“Reasons for the declines are no mystery: they all relate directly or indirectly to human actions.”
— a Worldwatch Institute report

From mountain gorillas in Rwanda to macaques of Japan, primates die as forests shrink.





Humans number 5.7 billion, primates 400,000. Research once took 90,000 chimpanzees a year.

Of all primates, champanzees most closely resemble humans (PNI)

Fate of the Forests
It spotlights a number of "hot spots" where forest loss has resulted in high concentrations of endangered primates. These include southeast Asia, equatorial Africa, Madagascar and southeastern Brazil.
     "The fate of these forests will largely determine the fate of most primates, and more and more of these forests are losing their ecological integrity as they are logged, colonized and cleared for agriculture," the article said.
     Nine-tenths of the primates of south and east Asia face extinction. In southeastern Indonesia and southeastern Malaysia, orangutans, the great ape most dependent on trees, have lost 80 percent of their trees in two decades.
     With only 200 individuals left after the loss of much of its rain forest environment, Vietnam's Tonkin snub-nose monkey has become the world's rarest primate.
     The macaques of Japan are steadily losing living space to urbanization. Deprived of natural foods, desperate macaques turn to raiding orchards and fields, prompting farmers to kill about 10 percent of the 50,000 surviving macaques each year.

Predation for Pets
Primates also still face heavy "hunting pressure" in various places. Some, especially the big apes orangutans, gibbons, chimps and gorillas, are being trapped for the pet trade. "They are so much like us that there is a virtually insatiable demand for them," the report said.
     "There's certainly a problem with certain species, and a lot of this is due to the increase of human population," said researcher Harold McClure of Emory University's Yerkes Primate Center.
     McClure said he has seen no figures that confirm primates are more endangered than other mammals, but "I would feel comfortable with that" assertion.
     Worldwatch, an independent research institute financed by private grants and sale of its publications, monitors environmental and social issues. A spokeswoman for World Wildlife Fund, which seeks to protect animals around the globe, echoed the report.

Canary in a Coal Mine
"There are few species that are as good an indicator of the overall health of an ecosystem as primates," said Jinette Hemley, the fund's director of wildlife policy. "The new pressures are spelling potential disaster for them."
     While the world's human population has grown steadily to above 5.7 billion people, great apes are declining and now number fewer than 400,000.
     Despite a generally gloomy outlook for most species, the report contained snippets of encouraging conservation news.
     Biomedical research once consumed up to 90,000 chimpanzees a year but now relies on captive-bred animals. In Rwanda, the social pact with the famed mountain gorillas weathered even the recent ethnic conflict that killed at least 500,000 people. Only two of the 320 remaining gorillas died.

Copyright 1997 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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