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  IUCN website, 7 Apr 05
Primates on the Brink
Full article with links to PDF files of full report

Mankind’s closest living relatives - the world’s apes, monkeys, lemurs and other primates - face increasing peril from humans and some could soon disappear forever, according to a report released today by the Primate Specialist Group of IUCN - The World Conservation Union’s Species Survival Commission (SSC) and the International Primatological Society (IPS), in collaboration with Conservation International (CI).

Primates in Peril: The World’s 25 Most Endangered Primates - 2004-2006 reveals that 25 percent - or one in four - of the 625 primate species and subspecies are at risk of extinction.

The report compiled by more than 50 experts from 16 countries cites deforestation, commercial bushmeat hunting, and the illegal animal trade as the primary threats, and warns that failure to respond will bring the first primate extinctions in more than a century.

Quarter of primates face abyss
BBC News, 7 Apr 05

The Earth's most successful primates - humans - are on the brink of killing off nearly a quarter of their 625 cousin species, a report has said. Hundreds of species of apes, monkeys and lemurs are at risk of becoming the first primate extinctions in nearly a century, Primates in Peril claims.

The report received input from 50 top specialists from Conservation International and other organisations. Habitat loss and hunting have bought some species to their knees, it said. The report listed the 25 most critically endangered primates.

It said that without swift action, great apes such as the Sumatran orang-utan and the Eastern gorilla of central Africa could vanish altogether.

If we do nothing as many as one-quarter of all today's primates will be dead in 20 years Russell Mittermeier "If you took all the remaining individuals from the 25 primate species on this list and gave them a seat in a football stadium, they'd all fit," said Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International.

The report urges immediate action to curb the destruction by farmers and loggers of forests in which primates dwell, and end the trade in bushmeat and exotic medicines from animal parts. "If we do nothing, as many as one-quarter of all today's primates will be dead in 20 years," Dr Mittermeier said.

Of the four global regions inhabited by primates, the worst hit is Madagascar, where loss of habitat to traditional slash-and-burn agriculture has left some lemur species, such as Perrier's sifaka, stranded in tiny areas of the forest. More than half of Madagascar's lemurs are on the verge of extinction. The golden-headed langur of Vietnam and China's Hainan gibbon are down to a few dozen and the Horton Plains slender loris of Sri Lanka has been spotted only four times since 1937.

But despite declining numbers, no primate species actually went extinct last century. "Amazingly, we've managed to get through the 20th Century without any primate species going extinct," Dr Mittermeier said. "I'd like to think this is partly because of better conservation efforts."
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