Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Cameroon, with one of Africa’s highest rates of deforestation, has set up a new national park to protect gorillas, chimpanzees, elephants and a rare type of antelope called bongo.

Deng Deng National Park extends 580 square kilometres (224 square miles), an area about the size of Chicago, and will help conserve some 600 western lowland gorillas, one of four sub- species of the great ape, said the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, which helped in the park’s creation.

Western lowland gorillas are classified as “critically endangered” on the Red List of threatened species compiled annually by the Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature. That’s because their population has plummeted more that 80 percent in six decades and they remain in danger due to hunting and diseases, including ebola.

The mountain gorilla, made famous by the primatologist Dian Fossey and the movie “Gorillas in the Mist,” is limited to the mountains of Virunga, which straddle Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo southeast of Cameroon.

“Deng Deng National Park is a major step toward conserving all of Cameroon’s gorilla populations and wildlife,” WCS president Steven Sanderson said in a statement.

WCS, which helps enforce rules in Cameroon banning the transportation and sale of bushmeat, in November also helped Cameroon create Takamanda National Park, which links up to a wider protected area across the border in Nigeria, protecting another subspecies of gorilla, the Cross River gorilla.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 20, 2009 07:11 EST