Gorillas now 'critically endangered'

"Great apes are our closest living relatives and you know you gotta take care of your "family"
The Western gorilla is now "critically endangered," one step away from global extinction, according to the 2007 Red List of Threatened Species. The rate of decline is dizzying. If it continues, we'll lose them in 10-12 years.".

On a related note In all,

• 16,306 species are threatened with extinction, 188 more than last year, IUCN said.
• One in four mammals are in jeopardy,
• as are one in eight birds,
• a third of all amphibians
• and 70 percent of the plants that have been studied.
• As I've written before, the Yangtze River dolphin is now "possibly extinct." There have been no documented sightings of the long-snouted cetacean since 2002.
• The Redheaded Vulture soared from "near threatened" to "critically endangered." And its reason for decline is interesting. A painkiller called "diclofenac", given to ill or injured farm cattle so they can still work causes poisoning of the vultures when they feed on the dead cattle carcasses.
• Only 182 breeding adults of the Gharial crocodile (from India and Nepal) remain, down almost 60 percent from a decade ago.

• The woolly-stalked begonia is the only species declared extinct this year. Extensive searches have failed to uncover any specimens of the Malaysian herb in the last century,
• 785 species have disappeared over the last 500 years.
• A further 65 are found only in artificial settings such as zoos.
  

Full story here