Cute they may be, but ring-tailed lemurs are in deep trouble in Madagascar, according to a report listing the world’s 25 most endangered primates.
According to rough estimates two decades ago, ring-tailed lemurs once numbered “several hundred thousand” throughout the island. But according to a recent census included in the report, numbers have now crashed to between 2500 and 3000.
“It’s so dramatic we felt we had to highlight it,” says lead author , director of conservation at Bristol Zoological Society. “They are the most abundant primate in zoos, but they’re being hammered in their natural habitat.”
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The report, published today, is titled Primates in Peril: The world’s 25 most endangered primates 2016-2018.
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Schwitzer says there are three major factors driving the rapid decline. One is the desperate poverty that drives citizens to kill lemurs for food: . This poverty is aggravated by long-standing , which has led to the withdrawal of donor aid on which the country depends for 75 per cent of its revenue.
Poverty has forced people to turn to small-scale, subsistence rice farming, which is eating into the lemurs’ habitat. “We’re seeing very high rates of habitat loss exacerbated by the political instability,” says Schwitzer. “There’s almost no environmental law enforcement and poverty levels have shot up, so people poach lemurs, and it’s reaching unprecedented levels.”
A third factor is the local pet trade. Baby ring-tailed lemurs are often captured in the wild and sold to hotels and restaurants for the amusement of guests.
“To learn that ring-tailed lemurs are in trouble is indicative of the plight faced by so many species,” says of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. “This report makes disturbing, but sadly not surprising, reading, as animals globally are being pushed to the brink of extinction due to human activities, particularly habitat destruction and the use of live animals and their parts for illegal wildlife trade. We need to reverse this trend and value these animals in the wild, not for their parts, their use in the entertainment industry or as pets.”
Schwitzer says that the situation in Madagascar can’t be reversed unless and until political stability returns. That in turn depends on international assistance to address the desperate poverty. “Conservation does work, but we need to double or treble our efforts,” he says.
Other lemurs in Madagascar are at risk too. One species, the James’ sportive lemur, is almost gone, with only “a handful” left, says Schwitzer.
The iconic aye-aye, with its penetrating eyes, is also at risk. Although they’re spread throughout the country, aye-ayes live at extremely low densities, so wiping out just one or two could mean extinction over a relatively large area, says Schwitzer. Some are killed as a result of superstition, as in some villages they’re seen as harbingers of death.
The other alarming surprise highlighted in the report is a collapse in orangutan numbers in Borneo, caused mainly by the clearance of orangutan habitat for palm-oil plantations. In 1973, the population of Bornean orangutans was estimated at 288,500, but by 2010 this had more than halved to 100,000 individuals. “This equates to an average loss of 5000 individuals per year,” says Schwitzer.
AÂ newly-discovered third species, the Tapanuli orangutan, would have been included in the report if its existence had come to light earlier.
The Hainan gibbon in China is also hanging by a thread. Only 30 remain.
