Primates in Peril 2010

8/6/2019 Primates in Peril 2010

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Primates in PeriNew Survey Identities the Most Threatened Species

You may not know it, but someof your relatives could soon beextinct. No. not your parents,

uncles and aunts, or cousins. Yourat-risk relatives include gray-headedlemurs, silky sifakas, and Peruvianyellow-tailed woolly monkeys.

Those are all primates, the order ofanimals that includes monkeys, apes,lemurs, galagos, tarsiers, and, of

course, human beings. There are hun-dreds of species of primates. Theyrange in size from the mouse lemur,weighing only a few ounces, to thegorilla, weighing around 400 pounds.

A NEW REPORT

About half (48 percent) of all pri-mate species are now threatened,according to Primates in Peri!, areport issued last month by the

f International Union for Conservationof Nature (lUCN). But the very exis-tence of many species hangs by aweak thread. The IUCN reporthighlights the 25 most threatenedprimate species. That list includesfive species from the large island ofMadagascar off the east coast ofAfrica, six species from mainlandAfrica. 11 from Asia, and three from

South America. Some of the mthreatened species include• 60 to 70 golden-headed langu

confined to one island off thecoast of Vietnam,

• 280 cross river gorillas holdingon in central Africa,

• 6.600 orangutans living in fdisappearing rain forests on island of Sumatra, Indonesia.

• 100 northern sportive lemurs Madagascar.

• 110 eastern black-crested gibbin northeastern Vietnam.

"When these and other uniprimate species die off," RMittermeier told Current Eve"they will be lost to the world foreThere is no way to bring bacspecies once it has been killed oMittermeier, one of the editors

Primates in Peril, is presidentConservation International and chof lUCN's Primate Specialist G ro

PRIMATE PROBLEMS

Why are so many primates in dangMittermeier and others give thmain reasons.

Loss of habitat. Almost all world's primate species live in s



ucts, including cookies, snacks,

and villages. Tlie primates in

n which to ^ t h e r food.

The bush meat trade. Bush meat is

tes is considered a delicacy. On the

In pa rts of Africa, large num bers of

zee s, and gorillas, are killed each

oodall Institute, a group trying

e world's great apes, the

meat trade alone could eliminate

s of African apes, such

Medicines and exotic pets. Many

long been used to make traditional

medicines. In addition, thousands of

primates from around the world are

also captured each year to be sold as

pets, preventing them from breeding

in the wild.

WHY IT MATTERS

Why would it matter if a!l monkeys,

apes, and their kin disappeared from

Earth forever?

"First of all, there is a moral rea-

son to protect and save endangered

prima tes," M ittermeier told CE. "W e

see and h ear ourselves in these intel-

ligent and clever creatures because

they are our c lose cous ins in the

natural world." Mittermeier points

out that chimpanzees, gorillas, and

bonobos [pygmy chimpanzees] share

more than 95 percent of their DNA

with humans.

Another important reason to pro-

tect the w orld's primates, Mittermeier

explains , is their role in the ecology of

the w orld's tropical forests. "Many pri-

mates eat forest fruit and disperse

seeds onto the forest floor. A forest

that loses its primates becomes a for-

est withou t seedlings, unable to regen-erate and thrive. That, in turn, has a

direct im pact on peo ple wh o live in or

near these forests and rely on the for-

est resources for their essential need s."

The lUCN hopes that its report will

raise awareness of the plight of the

world 's most endangered primates

and spur governments and individu-

als to take measures to save them.

TTie organization's Web site c ontains

tliis plea: "Each ¡primate] named linthis report] is almost lost—each an

entire race of beings, now reduced to

a tattered remnant.... And if through

ou r failure of action they should cease

to exist, we will have lost o ur nearest

com pan ions— and a pa r t o f ou r -

se lves—from what wi lderness

remains in the world." C E

• • ; . PREDICT THE NEW S

, • • What other ways might a lossof primates affect the ecosystem? Letus know at cenewsblog.com oi

Dian FosseyOían Fossey (1932-1985) devotedher Ufe to studying the mountain

go rillas of Africa. Born in SanFrancisco, she made her firsttrip to Africa in 1963. There shemet noted anthropologist LouisLeakey. She return ed in 1966 andbegan a long-te rm study of thegorillas with Leakey's help. Sheestablished a gorilla researchcenter in Rwanda in 1967 to studythe animals" habits. She imitatedgor illa behaviors to get the ani-

mals to trust her. it took time ,but a breakthro ugh occurred in1970 when an adult male gor illashe named Peanuts touched herhand. That was the first friendlygorilla-to-h um an contact everrecorded. Another gor illa, Digit,became her favo rite. He wouldeventually play with her ha ir orgently whack her with leaves.

During the next 15 years,

Fossey recorded many hours ofobservations about the behaviorof gorillas in the wild. In 1977,Digit was killed by poachers (ill e-gal hun ters], and Fossey estab-lished the Digit Fund—laterrenamed the Dian Fossey GorillaFund International—to raisemoney to protect w ild g orillas.

On Dec. 26,1985, Fossey wasfound murdered in her cabin in

Rwanda. The murder has notbeen solved, but many believe shewas kille d by poachers angry at



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Primates in Peril 2010

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