These endangered animals

[mochimochi]

Hello everyone. I have a question about pronoun.

What does "these endangered animals" mean?

The World Wide Fund for Nature estimates that 34 per cent of the primate species are vulnerable. However great our needs for cures, we cannot condemn other primates to possible extinction in order to cure ourselves. Not all experiments can be justified as necessary to save human lives. Chimps have been starved, beaten, frozen, burned, blinded and killed.
　Glands in the male musk deer secrete one of the most valuable fluids in the world — musk oil. To obtain 1 kg of musk, forty adult males have to be killed. In 1986 it was reckoned that 37000 of these endangered animals were killed world-wide, mostly illegally.


Are 37000 of these endangered animals just musk deer,
or musk deer and other endagered animals?

[blouen]

Yes. I think it refers to the musk deer since it has been the topic in the preceding sentences.

[mochimochi]

Thank you for quick answering, blouen.

[blouen]

You're welcome!