Snub-nosed monkey born in captivity

Rare Chinese snub-nosed monkey born in captivity

A golden snub-nosed monkey with its baby at the Beijing Breeding Center for Endangered Species

April 3, 1998
Web posted at: 6:01 a.m. EST (1101 GMT) BEIJING (CNN) -- The snub-nosed monkey is one of China's most endangered species, so the recent birth of one at the Beijing Breeding Center for Endangered Species is welcome news.
Zoo keepers have been trying to increase the population of the snub-nosed monkeys at the center since 1987 and feel they have finally learned how to breed enough of the monkeys to sustain a captive population.
"It was not easy to breed the number of monkeys in the in the center from just a dozen to the number we have now. It just happened step by step, very slowly. So everybody in the center was very happy with the birth of this monkey, a new monkey. [It] means that our work is successful, so we hope we will have more births," says Bao Chengxiang, who is in charge of the monkeys at the breeding center.

Baby monkey
	1.5MB / 12 sec. / 320x240 468 K / 12 sec. / 160x120 QuickTime movie

The monkey, also known as the Sichuan golden monkey for the color of its fur, belongs to a rare species that lives in mountainous areas at a height of up to 15,400 feet above sea level. Scientists believe there are approximately 10,000 Sichuan golden monkeys left in the wild. The Yunnan golden monkey, a sub-species of the snub-nosed monkey species, is even more endangered, with about 1,500 animals left in the wilds of Southwestern China and Tibet.

Logging threatens the monkey's environment

Logging threatens the monkeys' habitat

The plight of the monkeys was championed by a photographer named Xi Zhinong, who has made an effort to bring their story to the attention of the nation. Xi highlighted the danger that logging poses to the monkeys' environment and lost his job in the process.
Xi's work did not go unnoticed. His story rallied the national media in China and logging in the areas where the monkeys live was stopped.
"The local people in that area use the forest for their own subsistence. They don't harm the forest all at once, but they destroy it slowly," Xi says.
Students from Beijing have helped to reinforce the ban on logging in the forest, but as the population decreases, captive breeding programs like the one at the Beijing Breeding Center may be all that stands between the monkeys and extinction.
Habitat destruction is not the only pressure the monkeys face. Zoos throughout China pay large sums for individual monkeys and many die at the hands of trappers hoping for a big pay day in the lucrative zoo market.
The director of the Beijing Breeding Center for Endangered Species, Wang Xuejun, feels the work of the center is increasingly important if the monkeys are to survive.
Wang and others at the center hope that by providing a captive population to China's zoos, they will save the golden monkeys from extinction.

 

Related sites:

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• The University of Michigan - Museum of Zoology - Pygathrix roxellana (golden monkey or golden snub-nosed monkey)
• World Wildlife Fund - Yunnan Snub-nosed Monkey
• World Wildlife Fund - Golden Snub-nosed Monkey - Pygathrix roxellana
• School for Biological Sciences - Golden Monkeys

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