Gorillas live in Central Africa. The mountain gorillas of Rwanda, Zaire and Uganda have become very rare. There are two groups of lowland gorillas: the eastern lowland gorillas of Zaire and the western lowland gorillas of Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Central African Republic, and Guinea.
Even though they are "protected", all gorilla species suffer from habitat loss from development and lumber harvesting, poaching and even occasional civil wars that bring soldiers into the forest with weapons that more often than not are used on the gorillas and other wildlife in their path.
There may be fewer than 700 of the rare mountain gorillas left in the wild.
As of 2000, the Western Lowland Gorillas, Eastern Gorillas and Mountain Gorillas (Gorilla beringei) have been listed as Endangered on the CITES IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) Red List.
The International Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP), a joint initiative of the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), Fauna and Flora International (FFI) and WWF are working to save gorilla populations and habitat.
