Duke Primate Conservation 2025

Michel Lulo Primate Conservation April 14, 2025 Highways, Monkeys, and Human Collaboration Image by Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute In Brazil’s Amazon, a creative partnership between the Reconecta Project and the Waimiri-Atroari Indigenous people is showing that saving wildlife doesn’t have to come at the expense of local communities. Together, they’ve installed 30 canopy bridges over a major highway to help primates like the golden-handed tamarin and robust capuchin cross safely without being hit by vehicles, a major cause of death for these animals. What’s powerful about this project isn’t just the number of animals helped (though that’s impressive too). It’s the way local Indigenous knowledge was placed at the center. The Waimiri-Atroari helped identify key crossing points based on their lifelong understanding of the forest. That kind of collaboration reminded me of the Hutton reading, which challenged the idea that top-down conservation (like fortress...

  Image courtesy of Kithsiri Ranawana. In the forests near Lankagama, on the edge of Sri Lanka’s Sinharaja Forest Reserve, a group of purple-faced langurs with leucism, a partial lack of pigment, has become a symbol of how unusual wildlife traits can inspire both cultural fascination and conservation action. Long rooted in local folklore as ghostly omens, these langurs have recently drawn ecotourists and researchers alike, transforming Lankagama into a conservation hub. This is a rare example of a typically conflict-prone species—monkeys often labeled as crop-raiding pests—being reimagined as ecological and economic assets. The Wildlife Conservation Society of Galle has capitalized on this momentum, establishing a research center and even improving local infrastructure. This case highlights a broader conservation psychology trend discussed in our course: how human perceptions of wildlife—especially visually distinct individuals—can drastically affect conservation outcomes. As with...

There is a quiet ecological crisis unfolding along Thailand’s Andaman coast. Dugongs are reclusive marine herbivores, kin to manatees, who are dying in unsettling numbers. Once emblematic of Trang’s coastal identity, they are now surfacing starved and with their rib cages collapsed. Notably, this is owed to habitat collapse. Between 2020 and 2024, up to 70% of Thailand’s seagrass meadows vanished due to coastal development, sediment runoff, and increasingly erratic tides prompted by climate change. These underwater meadows, once dense with life, have been reduced to sterile sand. Dugongs, obligate grazers of seagrass, are thus left adrift in the remnants of what once was.                                     As a consequence, they have begun migrating into unfamiliar and—most importantly—dangerous zones, confronted with the risk of boat collisions and entanglement by fishing gear. Their altered beha...

  Map of Martabe gold field, Sumatra, Indonesia, showing the location of the 10 alunite samples with red diamonds. Source: Muston, J., Forster, M., Alderton, C., & Lister, G. (2020). Direct dating of overprinting fluid systems in the Martabe epithermal gold deposit using highly retentive alunite.  Geochronology , 2(1), 1–14.  https://doi.org/10.5194/gchron-2-1-2020 The Batang Toru Forest in North Sumatra is the only habitat of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan ( Pongo tapanuliensis ), with fewer than 800 individuals left. Yet, Agincourt Resources, a subsidiary of Jardine Matheson, plans to expand the Martabe gold mine into this vital ecosystem—clearing over 580 hectares for infrastructure ( Jong, 2025 ). Despite this, the company received a “green” environmental rating from Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry, a label raising concerns about greenwashing—the practice of presenting harmful development as environmentally responsible (Aizawa & ...

 James Peng Professor Joseph Feldblum Living in Shared Spaces: New Study Shows How Great Apes Adapt to Humans A chimpanzee stealing crops from a village Across the world, human activities such as agriculture, logging, and mining are reshaping the landscapes and the forests that great apes inhabit. Because of forests being cleared for palm oil, timber, and roads, habitat fragmentation is one of the primary drivers of population decline for great apes, especially considering that they are found in developing countries. For instance, in Indonesia, orangutan habitats have been replaced by oil palm plantations. Meanwhile, mining in Africa has led to frequent unfriendly interactions between gorillas and humans. Conservationists have long warned about the consequences of habitat loss. However, Dr. Ammie K. Kalan from the University of Victoria published a study analyzing how the great ape species are changing their behavior in response to human activity.  An Orangutan shot by pa...

Jake Frietze April 10, Blog Post 3 Emotional Education Through Primate Photography      In the article, Federico Pardo’s Unfiltered Storytelling Implores Humans to Protect Colombia’s Vanishing Primates, author Melissa Zhu recounts the experiences of photographing wild primates in the Colombia Amazon. Federico Pardo’s work gained international acclaim when his footage in a show called “Untamed Americas” won an Emmy Award. Notably, Pardo claims that his work aims to increase awareness and effort toward conservation in the Colombian wilds and the world.      To reach his audience, Pardo unveiled a city-based multimedia immersive exhibit using images and footage of primates to educate a wide audience: “I want people to see them up close, their hands, their tails, their eyes, their babies, playing, sleeping, feeding”. This learning method could be the reason why more eyes turn to conservation, highlighting the emotional connection we feel towards animals similar...

The Gola Rainforest National Park in eastern Sierra Leone, one of West Africa’s last tracts of intact Upper Guinean forest, is a biodiversity stronghold—home to over 60 threatened species, including western chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes verus ) and red colobus monkeys ( Piliocolobus badius ). However, decades of logging, poaching, and agricultural expansion have devastated its buffer zones, once losing over 4% of tree cover annually (1991–2016). In response, the Gola REDD+ carbon project was launched in 2013 to mitigate deforestation while supporting local livelihoods. One standout initiative is the promotion of shade-grown, forest-friendly cacao. Cultivated under native trees like iroko and Ivory Coast almond, these agroforestry systems offer a critical compromise: protecting primate habitat while boosting rural income. As of 2020, 2,587 farmers were cultivating over 2,000 hectares of cacao, producing 44 metric tons annually. Remarkably, these plantations harbor over 140 bird species ...

Jake Frietze April 8, Blog Post 2 Male-Female Frienships in Kinda Baboons and Subsequent Connotations      In “ Can Guys and Girls Really Just Be Friends? Ask These Baboons.” written by Olivia Ferrari in early 2025, the author discusses the findings Anna Weyher, a primatologist having studied a population of Kinda baboons for nine years. Weyher found that Kinda baboons exhibit close, long term (a lot of the time lifelong) close relationships between males and females. What is surprising is that these relationships do not always involve mating, with some male-female companions maintaining relationships while mating with other individuals and females raising young. Weyher and the author imply that these relationships are “what we call friendships”, suggesting a unique difference in the socialization of this population with other baboons– such as the yellow baboons which are much more male-dominated, aggressive, and non-friendly.       In class, we have ...

Davinder Josephson Dr. Feldblum Primate Conservation 8 April 2025 Corruption of Chimp Culture Image by Discover Magazine A recent article published by Mongabay News revealed the loss of socially-learned behaviors among hunted, endangered chimpanzee populations in Côte d’Ivoire’s Taï National Park. Chimpanzee populations in the park have experienced increased hunting pressure for decades, and as of 2010, the population in Tai was estimated to be a mere 300 individuals. Many males in the population were hunted and killed for their meat due to their close proximity to local villages run by subsistence hunters. This loss had major implications for the populations’ make-up, behavior, and social structure.       Prior to the mass killing, male chimpanzees in Tai National Park were found to exhibit various auditory signs to attract females; males would tap their knuckles against fallen branches or noisily shake and tear apart these plants to gain the attention of nearby f...

     A review of ape behavior adaptations as a result of human activities has shown that while apes are highly adaptive animals, and they consistently change behaviors to try to keep up with rapid habitat change, but that alone is not enough to keep them alive. Some orangutans crop-forage. In some areas they are not seen as much of a pest, but in others they are still feared, trapped, and killed. Apes do whatever they can to adapt, but that can introduce more consequences.      The only way to continue to protect apes is by continuing conservation efforts locally, but what that looks like can differ between locations and how apes are behaving. The biggest obstacle is dealing industry projects that only care for profits and have no desire to protect and preserve local environments, economies, or people. The incentive of saving the environment is not enticing enough to make up for profit loss for many companies and the occasional individual. No behaviora...

Wildlife trafficking has presented itself as a large threat to endangered primate species and populations. Beyond what seemed to be a national and regional threat , as I wrote in my previous blog post, the issue has exacerbated to become a large transnational issue, highlighting the expansive tra de network that is operating illegally.     Last May, six people were arrested for attempting to illegally transport 48 lemurs and 1,200 tortoises. Unlike my last bog post, focusing on the less frequent trade of exotic animals, the vast number of lemurs and other species traded from Thailand represents a mass, organized trade. From the conservational level, the mass, organized trade is much more difficult to prevent and needs to be halted on a systemic level.     The recent seizures of many endangered species emphasize the international reach of trafficking networks and Thailand as a hub for transshipment of illegal wildlife trade. In the May seizure, 16 ring-tailed...