The Animal Blog

Here's an article from Indepenent Online that gorilla. Like many other endangered species, you see the typical culprits of poaching and habitat destruction having a negative impact on the gorilla species.

But there's an underlying root cause that is behind the plight of the gorilla: political strife.

From the article:

"One side effect of the conflict has been the devastating impact on the region's gorillas. Refugees unable to grow enough crops to feed themselves have been forced to kill gorillas and other large mammals in order to survive. Conservationists have not only been powerless to protect the animals, with surveys of the remaining gorilla population and other preservation work proving impossible, but several workers have been killed after they were caught up in militia fighting."

The article suggest within the next few decades, the entire gorilla population will be extinct. The number of gorillas across all species worldwide is currently only in the thousands.

Here's a link to the article:
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1180234.ece

What in the world is going on in London?

For the second time in two months, a rare monkey has been stolen from a zoo near London.

This time, it was a Brazilian Squirrel Monkey named Spongebob. Spongebob was stolen during a night time raid of the Chessington World of Adventures near London.

The article from the Telegraph also makes reference to an incident last month where two other endangered monkeys were snatched during another night time raid. It also refers to an incident in December of 2005 in which a baby penguin was stolen.

Click on the link below for the entire article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/07/18/umonkey.xml