Gorillas Pros Cons

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Many animals in today’s society face many threats, leading to decreasing populations and potentially extinction in the near future. Gorillas, one of the most well known and most popular animal, are facing major threats in the wild today that many people don’t realize are happening. All four species of gorillas are critically endangered, which is the last step to extinction. And if something is not done now to further protect them, it may soon be too late. Gorillas face many unnatural dangers in the wild, with poaching, diseases, and deforestation being the leading causes to decreasing populations.
Poaching and the commercial bushmeat trade are one of today’s biggest threats to gorillas in the wild. According to the International Gorilla Conservation
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Gorilla Doctors, a professional team and organization who help protect and monitor gorillas, says that the dense population of people who live and share the same forest as the gorillas, continues to grow, exposing more and more human colds and diseases to gorillas (“Gorilla Health Threat: Infectious Diseases” Par 1). In 2011 for example, LIVESCIENCE reported that the Gorilla Doctor’s team found a whole group of Mountain Gorillas that had a respiratory infection, that later killed two of the group members. Test showed that the outbreak was caused by humans, most likely the local villagers who reside on the borders of the forest (“Humans Make Gorillas Sick” Par 1). In recent years, the Gorilla Doctors have been noticing an “increase in the frequency and severity of respiratory disease outbreaks” in gorillas, National Geographic reports (“Mountain Gorilla Deaths Linked to Human Virus” Par 10). “According to co-author of the study, Linda Lowenstine, “the type of infection we see most frequently is respiratory, which can range from mild colds to severe pneumonia” (“Mountain Gorillas VS. Human Disease” Par 4). As the population of the surrounding villages and towns continue to grow, so does the likelihood of diseases to be spread to the gorillas, and the more they desperately need our