jayhawk
October 25th, 2007, 06:04 PM
The last paragraph is shocking. :down:
Monkeys, apes teetering on brink of extinction
Thu Oct 25 2007 07:13:31 ET
Mankind's closest relatives are teetering on the brink of their first extinctions in more than a century, it will be claimed this weekend.
Endangered primates are being hunted by humans for food and medicine and squeezed from forest homes.
There are just a few dozen of the most threatened gibbons and langurs left, and one colobus may already have gone the way of the dodo, warns the report on the 25 most vulnerable primates.
"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 Russell Mittermeier, president of U.S.-based environmental group Conservation International.
Updated full story from the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/27/science/27primate.html?ref=world
Dozens of Species of Primates Are Under Threat, Study Finds
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Poaching and deforestation in the tropics are imperiling dozens of humans’ primate relations, with nearly a third of the 394 known species of apes, monkeys, lemurs and other groups listed as threatened with extinction in a new report from the World Conservation Union.
The report focuses on the plight of the 25 most endangered species, which live scattered around the tropics, mainly in areas of Asia and Africa. “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 Russell A. Mittermeier, the chairman of the panel of primate experts who wrote the report and the president of Conservation International.
There have been improvements in a few areas. Brazil dropped from the list of places with the most imperiled primates for the first time since the periodic assessments began in 2000. But eight primates have been on all four reports issued since then, including the Sumatran orangutan and the Cross River gorilla of Cameroon and Nigeria.
The worst hot spots are in southeast Asia, particularly Vietnam, and Madagascar, the report said.
The report was issued yesterday by biologists gathered on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, which is home to the most endangered primate of all, the Hainan gibbon. In a telephone interview from the island, Dr. Mittermeier said there were only 17 or 18 left, although that number rose slightly this year.
The forest agency for Hainan, which has 26 reserves, seems to be taking the gibbons’ fate seriously, he said.
Vietnam had the biggest number of most-endangered species, with five, while Madagascar came in a close second. Madagascar, a biologically isolated island off the east coast of Africa, where researchers have raised the estimated number of lemur species from 50 to 100 since 1950, has four of the primates on the top-25 list.
Dr. Mittermeier said that in Southeast Asia and some other regions, there was a growing interest among villages near primate habitat in protecting the colonies because they can draw environment-minded tourists, and income.
But without constant protection, which can cost as little as $200 a year in some places, poachers still find a way to hunt or trap animals, he said.
Monkeys, apes teetering on brink of extinction
Thu Oct 25 2007 07:13:31 ET
Mankind's closest relatives are teetering on the brink of their first extinctions in more than a century, it will be claimed this weekend.
Endangered primates are being hunted by humans for food and medicine and squeezed from forest homes.
There are just a few dozen of the most threatened gibbons and langurs left, and one colobus may already have gone the way of the dodo, warns the report on the 25 most vulnerable primates.
"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 Russell Mittermeier, president of U.S.-based environmental group Conservation International.
Updated full story from the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/27/science/27primate.html?ref=world
Dozens of Species of Primates Are Under Threat, Study Finds
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Poaching and deforestation in the tropics are imperiling dozens of humans’ primate relations, with nearly a third of the 394 known species of apes, monkeys, lemurs and other groups listed as threatened with extinction in a new report from the World Conservation Union.
The report focuses on the plight of the 25 most endangered species, which live scattered around the tropics, mainly in areas of Asia and Africa. “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 Russell A. Mittermeier, the chairman of the panel of primate experts who wrote the report and the president of Conservation International.
There have been improvements in a few areas. Brazil dropped from the list of places with the most imperiled primates for the first time since the periodic assessments began in 2000. But eight primates have been on all four reports issued since then, including the Sumatran orangutan and the Cross River gorilla of Cameroon and Nigeria.
The worst hot spots are in southeast Asia, particularly Vietnam, and Madagascar, the report said.
The report was issued yesterday by biologists gathered on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, which is home to the most endangered primate of all, the Hainan gibbon. In a telephone interview from the island, Dr. Mittermeier said there were only 17 or 18 left, although that number rose slightly this year.
The forest agency for Hainan, which has 26 reserves, seems to be taking the gibbons’ fate seriously, he said.
Vietnam had the biggest number of most-endangered species, with five, while Madagascar came in a close second. Madagascar, a biologically isolated island off the east coast of Africa, where researchers have raised the estimated number of lemur species from 50 to 100 since 1950, has four of the primates on the top-25 list.
Dr. Mittermeier said that in Southeast Asia and some other regions, there was a growing interest among villages near primate habitat in protecting the colonies because they can draw environment-minded tourists, and income.
But without constant protection, which can cost as little as $200 a year in some places, poachers still find a way to hunt or trap animals, he said.