Are primates endangered?
Many primates are in danger of extinction. Ninety percent of all primates live in tropical rain forests around the world. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of hectares of these forests are destroyed every year, shrinking the habitat available to primates and other rain forest species. The 2002 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals lists 118 primate species as threatened, compared to only 96 in their 1996 assessment. The chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) of west and central Africa, the mountain gorilla (Gorilla gorilla beringei) of central Africa, the Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii) of Indonesia, the golden lion tamarin (Leontopithecus rosalia) of Brazil, the yellow tailed woolly monkey (Lagothrix flavicauda) of Peru, and the indri (Indri indri) and aye aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) of Madagascar are just a few of the species and subspecies that face extinction.
