Grauer’s Gorilla, one of the Eastern Gorilla subspecies, has experienced a fall in population from 16,900 individuals in 1994 to an estimated 3,800 previous year.
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The Eastern Gorilla – which is made up of two subspecies – has moved from Endangered to Critically Endangered.
“To see the Eastern gorilla – one of our closest cousins – slide towards extinction is truly distressing”, said Inger Andersen, IUCN Director General.
The IUCN warned, however, that the good news for pandas could be short-lived. The creatures’ population rapidly declined during the 1980s and early 1990s due to poaching, from almost a million to about 70,000; their current population is estimated to be between 100,000 and 150,000.
But Sunday’s update was not all bad news.
Wildlife organisations hailed the recovery of the Giant Panda, whose estimated numbers fell to below 1,000 in the 1980s. The World Wildlife Fund estimates there are around 1,900 pandas left in the wild and just over 2,000 in total.
Grauer’s gorilla, one subspecies of eastern gorilla found mainly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has lost 77 percent of its population in the past two decades, declining from 16,900 in 1994 to just 3,800 in 2015, the IUCN said.
The black and white bear, a symbol of China, has finally been shifted off the endangered species list after years of intensive conservation efforts.
The improved status confirms that the Chinese government’s reforestation and forest protection efforts are working, the IUCN said. Nearly one third, 23,928, are listed as being threatened with extinction.
The warning over climate change was echoed by the IUCN, who warned that as much as 35 percent of the panda’s bamboo habitat could be damaged in the next 80 years.
The other subspecies, the mountain gorilla, has been faring better.
Its Red List of Threatened Species will now list the creatures as “vulnerable”, the global organization announced Sunday.
The reclassification is a recognition of cumulative work, and is solid proof that investing in the conservation of a species can be done, and is beneficial to everyone. The listing has put the gorilla species (eastern and western) as well as the other four subspecies as critically endangered, and near extinction.
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To continue assisting the vulnerable animal, especially as climate change threatens the panda’s bamboo habitat, the IUCN says it’s critical that forests in China are protected.
