The fei1zhou1 da4 xing1xing5 might become extinct in 10 years

Gorillas (大猩猩 • da4 xing1xing5), the largest living primates and human's closest relatives (类最近的近亲 • ren2lei4 zui4jin4 de5 jin4 qin1), are seriously at risk of extinction (滅絕 • mie4 jue2)

In the past 15 years ( 在过去15年 • zai4 guo4qu5 shi2wu3nian2), the Ebola (埃博拉 • ai1 bo2 la1) virus (病毒 • bing4 du2] )has made 1/3 of the gorilla's population disappear. Scientist (科學家• ke1 xue2 jia1) warn that if this tendency continues (繼續下去• ji4 xu4 xia4 qu5) , the entire species will be extinguished (消亡 • xiao1wang2) in less than 12 years.

This terrible virus has killed at least 1300 people in Central Africa (中非• Zhong1 Fei1) in the last 30 years. In most of these cases the source has been traced to the consumption of contaminated apes (猿猴• yuan2hou2) or antelopes (羚羊 • ling2yang2).

Carefully monitoring of the gorilla population in the Republic of Congo (剛果共和國 • Gang1guo3 gong4he2guo2) has revealed that the dissemination of the disease between gorilla groups has played an important role in the spread of the Ebola virus.
Unfortunately, due to the high mortality rate (死亡率• si3 wang2lv4) affecting the gorilla population, it would only take about 23 soccer fields (兩三個足球場 • liang3san1 ge4 zu2qiu2 chang3) to locate the remaining global (全球 • quan2 qiu2) surviving members of this species (種 • zhong3).

Isn't this sad?

© Photographer: Vincent Giordano | Agency: Dreamstime.com"