Dozens of relatives of people are about to disappear

Cat Ba and the Eastern black crested gibbon of Vietnam are in the list of 25 endangered primates.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and many other conservation organizations today said the existence of nearly half of the 634 primates that scientists have known are threatened at one some degree. It is worrisome that the number of threatened species is increasing.

"Primate is one of the most dangerous species among vertebrate groups," Russell Mittermeier, IUCN's chief animal primate, told AFP.

Eastern black crested gibbons in northern Vietnam are facing extinction.Photo: guardianweekly.co.uk

According to AFP, of the 25 species that are going to be extinct, there are 5 species in the island nation of Madagascar, 6 species in Africa, 3 species in South America and 11 species in Southeast Asia.

The species with little chance of survival may be Cat Ba langur (also known as the golden-headed langur) in Vietnam. Currently, it is estimated that 60-70 individuals of this species are found on Cat Ba island. The number of individuals of the other two species is only about 100. It is the lemur in the north of Madagascar and the eastern black crested gibbon in northern Vietnam.

Human hunting activity caused the number of silver back gorillas - distributed in mountain ranges along the Cameroon - Nigeria border - to fall below 300.

Experts emphasize that sometimes the most endangered species are not the rarest species. To protect primates, governments need to prevent deforestation and illegal hunting.

For example, the scientific community previously said that there were more than 6,000 Sumatran orangutans living on Indonesia's largest island. But because the government does not pay attention to conservation, they now become one of the most endangered species.

In contrast, Eastern black crested gibbons on Hainan Island, China are the rarest primates in the world.

"But the Chinese government's strict conservation measures prevent Hainan gibbons from being listed as endangered species," AFP quoted Simon Stuart, director of the IUCN Species Survival Committee. .

In Southeast Asia, hunting primates for food and medicine is still the biggest threat. The situation of hunting in Vietnam and Laos has reached "extremely serious" levels, Stuart commented.