Good News for Great Apes

The world's rarest great ape has found a safe haven in the mountains of the west central African nation of Cameroon. With guidance from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Cameroon's prime minister, Ephraim Inoni, has created the world's first sanctuary exclusively for the Cross River gorilla.

Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary spans only 19.5 square kilometers but contains an important segment of the Cross River gorilla population. The species' range consists of 11 scattered sites in Cameroon and Nigeria. Of the estimated 300 or fewer Cross River gorillas that remain, approximately 20 live in the new reserve.

"The creation of this sanctuary is the fruit of many years of work in helping to protect the world's rarest gorilla subspecies," says Dr. Roger Fotso, director of WCS-Cameroon. Fotso and his colleagues worked in tandem with the Cameroon Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife in laying the groundwork for the sanctuary.

The rest of the details are here.

I am not personally convinced that this is the rarest population of great apes. The most threatened are certainly the eastern lowland gorillas of the Congo, of which there may be only a handful left. If any.