Conservationists Reveal The 25 Most Endangered Primates
This is the 7th edition of a biennial report identifying the 25 most endangered primates in the world. Six of these primates currently live in Madagascar, the country with the greatest number of endangered primates.
Executive Summary:
“The 2012–2014 list of the world’s 25 most endangered primates has five species from Africa, six from Madagascar, nine from Asia, and five from the Neotropics (Table 1). In terms of individual countries, Madagascar tops the list with six species. Vietnam has five, Indonesia three, Brazil two, and China, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Kenya, Peru, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Venezuela each have one.”
“The changes made in this list compared to the previous iteration (2010–2012) were not because the situation of the nine species that were dropped (Table 2) has improved. In some cases, such as, for example, Varecia variegata, the situation has in fact worsened. By making these changes we intend rather to highlight other, closely related species enduring equally bleak prospects for their future survival. An exception may be the greater bamboo lemur, Prolemur simus, for which recent studies have confirmed a considerably larger distribution range and larger estimated population size than previously assumed. The severe threats to this species in eastern Madagascar remain, though.”
“Nine primate species were added to the 2012–2014 list (Table 3). Seven of them were placed on the list of the world’s 25 most endangered primates for the first time. The Tana River red colobus and the Ecuadorian brown-headed spider monkey had already been on previous iterations of the list, but were subsequently removed in favor of other highly threatened species of the same genera. The 2012–2014 list now contains two members each of these genera, thus particularly highlighting the severe threats they are facing.”