The Golden Lion Tamarin
Jan 19, 2025
Kaieteur News- With its silky orange mane and wide-eyed glare, the golden lion tamarin might not seem out of place as a character in a Dr. Seuss book.
The golden lion tamarin is a small, New World, monkey of the family Callitrichidae. Endemic to the Atlantic coastal forests of Brazil, the golden lion tamarin is an endangered species.
The Golden Lion Tamarin is part of small, endangered group of monkey species, native to South-eastern Brazil
The range for wild individuals is spread across four places along south-eastern Brazil, with a recent census estimating 3,200 individuals left in the wild and a captive population maintaining about 490 individuals among 150 zoos.
Lion tamarins, were described as “beautiful, simian-like cats similar to small lions,” by Antonio Pigafetta, one of the explorers on the first voyage to successfully circumnavigate the Earth in 1519.
Half a millennium later, the golden lion tamarin has become something of a local celebrity – featured on a Brazilian postage stamp and the country’s 20 real banknote.
Yet the species is under threat. Its native habitat, the Atlantic rainforest in the state of Rio de Janeiro, has been reduced to just over 7% of its original size. Of that, 80% is highly fragmented, and most patches are too small to support healthy golden lion tamarin populations.
Alongside capture for the pet trade, this drove the species to the brink of extinction; by the 1970s, as few as 200 individuals remained in the wild.
But through coordinated reintroduction programmes, vaccination efforts and initiatives to reconnect fragmented habitats, the golden lion tamarin has started to chart an impressive comeback.
The IUCN changed its status from critically endangered to endangered in 2003, and the most recent census estimated 4,800 wild individuals. In response to mounting concerns over the decline in numbers of the golden lion tamarin, Poço das Antas, the first biological reserve in Brazil, was created in 1974 to protect one of the species’ last remaining populations. A second federal reserve, the União Biological Reserve, was created in 1998 and expanded in 2017, tripling in size to almost 8,000 hectares. Several reserves have also been created on private land, with many landowners now viewing the presence of golden lion tamarins as a status symbol. (Source: CNN)
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