More than half the world’s monkeys, apes and lemurs are facing extinction as jungles are burnt down and humans hunt them for food, experts warned yesterday.
Primate numbers are falling because of large-scale habitat destruction – particularly the clearing of tropical forests – and because the animals are killed for ‘bushmeat’.
They are also hunted as trophies and because they are eating farmers’ fruit, while some are taken from the wild to be kept as pets. The warning comes in a report, Primates in Peril, which lists the world’s 25 most endangered primates for 2014-2016 and their estimated numbers remaining in the wild.
Some of the animals on the endangered list, such as the Sumatran orangutan, have been threatened for years. But new arrivals on the list include other primates that are little known to the general public including the Philippine tarsier and the Lavasoa Mountains dwarf lemur from Madagascar – which was only discovered two years ago.
One of the report’s authors, Dr Christoph Schwitzer, director of conservation at Bristol Zoological Society, said: ‘This research highlights the extent of the danger facing many of the world’s primates.
‘We hope it will focus people’s attention on these lesser known primate species, some of which most people will probably have never heard of.’
Bristol Zoological Society said more than 50 per cent of the 703 species and sub-species of primates are facing extinction. It was 48 per cent in 2013.
Both the Lavasoa dwarf lemur and the Roloway monkey, which are found in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, ‘are on the very verge of extinction’. Madagascar and Vietnam are home to large numbers of highly threatened primate species, the report says.
In Africa, the red colobus monkeys is under ‘particular threat’, as are some of South America’s howler monkeys and spider monkeys. Red colobus monkeys do not help themselves because when disturbed they have an unfortunate habit of staring down on humans from the treetops rather than fleeing.
Dr Schwitzer said: ‘All of these species are relatively large and conspicuous, making them prime targets for bushmeat hunting.’
In April, experts in the Congo spotted a monkey – Bouvier’s red colobus – that had been suspected of being extinct. There had been no confirmed sightings for a century.
The list has been compiled by Bristol Zoological Society, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the International Primatological Society and Conservation International and is updated every two years.
Dr Russell Mittermeier, of the IUCN, said he hoped the report would encourage governments to commit to ‘desperately needed biodiversity conservation measures’.
Speaking ahead of the global climate conference, which starts next week in Paris, he said that there was growing evidence that some primate species might play key roles in dispersing tropical forest tree seeds. This is vital in regenerating the forests, which ‘have a critically important role in mitigating climate change’. – Daily Mail