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The population of mountain gorillas is so low now that the next human disease they catch may wipe them out. This is probably how most of the megafauna extinctions happened. A warming climate pushed a species into small pockets with low populations. Then people arrived with their novel diseases that finished it off. TB has been found in the bones of mammoths — the same disease that may finish off the last mountain gorillas.

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I don’t know about the rest of you, but I read stories on the destruction of our biodiversity reluctantly and with a groan because it is so depressing, enhanced by a feeling of total helplessness. I may post soon on a brainstorm session to try to flush out novel ideas to stop this — with help from commenters and a poll or two.

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