188 More Species Listed as Near Extinction – washingtonpost.com

188 More Species Listed as Near Extinction

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 13, 2007; Page A10

Habitat loss, climate change and infectious diseases are pushing a growing number of species toward extinction, according to a report yesterday by the World Conservation Union.

The organization’s 2007 “Red List,” the most sweeping annual scientific assessment of the world’s animals and plants, now lists 16,306 species as threatened with extinction, up from 16,118 last year. The addition of nearly 200 imperiled species to the list reflects the reality that the more scientists learn about the status of the world’s millions of species, the more they find that appear to be in trouble, experts said….

Great apes are under increasing pressure from both hunting and disease,
the report said, their numbers decimated by the bush-meat trade and by
the Ebola virus. The Western gorilla population has declined more than
60 percent over the past 25 years and is now considered critically
endangered; during the past 15 years, roughly one-third of gorillas
that died in protected areas fell prey to the lethal virus.

Between 2003 and 2005, 55 percent of the Western gorillas in the Congo Republic’s Odzala National Park died of the virus.