Today researchers happily announced they found 25,000 western lowland gorillas in the Republic of Congo, nearly double what they thought were still living in the Congo and the nearby countries.

The report was released at a meeting of the International Primatological Society Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The newly discovered gorillas live in two areas of the northern part of the country covering 18,000 square miles.

Western lowland gorillas are one of four gorilla subspecies, which also include mountain gorillas, eastern lowland gorillas and Cross River gorillas.

They are found in tropical forests and swamps in Angola, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon. All these species are considered to be endangered ones by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Previous statistics showed that there were less than 100,000 back in the 1980s. So their number was believed to have fallen by at least 50 percent since then. The population figures were figured out by counting their sleeping "nests".

The discovery "shows that conservation in the Republic of Congo is working," said Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) president Steven Sanderson.

But no matter how many gorillas were found, the risk of an Ebola infection is very high and things can turn around in a second, the researchers also explained. There’s a 90 percent mortality rate among infected gorillas, so they have to be carefully protected.

The 125,000 newly discovered population now puts estimated number of western lowland gorillas between 175,000 to 225,000.

In the last few years, besides the Ebola Virus, gorillas have also been devastated by illegal hunting for bush meat.