are only found in two locations the\u00a0forest-cloaked volcanoes of the Western Rift Valley (the Virunga Massif), territory\u00a0overlapping Rwanda, Congo, and Uganda which is a\u00a0far from stable zone. The other location is Uganda\u2019s Bwindi National Park currently less concerning but still facing challenges.<\/p>\n

\"Male

Male Silverback Mountain Gorilla in the National Park
Jurgen Vogt\/Shutterstock<\/p><\/div>\n

Going forward the future survival of these\u00a0legendary \u2018silverback\u2019 gorillas will depend upon continued preservation efforts and continued expansion of the Tourist industry – with many thousand visitors\u00a0to the region paying to see them in their natural habitat. They still face pressures from poachers and any major outbreak of civil unrest\u00a0in the region could also\u00a0be catastrophic. Further, they are susceptible\u00a0to disease including the devastating Ebola virus which could wipe out the population very quickly should it ever take hold. Couple this with the need to extend their range as their numbers increase and the growing human population in the surrounding areas means that it may be necessary\u00a0to try and find a third protected area – which would also be prudent\u00a0given the disease risk. Still, for today we can celebrate a rare success story in the ongoing battle to preserve the worlds eco-diversity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A rare bit of good news was announced this week regarding the continuing battle to save the planets endangered species. The once\u00a0‘critically endangered’ Central African Mountain Gorilla\u00a0has been moved from this status to merely endangered – still worrying but a welcome step in the right direction. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9749,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[193,192,195,194],"class_list":["post-9745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-worldwide-news","tag-bwindi-national-park","tag-central-african-mountain-gorilla","tag-iucn","tag-virunga-massif"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9745"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9750,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9745\/revisions\/9750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}