With slow reproduction rates all primates             are vulnerable

At the Primatological Congress in Edinburgh it has been reported that almost 50% of the world’s 634 primate species are close to extinction. In Asia, things are worse and more than 70% of species are on the IUCN Red List, this figure reaching 90% in Cambodia and Vietnam where langurs, gibbons and leaf monkeys are all under threat. In Africa red colobus monkeys are under threat with 11 different species listed as Critically Endangered, one step away from a listing as Extinct.

The majority of the world’s primates live in forests, mostly tropical forests and are an integral part of forest ecology supporting a wide range of flora and fauna. The main reason for the desperate plight of primates is habitat loss, although bush meat, wildlife trade and in southeast Asia, trade in ‘medicinal’ parts to China are aiding destruction of populations.

These findings are the result of a 5 year study of the planet’s primate populations by collating data from many primatologists worldwide. However, they also show that since 2000 more than 50 species of primates have been described by science for the first time, 40 of these originating in Madagascar.

It is clear that if forests are protected then populations of primates can be a success story. Obviously, with larger primates with slow rates of reproduction the protection must be long term, but short term success has been demonstrated in the forests surrounding Rio Janiero in Brazil where over the last 30 years black lion and golden lion tamarins have increased in numbers through conservation of their forest habitats. They have been downgraded to Endangered but now require reforestation to enable populations to expand.

Of course gorillas and chimpanzees are more in the public eye and experts from the Wildlife Conservation Society have recently concluded a first census of the isolated northern forests in the Congo where they discovered a large group of western lowland gorillas with a population estimated around 125,000, twice that for some estimates for the world population of this species. The area is almost uninhabitable by humans and this is understood to be a key factor in the density of population of these gorillas. However, logging and hunting and the Ebola virus may rapidly bring these numbers down in the near future if they are not protected. It is understood that moves are being made to try and protect these remote areas of the country, whilst it is estimated that population crashes in other areas of west Africa may take over 120 years to recover.