Study: Survival of Many Non-Human Primates in Doubt
A report in the journal Science Advances details the grim realities facing a majority of the nonhuman primates in the world - the apes, monkeys, tarsiers, lemurs and lorises inhabiting ever-shrinking forests across the planet. The review is the most comprehensive conducted so far, the researchers say, and the picture it paints is dire.
"Alarmingly, about 60 percent of primate species are now threatened with extinction and about 75 percent have declining populations," the authors wrote.
"This truly is the eleventh hour for many of these creatures," said University of Illinois anthropology professor Paul Garber, who co-led the study with Alejandro Estrada of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. "Several species of lemurs, monkeys and apes - such as the ring-tailed lemur, Udzunga red colobus monkey, Yunnan snub-nosed monkey, white-headed langur and Grauer's gorilla - are down to a population of a few thousand individuals. In the case of the Hainan gibbon, a species of ape in China, there are fewer than 30 animals left."
Aaron Morton