Endangered Gorillas

Africa is the great land for a lot of wild animals. However, some of them are in endangered situations now, especially Gorillas which are living in the tropical rain forest, western and central of Africa. They are the largest living primates and the closest relative great apes to humans after chimpanzees. Gorillas’ DNA is almost around 98% like humans. They have been appeared familiarly in the human life through many comic books and movies like series “King Kong” or “Tarzan”. Even though they are always thought as a violent beast, they are actually very friendly and shy except the time when they protect their family from the dangerous things. Unfortunately, the populations of Gorillas have been decreasing dramatically because of habitat loss, illegal hunting and human ailments. Thus, Gorillas are classified as an endangered species by the Endangered Species Act. Scientists are still unsure how many Gorillas remain today.
Gorillas have been losing their natural habitat due to human activities and the changes of nature. Human settlement has been rapidly increasing. Because of land and food demands, people try to find new living areas, including Gorillas’. For agriculture, collecting firewood and charcoal destroy and threaten the survival of Gorillas that inhabit them. Furthermore, disforestation is one of the reasons why Gorillas have to find others places to live and protect themselves from dangerous situations. Besides that, the changes of nature affect a lot to Gorillas. Living in the rain forest, Gorillas have to suffer the weather which is very cold, cloudy and rainy. Storms often destroy many things such as plants and trees in Gorillas’ inhabitations when they occur. All of them make Gorillas live difficulty in their environment. There are such challenging things for Gorillas to adapt to the notification habitat. Nowadays, eastern gorillas can only be found in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, while western gorillas can be found in the forest of West Africa. The areas of Gorillas are dwindling now.
Secondly, Gorillas are hunted by humans is the major threat for the endangered Gorillas. They poach Gorillas on many purposes such as selling them for circuses, the zoos and being pets for some collectors and especially for “Bustmeat”. In the past, during the early nineties, people in Rwanda escaped to the Virunga National Park and began hutting Gorillas for survival. Many Gorillas were suffered and died during this violence time in the Great lakes region on Africa, especially silver backs (adult male Gorillas). Nowadays, People are poaching Gorillas for “Bushmeat” trade. In fact, their meat are very expensive and valuable in many places, people can explore great huge money from hutting Gorillas. According to a shocking news which was reported by the Endangered Species International (ESI), Over three hundreds Gorillas were killed annually in Congo, they were sold in the under law market illegally in the city of Pointe Noire in 2008 and early 2009. That was such a terrible thing driven to the death of Gorillas. As the result, there are about fifty thousand western low land gorillas, two thousand five hundred eastern low land gorillas and about only seven hundred mountain gorillas remain in the world now. Mountain Gorillas are on the verge of the extinction.
The final reason making the number of Gorillas go down, is getting the ailments from interacting with humans. Like Humans, Gorillas are easy to get many of the same diseases like measles, mange and intestinal parasites. Gorillas have not developed the immunities to protect themselves against those diseases, which is the reason the number of Gorillas have reduced rapidly. In the year 2004, several hundred Gorillas had died by outbreaks of the Ebola virus in the Odzada Nation Park in Congo and in the year 2006, up to five thousand Gorillas died because of this disease. Ebola outbreaks are very dangerous disease in Congo. It was not only killed Gorillas, but also killed Humans in some area in Congo. That is a dangerous threat for Gorillas lives.
For those reason, we can obviously realized that Gorillas are in the endangered situation now. They need to be protected from the threats of loss habitat, hunting and Human ailments, unless Gorillas will be driven to the brink of extinction. A lot of organizations have done many campaigns to warn and protect this wonderful creature. The awareness and educating in the general public on Gorillas are very significant for people at this time, especially the Africa residents. Clearly, everything in the Earth is a part of this beautiful planet. All of them have their own responsibility to contribute to the natural perfection; therefore, with the loss of an element, the world will be less diverse. This can lead to an imbalanced environment.