WASHINGTON – Recent outbreaks of ebola among people in Africa also killed thousands of gorillas, animals already threatened by hunting, a new study reports.
Outbreaks in Congo and Gabon in 2002 and 2003 killed as many as 5,500 gorillas and an uncounted number of chimpanzees, a research team led by Magdalena Bermejo of the University of Barcelona in Spain reports in today’s issue of the journal Science.
“Add commercial hunting to the mix, and we have a recipe for rapid ecological extinction,” the researchers wrote. “Ape species that were abundant and widely distributed a decade ago are rapidly being reduced to a tiny remnant population.”
Ebola hemorrhagic fever is marked by fever, headache, joint and muscle aches, sore throat and weakness, followed by diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain – and many suffer internal and external bleeding.
The researchers began studying gorillas in the region in 1995 and by 2001 were focusing on 143 animals that had become accustomed to having people around. In 2002, ebola flared in 130 of the gorillas in the study.
That prompted the team to analyze the regional pattern of gorilla deaths. The team concluded the disease spread primarily from gorilla to gorilla starting in the north and moving southward through the region. The team also concluded that at least 3,500 gorillas died in the outbreaks – and possibly as many as 5,500.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
