A new population of western lowland gorillas has been discovered

Conservationists have hailed the discovery of a large new population of western lowland gorillas in Africa as "absolutely fantastic news".

A census by the Wildlife Conservation Society, announced at the International Primatological Society Congress in Edinburgh, revealed that a new population of 125,000 animals had been found in two adjacent areas in the Republic of Congo.

It is a massive boost for numbers of the critically endangered western lowland gorilla, which had been thought to number fewer than 50,000 across their whole range.

But the Gorilla Organisation warned against complacency, as the area where the new population was found in the northern part of the country is in the path of the deadly Ebola virus.

The disease is one of the main threats to the subspecies - along with hunting by humans.

Jillian Miller, executive director of the Gorilla Organisation, said: "The discovery of such a large population of western lowland gorillas is absolutely fantastic news for the sub-species and for conservationists, but we should be careful not to be too complacent.

"The area where these gorillas have been found is in the path of the Ebola virus, which has wiped out large numbers of western lowland gorillas during the past 25 years.

"Numbers are less important than trends and sadly the trend for all gorilla sub-species, apart from the mountain gorilla, has been a downturn in population figures. However this recent discovery does provide conservationists with a great opportunity to turn these trends around."

The western lowland gorilla was moved from endangered to critically endangered in the most recent assessment of the conservation status of the world's species, the 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

This week there was bad news for other primates, as the World Conservation Union (IUCN) warned that around half of the world's apes and monkeys are facing extinction, with some 300 of the 634 species under threat.