Gorrilas Dying Off. Suspect. Ebola.

A catastrophic die-off of lowland gorillas and chimpanzees at the very heart of their range in central Africa has been reported by scientists. Scientists working with the ECOFAC program (an EC-funded regional forest conservation program for central Africa) in northern Republic of Congo said today that they were witnessing what appears to be a massive decline in ape populations in the Lossi Gorilla Sanctuary (about 100 square miles/250 square kilometers) situated about 10 miles (15 square kilometers) to …

…of their family group. As the group is dying, some individuals infected later may be left to wander off and join another group or may be found dead by a member of another family group, allowing this cycle to continue." Named after the Ebola River, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the site of an outbreak of the virus in 1976, Ebola is an RNA virus of African origin that causes an often fatal hemorrhagic fever.