IUCN Red List Update Signals Hope for Gorillas

The status of the mountain gorilla is now endangered, an upgrade from critically endangered. Other species are becoming more threatened.

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A new version of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of species at risk of extinction was published this Wednesday (November 14). According to the new list, threats to the mountain gorilla have diminished, the BBC reports, though the situation for other species has moved in the opposite direction. The mountain gorilla’s status has shifted from “critically endangered” to “endangered,” and since 2008, mountain gorilla populations worldwide have risen from 600 to more than 1,000.

“In the context of crashing populations of wildlife around the world, this is a remarkable conservation success,” Tara Stoinski, president, CEO, and chief scientific officer of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, a nonprofit organization based in Georgia, tells the Associated Press.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List classifies species according to their extinction risks on a spectrum from “extinct” to “least concern.”

The gorilla’s ...

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