Extinction threat for our closest relatives
Mankind’s closest living relatives – apes, monkeys, lemurs and other primates – are under unprecedented threat of extinction from the destruction of tropical forests, illegal wildlife trade and commercial bushmeat hunting, according to a new report.
Titled Primates in Peril: The World’s 25 Most Endangered Primates, the report – compiled by 60 primate experts from 21 countries – warns that 29% of all primate species are in danger of becoming extinct. Failure to respond to the mounting threats exacerbated by climate change, it states, could bring about the first primate extinctions in more than a century.
Overall, 114 of the world’s 394 primate species are now classified as threatened with extinction on the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN) Red List, due largely to the activities of man: hunters kill primates for food and to sell the meat; traders capture them for live sale; and loggers, farmers and land developers destroy their habitat.
One species, Miss Waldron’s red colobus of Ivory Coast and Ghana, is already feared extinct, while the golden-headed langur of Vietnam and China’s Hainan gibbon number only in the dozens. The Horton Plains slender loris of Sri Lanka has been sighted just four times since 1937.
“You could fit all the surviving members of these 25 species in a single football stadium; that’s how few of them remain on Earth today,” said IUCN primate specialist and president of Conservation International, Russell Mittermeier. “The situation is worst in Asia, where tropical forest destruction and the hunting and trading of monkeys puts many species at terrible risk. Even newly discovered species are severely threatened from loss of habitat and could soon disappear.”
As “flagship species” and mankind’s closest living relatives, non-human primates are considered important to the health of their surrounding ecosystems. Through the dispersal of seeds and other interactions with their environments, they help support a wide range of plant and animal life that makes up the Earth’s forests.
The latest report follows similar assessments in 2000, 2002 and 2004. Eight of the primates on the most recent list, including the Sumatran orangutan of Indonesia and the Cross River gorilla of Cameroon and Nigeria, are “four-time losers” that also appeared on the previous three lists. Six other species are on the list for the first time, including a recently discovered Indonesian tarsier that has yet to be formally named.
Madagascar and Vietnam each have four primates on the latest list. Indonesia has three, followed by Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Colombia with two each, and one each from China, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Nigeria, Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Peru, Venezuela and Ecuador. All 25 primates are found in the world’s biodiversity hotspots: 34 high priority regions identified by Conservation International that cover just 2.3% of the Earth’s land surface, but harbour more than 50% of all terrestrial plant and animal diversity.
Habitat loss due to the clearing of tropical forests for agriculture, logging, and the collection of fuel wood continues to be the major factor in the declining number of primates, according to the report. Tropical deforestation also emits 20% of total greenhouse gases that cause climate change, which is more than all the world’s cars, trucks, trains and airplanes combined. In addition, climate change is altering the habitats of many species, leaving those with small ranges even more vulnerable to extinction. Hunting for subsistence and commercial purposes is another major threat to primates, especially in Africa and Asia. Live capture for the pet trade also poses a serious threat, particularly to Asian species.
by Laura Snook, MSN Environment Editor
October 26, 2007
