The Ebola virus is pushing gorillas to extinction in western
Africa, according to the most comprehensive population survey to
date. Outbreaks of Ebola have killed up to 95% of the gorillas
in some areas - considerably more than previously thought. The
Ebola virus, discovered in 1976, causes massive haemorrhaging
and organ failure causes death in a number of species, including
humans. The extent of the virus's impact on gorilla populations
has remained relatively unclear. So Peter Walsh of the Max
Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig,
Germany, and colleagues decided to collect and analyse
information about gorilla numbers in the Lossi Sanctuary in the
northwest of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Out of 238
individually known gorillas in one part of the sanctuary, 221 -
or 93% - were killed by Ebola during outbreaks in 2002 and 2003,
Walsh's team now report. During the following two years, the
team also surveyed the number of nests - which gorillas make
each evening - across 2700 square k