I would consider mass deaths of large primates to disease to be... disconcerting.
In parts of the Republic of Congo in equatorial Africa, nearly all the gorillas are gone. Since 2001 gorilla and chimpanzee remains have showed up near and in the Lossi Sanctuary, close to the Gabon border. Just what was killing these great apes was unclear. Now researchers finger the Zaire strain of the Ebola virus as the culprit. "No doubt that's what killed them," says Peter Walsh, a primatologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. He and his team estimate that the virus has killed 5,500 gorillas in the northwestern part of the country.Of four subtypes of the Ebola virus, Ebola Zaire is the nastiest, Walsh says. This virus has about an 80 percent mortality rate and infects primates, including humans. The disease begins with a headache and leads, in about a week, to hemorrhagic fever and organ failure.
That's from Scientific American.
Oddly, I haven't heard about any Ebola outbreaks in human populations in a while.
Knock on wood.
Tom Cullen sure is tired... M-O-O-N, that spells tired.
2 comments:
I think endangered species should get annuity checks from humans and moe joe should grant airfare to out-of-country gorillas even if they never lived in the jungle or contributed to the work/education benefit of their "brethren".
I work there and agree. I know some people who are endangered and don't get a thing.
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