Four of the five Great Apes are found here: Mountain gorillas, Lowland gorillas, Chimpanzees and Bonobos.
One unlikely success story amid this gloom are the mountain gorillas of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The 7, 900 hectare site is also home to critically endangered mountain gorillas.
She fears for the animals' safety, not least because mountain gorillas do not always flee the sound of gunfire and mortars, she said.
Mountain gorillas are not frequently hunted for their meat, but can be maimed or killed by poachers leaving traps or snares for other animals.
About 200 of the world's 700 known mountain gorillas lived in the park when rebel leader Laurent Nkunda's men took control of the gorilla section last year, Newport said.
"There is no doubt the mountain gorillas would have been wiped out, were it not for ecotourism, " says Allard Blom, a primatologist at the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.
Whereas more than 300 Western Lowlands mountain gorillas are in captivity in America, perhaps as few as three of these beautiful but endangered primates are sheltering in zoos on their home continent.
But about 1 million years ago the mountain gorillas were cut off from their cousins in West Africa, perhaps by drought, says Olaf Thalmann of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.
Fast forward two years, and the first Rwandan national team, The Silverbacks named for Rwanda's mountain gorillas, will make their debut at the Kowloon RugbyFest: a 10-a-side tournament which features teams from around the world.
And mountain gorillas have never been abundant.
ECONOMIST: The number of mountain gorillas appears to be rising
For example, an organization working on saving mountain gorillas in Rwanda might vividly describe what it would look and feel like to triple the population of gorillas and the employ hundreds of former poachers as tourist guides.
While baseball goes for Muppet-like characters, the NBA favors tough animals--bulls, mountain lions, coyotes, gorillas--acting goofy.
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