Primates 'face extinction crisis'

Mark Kinver, BBC News 6 Aug 08;

A global review of the world's primates says 48% of species face extinction, an outlook described as "depressing" by conservationists.

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species says the main threat is habitat loss, primarily through the burning and clearing of tropical forests.

More than 70% of primates in Asia are now listed as Endangered, it adds.

The findings form part of the most detailed survey of the Earth's mammals, which will be published in October.


PRIMATES IN PERIL
Nations with the highest percentage of threatened species:
Cambodia - 90%
Vietnam - 86%
Indonesia - 84%
Laos - 83%
China - 79%
(Source: IUCN Red List)

Other threats include hunting of primates for food and the illegal wildlife trade, explained Russell Mittermeier, chairman of global conservation group IUCN's Primate Specialist Group and president of Conservation International.

"In many places, primates are quite literally being eaten to extinction," he warned.

"Tropical forest destruction has always been the main cause, but now it appears that hunting is just as serious a threat in some areas, even where the habitat is still quite intact."

The survey, involving hundreds of experts, showed that out of 634 recognised species and subspecies, 11% were Critically Endangered, 22% were Endangered, while a further 15% were listed as Vulnerable.

Asia had the greatest proportion of threatened primates, with 71% considered at risk of extinction. The five nations with the highest percentage of endangered species were all within Asia.

'Depressing' picture

"It is quite spectacular; we are just wiping out primates," said Jean-Christophe Vie, deputy head of the IUCN Species Programme.

He added that the data was probably the worst assessment for any group of species on record.

"The problem with these species is that they have long lives, so it takes time to reverse the decline. It is quite depressing."

Although habitat loss and deforestation were deemed to be the main threats globally, Dr Vie explained how human encroachment into forests was also creating favourable conditions for hunters.

"This creates access, allowing people to go to places that they could not go in the past," he told BBC News.

"Primates are relatively easy to hunt because they are diurnal, live in groups and are noisy - they are really easy targets.

"Many of the Asian primates, like langurs, are 5-10kg, so they are a good target. Generally, you find that what is big and easy to get disappears very quickly."

In Africa, 11 of the 13 kinds of red colobus monkeys assessed were listed as Critically Endangered or Endangered.

Conservationists fear that two may already be extinct. The Bouvier's red colobus has not been seen for 25 years, and no living Miss Waldron red colobus has been recorded since 1978.

The authors of the primate Red List did consider downlisting mountain gorillas to Endangered from Critically Endangered because the great apes had recorded a population increase.

But they decided to delay reclassification as a result of five of the gorillas being killed in July 2007 by gunmen in the DR Congo's Virunga National Park, which is still at the centre of a conflict between rebel forces and government troops.

During 2007, wildlife rangers in the park recorded a total of 10 gorilla killings. The rangers have been documenting their struggles in a regular diary on the BBC News website over the past year.

"If you kill seven, 10 or 20 mountain gorillas, it has a devastating impact on the entire population," Dr Vie explained.

"Within the Red List criteria, you are allowed to anticipate what will happen in the future as well as look at what has happened in the past.

"So it was decided not to change the mountain gorillas' listing because of the sudden deaths, and we do not know when it is going to stop."

Dr Emmanuel de Merode, chief executive of Gorilla.cd - an EU-funded programme working in Virunga National Park - said the gorillas' long-term survival was still far from assured.

"Militias have been in control of the Gorilla Sector since September last year, which means the Congolese wildlife authority has been unable to manage the area and protect the gorillas," he told BBC News.

"Until the war ends and the rangers are able to get back in and patrol the area, we have no idea as to the fate of almost a third of the mountain gorillas left in the world."

Golden glimmer of hope

Despite the gloomy outlook, the Red List did record a number of conservation successes.

Brazil's populations of golden lion tamarins and black lion tamarins were downlisted from Critically Endangered to Endangered.

"It is the result of decades of effort," said Dr Vie. "The lion tamarins were almost extinct in the wild, but they were very popular in zoos so there was a large captive population.

"So zoos around the world decided to join forces to introduce a captive breeding programme to reintroduce the tamarins in Brazil."

However the first attempts were not successful and the released population quickly crashed because the animals were ill-prepared for life in the wild, he recalled.

"They were not exposed to eagles or snakes and they did not know how to find food, so a lot of them died. But some did survive and, slowly, the numbers began to increase."

Ultimately, the success was a combination of ex-situ conservation in zoos and in-situ conservation by protecting and reforesting small areas around Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

"It took time, money and effort at all levels, from the politicians to scientists and volunteers on the ground, for just two species."

The findings, issued at the International Primatological Society Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland, will be included in a survey described as an "unprecedented examination of the state of the world's mammals", which will be presented at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in October.

Extinction Threatens Half of Primate Types, Study Says
Brian Handwerk, National Geographic News 5 Aug 08;

About half the world's apes, monkeys, and other types of primates are in danger of extinction, according to a new study that predicts a bleak future for many of humankind's closest relatives.

Primates are falling prey to intense hunting and rapidly losing their habitats to deforestation, the study released Monday said.

"[This is] a very important and absolutely horrifying report," said primatologist Frans de Waal, director of the Living Links Center at Emory University.

"There have been isolated pieces of data around for years, which have sketched an ever darker picture," de Waal said, adding that the report supports the bleaker prognoses.

Hundreds of international experts helped to classify 634 primates for the Red List of Threatened Species using criteria established by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). They found nearly half the species and supspecies are endangered.

Scientists have discovered 53 new primate species since 2000, including 40 on Madagascar alone, and no one knows what others may exist. Some could vanish before they are even known to science.

The report, released at the 22nd International Primatological Society Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland, was funded by Conservation International (CI), IUCN, the Margot Marsh Biodiversity Foundation, and Disney's Animal Kingdom.

"Scary" Situation in Asia

The news was particularly bad for Asian primates—more than 70 percent of which are listed as "vulnerable," "endangered," or "critically endangered."

"I think what's most alarming is just how bad the situation is in the Asian region, particularly in Southeast Asia," said Mike Hoffmann, an IUCN scientist based in Washington, D.C.

"In countries like Vietnam and Cambodia pretty much 90 percent of the primate fauna [including gibbons, monkeys, and langurs] is at risk of extinction. That is pretty scary."

Many primates are caught between the two distinct threats: hunting and habitat loss.

In a statement from Edinburgh, CI's Russel A. Mittermeier said, "Tropical forest destruction has always been the main cause, but now it appears that hunting is just as serious a threat in some areas, even where the habitat is still quite intact."

"In many places, primates are quite literally being eaten to extinction," added Mittermeier, president of CI and longtime chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission's Primate Specialist Group.

Hunting feeds an insatiable appetite for bush meat, but it also satisfies demand for the primate pet trade and the many body parts used in traditional Chinese medicine—particularly in Southeast Asia.

IUCN's Hoffmann added, "When you go into even some of the protected areas there, you just don't see anything. The forest is pretty much empty."

Glimmer of Hope?

De Waal said the primates' plight appears grim.

"It is reason to be extremely pessimistic," he said. "This situation can be changed only with the explicit support of governments in the primates' native countries as well as the international community."

But IUCN's Hoffmann stressed that such support could turn the tide.

"We already know that if we invest in targeted conservation action we can see results," he said.

Conservation efforts in Brazil, for example, led the black lion tamarin, and golden lion tamarin to be downlisted to "endangered" from "critically endangered" in 2003.

"The problem is that [conservation efforts] require continuous investment," Hoffmann said.

"Once you initiate a conservation action plan, you're probably going to see some rewards, and species recovering, but then you cannot assume the species is safe."

Hoffmann encouraged people in primate-poor locales like the Unites States and Europe to get out and visit nations that have primates.

"See what people are doing on the ground to save these species," he said. "Local conservation NGOs are out there doing fantastic work. Ask how you can get involved in some way."

Sue Margulis, of the University of Chicago and the Lincoln Park Zoo, said conservation can also start much closer to home.

"It's painfully easy to ignore the role that each of us can play in primate conservation, because the ex situ work is so far removed from our daily lives," she said.

"However, it's critical that we recognize that even small things that we do can make a conservation impact, and do whatever we can in this regard, whether it is recycling cell phones or purchasing products made with sustainable palm oil [which combats deforestation], we need to act."

Emory's De Waal said that all primates have intrinsic value as species and play important roles in their environments.

"Primates also help us understand ourselves and our evolution, since we are primates," he said.

"It's a pathetic situation that half our relatives may disappear."

Primates 'at risk of extinction'
Steve Connor, The Independent 5 Aug 08;

Nearly half of all the species of monkeys and apes in the world are in danger of extinction with primates as a whole representing one of the most threatened group of mammals today, a study has found.

The latest assessment of man’s closest living relatives has found that 48 per cent of the 634 different kinds of primates could soon die out completely due to factors such as habitat loss and hunting.

Scientists who carried out the study for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) believe that the situation has worsened significantly since the last time a similar investigation of primates was done five years ago.

In some parts of the world the threat to primates has reached crisis proportions. In Vietnam and Cambodia, for instance, about nine out of every 10 species are now listed as either vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered – the three most threatened classifications on the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species.

“What is happening in south-east Asia is terrifying. To have a group of animals under such a high level of threat is, quite frankly, unlike anything we have recorded among any other group of species to date,” said Jean-Christophe Vie, deputy head of the IUCN’s species programme.

The review was carried out by hundreds of primatologists who assessed factors such as the loss of habitat, total population size or pressures from hunting which could affect a species chances of survival in the coming century.

“We’ve raised concerns for years about primates being in peril, but now we have solid data to show the situation is far more severe than we imagined,” said Russ Mittermeier, president of Conservation International, and a primate specialist on the IUCN’s Species Survival Commission.

“Tropical forest destruction has always been the main cause, but now it appears that hunting is just as serious a threat in some areas, even where the habitat is still intact. In many places, primates are quite literally being eaten to extinction,” Dr Mittermeier said.

Primates include species as small as the tiny mouse lemurs of Madagascar, which can fit inside a teacup, to the large lowland gorilla of western Africa. They also include man’s closest living relative, the chimpanzee, which shares about 98 per cent of its DNA with humans.

Dr Mittermeier said that one in every three primate species is now either endangered or critically endangered compared to about one in five primates classified in these two risk categories before the results of this latest assessment emerged.

“The pressures on them have increased with the big push towards growing monoculture crops, in part for their use as biofuels. The growing of palm oil crops in south-east Asia and soya beans in the Amazon have taken their toll,” Dr Mittermeier said.

“But hunting of primates for bushmeat has also increased. This was a subsistence issue but now it’s almost become a luxury food with a higher price than for chicken or fish, both in African and in south-east Asia,” he said.

Among the most threatened primate species were two of the red colobus monkeys – Bouvier’s red colobus and Miss Waldron’s red colobus, neither of which has been seen by primatologists for the past quarter of a century.

Despite the threats to primates, scientists have since 2000 described 53 new primate species that are new to science, including 40 species from Madagascar. In 2007, researchers discovered a population of greater bamboo lemurs living a wetland site on the island, about 240 miles from the only other known population of the species – bringing the total number of individuals living in the wild to about 140.

The latest report, however, says that there have been success stories, notably the black lion tamarin and the gold lion tamarin of Brazil’s decimated Atlantic Forest, which have been brought back from the edge of extinction, being classified as endangered rather than critically endangered.

Anthony Rylands of the IUCN’s Primate Specialist Group, said: “If you have forests, you can save primates. The work with lion tamarins shows that conserving forest fragments and reforesting to create corridors that connect them is not only vital for primates, but offers the multiple benefits of maintaining healthy ecosystems and water supplies while reducing greenhouse gases emissions that cause climate change.