Western Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) Fact Sheet: Population & Conservation Status

Population estimates

• Currently being evaluated: "a few hundred thousand" (Maisels et al. 2016)
• 150,000 to 250,000 individuals (studies published in 2013 and 2015; see Maisels et al. 2016)

Population trend

• Decreasing (Maisels et al. 2016)

IUCN Status

• Critically Endangered (2016 assessment) (Maisels et al. 2018)

CITES Status

• Appendix I (UNEP 2018)

US Endangered Species

• Endangered
  • Listed 1970

Hunting and poaching

• Bushmeat, trophy & subsistence hunting
• Killed by farmers in retaliation for crop-raiding
• Accidental death from snares

Disease

• Small isolated populations susceptible to being wiped out by disease
• Ebola virus disease
• Gorilla ecotourism started in Rwanda and Uganda in the 1960s can bring disease - hepatits A, poliovirus, tapeworm, TB bacillus

Habitat degradation

• Deforestation due to agriculture, logging, and domestic animal grazing
• Especially oil-palm plantations
• Habitat may be gone within a few decades
• Mineral extraction
• Coltan, a mineral used in cell phones, is found in gorilla habitat in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• Miners in the area eat gorilla meat
• Roads subdividing habitat

Climate change

• Impacts not yet known; some may include:
• Drying of the region
• changes in plant growth and fruit production
• Changes in temperature and precipitation

Warfare

• Civil war (80-90% of eastern lowland gorillas disappeared in Congo fighting 2002-2005)
• War and civil unrest has resulted in human encroachment

Sarmietnto (2003)
Furniss (2005)
IUCN (2008)