Primate Conservation

Primate Conservation

Introduction

Political systems come and go, even horrible wars' effects are gone in a few generations, but if you don't conserve, the effects will last forever. This is probably the biggest and most rapid phase of extinction that has ever seen before. And it's different because it's not due to natural forces. We're changing the environment so quickly and so drastically that things can't adapt quickly enough to it.

The Current Status of Primate Conservation

A third to a half of all primate species is endangered because of overexploitation and habitat destruction. As an estimate, its maybe at 42% right now, but it'll go up in the future (Chiarello 2003 99-121). It will probably be the next generation or two who will decide how many primates will survive.

Basic Factors Affecting Primate Conservation

Geographic distribution: Primates are just tropical animals, found mostly in the tropics of the southern hemisphere. This means that primates live mainly in third-world countries, so economics is a factor 'cause home countries are poor and have a lot of demands on their resources.

Low reproductive potential: Take for example the chimp; they only produce a baby every 5-6 years, and there's a very high infant mortality- 50% die in their first two years. This means that populations can't bounce back very quickly.

Threats to Primate Populations

Overharvesting

Some older forms include hunting for food, for example booboos and cebids; Hunting for trophies or ornaments, like when black and white colobus are made into rugs for tourists; And hunting of pest species such as when farmers don't like troops of monkeys harvesting their crops so they shoot them. Baboons and macaques especially like to raid crops (Workman 2000 346-352). Primates are also affected by indirect hunting; they get caught in snares set for other species like deer or whatever.

Primates are also 'harvested' by live capture- especially for biomedical research.

Primates are so closely related to humans, and have much the same diseases, that they make good models for medical research. For example, the only non-human primate who can support the AIDS virus is the chimp so they're being used for AIDS research. You have heard of blood types Rh positive and Rh negative, right? Well the "rh" stands for Rhesus monkeys in which blood types were first discovered (Naughton-Treves et.al. 2008 596-606). Most biomedical research is done on live caught primates, instead of captive-bred ones. Primates are also caught live for the pet trade; the cebus monkey or organ-grinder monkey is popular, as well as squirrel monkeys (Peres Dolman 2000 175-189).

Habitat Destruction

This is much less selective in that it affects several species in a single area. It is also irreversible; you can't captive breed rainforests. If you deplete an animal's population (without making them extinct), they can recover but if their habitat is gone they can't ever recover (Fa Juste Perez Castroviejo 2005 1107-1115). Habitat destruction is more difficult to combat than over harvesting, because humans don't NEED pets but they do need more space so they intrude on the monkeys' ...