Scientists Trying to Make Monkeys Wild Again to Save Them From Extinction

A woolly monkey is a creature that is big, charismatic and agile primates with a powerful long tail. Woolly monkeys are nearly relates to spider monkeys. 

They have a thick brown coat like skin with dark gray accompaniment. The stomach of the monkey is black and head looks like a little light brown. For both males and females the fur color remains the same. But its subspecies have minor difference in color. Prehensility in its tail helps in climbing and makes many functions easy of an opposable part. Its legs and Arms are almost equal in length and size.  All species of woolly monkeys are large in size, weighing 7 kilograms approximately. These monkeys are found around the northern countries of South America (Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia  and Peru). They like to live in high elevated forests bearing clouds, forests that are located within Colombia's eastern plains and seasonally flooded rainforests; however their ideal nature is mature and humid tropical forests. These are hunted specially by a variety of species such as big cats such as jaguar and eagles. But its main predators are humans only, who hunt such kind of species both for the illegal pet trade and for food. Pablo Stevenson, Universidad de los Andes and Manuel Lequerica Tamara, University of Sydney are the scientists trying to preserve the woolly monkeys and save them from extinction. In a interview they told the details about the project. That to save the monkey environmental agencies and Colombian wildlife teamed up with so many scientists like us as we are related to the Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology and Primatology at Colombia’s University of the Andes. In August 2017, they have released six woolly monkeys located in forests of southern Huila. This region was at time a home to several troops of these lovely primates. But now the extinction can be noticed. Now we are keen to observe that if these animals born in the wild, but then captured by legal traffickers and controlled by Colombian forest authorities then they could learn to live like wild animals again s as to regain the population. To make it happen we need to develop a training plan for ensuring the promotion of natural behaviors we initially spent more than a year to observe much of captive monkeys at sanctuaries and zoos across Colombia.

By: Anuja Arora

Content: https://www.livescience.com/64303-training-colombian-woolly-monkeys.html