The world's largest living primate is only one step away from extinction, according to a report released Sunday at the World Conservation Congress in Hawaii.  The bad news about the Eastern Gorilla means that four of the six great ape species now listed internationally as critically endangered.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) says illegal hunting has gutted the species, causing the population to decrease by 70 percent over the past two decades.  The Western Gorilla, the Bornean Orangutan, and Sumatran Orangutan were already classified as critically endangered.  Chimpanzees and bonobos are deemed endangered.

"To see the eastern gorilla - one of our closest cousins - slide toward extinction is truly distressing," said IUCN director general Inger Andersen.  "Conservation action does work and we have increasing evidence of it.  It is our responsibility to enhance our efforts to turn the tide and protect the future of our planet."

Rescuing the species will be a struggle because of political instability in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which limits hopes of coming up with some scheme to protect through eco-tourism.

"If we can protect our large primary forests and make local and indigenous people the beneficiaries of that, we'll continue to share the world with great apes.  If we don't, we're done," said said Dr. M. Sanjanyan, vice-president at Conservation International.  "We'll have a few relics left but, ecologically speaking, the great apes will be gone."