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Red List released

Yangtze white dolphin

GENEVA: Great apes have rich emotional lives and share strong family bonds. They laugh when they are tickled, cry when they grieve. They can make and use tools. They think about their past and plan for their future.

But many won’t have a future to plan for, conservationists say.

The Western Gorilla — the most common in the world — is now “critically endangered,” just one step away from global extinction, according to the 2007 Red List of Threatened Species released on Wednesday by the World Conservation Union.

The Ebola virus is depleting populations to a point where it might become impossible for them to recover. Commercial hunting, civil unrest and habitat loss due to logging and forest clearance for palm oil plantations are compounding the problem, said the Swiss-based group, known by its acronym, IUCN.

The list revealed that the Gharial Crocodile and the Redheaded Vulture also are fighting for a future. The Yangtze River Dolphin’s whistle may have already been silenced. In all, 16,306 species are threatened with extinction, 188 more than last year, IUCN said. One in four mammals is in jeopardy, as is one in eight birds, a third of all amphibians and 70 percent of the plants that have been studied. — AP

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