Endangered Monkeys
Some Important Facts About Endangered Monkeys
Fourteen endangered monkeys are on the list of the top twenty-five endangered primates. These include six from Asia, five from Africa, and three from Central and South America. These endangered monkeys are threatened with extinction due to habitat loss, the sale of their meat, and monkey poaching for the pet trade. The problem is at its worst in Asia. Other human activity, such as the clearing of tropical rainforests for farming, logging and fuel wood is also to blame for their disappearance.
Let’s take a look at some of these endangered monkeys:
The Roloway Monkey is believed to be extinct in Ghana and endangered on the Ivory Coast, the only two places in the world where they exist. They have been killed and sold for meat.
There are three Red Colobus monkeys on the endangered list. Miss Waldron’s Red Colobus has not been seen by anyone since 1993. It is not known for sure if it is extinct or not. It is native to the Ivory Coast and Ghana. The Tana River Red Colobus Monkey now has a population of under one thousand. The Tana River is in Kenya and the only place where this particular monkey lives. It is disappearing because of destruction of its forest habitat. On Africa’s west coast is a place known as the Bioko Island, which is home to the Pennant’s Red Colobus Monkey. The monkeys now live on reserves but even that has not protected them from being killed. In the last four years, 550 of this endangered species has been killed for meat, marking a forty percent decline among these monkeys.
Among the top twenty-five endangered primates are two different spider monkeys--the Brown-headed Spider Monkey and the Variegated Spider Monkey. There are a small number of the Brown-headed Spider Monkeys in Ecuador but the exact number is not known. Spider monkeys live in trees and both rainforest destruction and hunting have led to their disappearance. The Variegated Spider Monkey is native to Columbia and Venezuela. Their elimination is due to the same human actions, plus being poached for pet sales.
Four different langurs are among the endangered monkeys. The Pig-tailed from Indonesia has declined because its forest habitat has been logged and human settlements made in its place. Delacour’s Langur is native to Vietnam. Only around two-hundred-fifty are still alive because they have been killed for sale in the medicine trade. Hunting and habitat disappearance have been a problem here as well.
The Golden-head Langur, also from Vietnam, had a population as large as 2,500 back in the 1960s. Today, because of hunting for use to make traditional medicines, there are under fifty-five of these monkeys in existence. Males are rare and there are only one or two of these monkeys born each year. Sri Lanka is home to the Sri Lankan Langur, another of the world’s most endangered monkeys. Their population has decreased by 80% to 10,000 due to loss of habitat to humans.
Other endangered monkeys include the Kipunji Monkey from Tanzania, the Gray-shanked Douc from Vietnam, The Tonkin Snub-nosed Monkey from Vietnam, and from Peru, the Peruvian Yellow-tailed Woolly Monkey.