Wildlife
Hope for survival as isolated orangutans joined by rope bridge
Researchers in the Malaysian state of Sabah in Borneo are joyful after receiving confirmation that a young male orangutan used a rope bridge to cross a river, which has separated one orangutan population from another. Due to logging and clearing forests for oil palm plantations, which cover 18 percent of land in Sabah, orangutans on the Kinabantangan River have been cut into fragmented populations.
"Over the years we have received numerous local eye witness reports of the orangutans using these rope bridges but this is the first time we have received photographic evidence which clearly shows a young male orangutan using the first rope bridge we constructed in 2003 to cross over Resang river, a small tributary of Kinabatangan," explains primatologist, Dr. Isabelle Lackman, Co-Director of the Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project (KOCP) in a press statement.
Photos of a male orangutan using the rope bridge were captured by Ajirun Osman, who says that after the male spent twenty minutes at the rope bridge, he crossed: "it seemed like once he decided to cross, he did so very fast going over in about three minutes from the Pangi Forest Reserve into Lot 1 of the Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary."
Finding forest for the endangered golden-headed lion tamarin
Brazil's golden-headed lion tamarin is a small primate with a black body and a bright mane of gold and orange. Listed as Endangered by the IUCN Red List, the golden-headed lion tamarin (Leontopithecus chrysomelas) survives in only a single protected reserve in the largely degraded Atlantic Forest in Brazil. Otherwise its habitat lies in unprotected patches and fragments threatened by urbanization and agricultural expansion. Currently, a natural gas pipeline is being built through prime tamarin habitat.
A new study in the open access journal Tropical Conservation Science sought to find forest patches large enough to contain sustainable populations of the golden-headed lion tamarin even under threats such as fire.
Jaguar Video: Cockscomb
Get Adobe Flash Player here
Tracking down the elusive Knysna elephants
The sound of
birds calling, twittering and chattering to one another fills the cool
forest air.
The trees towering above - kalander, yellowwood, stinkwood - create a vast, soaring canopy of mingled shade and light that surrounds you as you walk the paths.
The Knysna forests are one of the great wonders of our country, and one of the most rewarding experiences you can have is to explore them with children.
Recently, I was there with my wife and stepchildren. The beauty and the fascination of the forest were enhanced by the excitement they brought to their first encounter with it.
A century ago there were up to 600 elephants here. They were hunted ruthlessly for their ivory, but for a long time the impenetrable nature of the forest and the elephants' skill at threading their way through the trees meant that their numbers remained relatively stable.
Then gold was discovered in the area and, although the seam petered out, it led to many more humans arriving, establishing a mine and a small town.
Adorable but Endangered: Lemurs Face Possible Extinction
If there were a contest for cutest animal on the planet, the lemur would be a strong contender. But cuteness alone can't save the creatures from the political forces threatening their existence, especially not the illegal loggers destroying the lemurs' precious rainforest habitat.
Lemurs are small primates that are endemic to Madagascar and are not found living in nature outside the island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa.
There are nearly 100 different species of lemurs, including the black and white lemur, the ring-tail lemur, the tiny mouse lemur and even the mischievous dancing lemur.
"Nightline's" Dan Harris visited a lemur park about 15 miles outside Antananarivo, the capital city, where he got to know these impish little animals and saw, firsthand, the emerging threats to their survival.
A recent military coup in the impoverished, unstable country left a power vacuum that has allowed heavily armed illegal loggers, known as the "timber mafia," to pillage the lemur's natural habitat.
One of the forests is the Marojejy National Park, a towering, dauntingly beautiful landscape reminiscent of a set from "Jurassic Park." A few weeks ago, the forest in northeastern Madagascar had largely been taken over by looters and had to be shut down.
