Watchful Eye

White handed gibbon from Dubbo Zoo, is listed as endangered, what a surprise ! But within the white-handed gibbon species, the Yunnan subspecies... more

by Miroslava Jurcik

Title

Watchful Eye

Artist

Miroslava Jurcik

Medium

Photograph

Description

White handed gibbon from Dubbo Zoo, is listed as endangered, what a surprise ! But within the white-handed gibbon species, the Yunnan subspecies from several forest areas of China's Yunnan province were last actually seen within the Nangunhe Nature Reserve in 1988. So those are most likely extinct today. SO lets safe the rest, they are not a pet, if you see them anywhere being own or sold as a pet, think about its parents being slaughtered for this injustice and REPORT IT !!! So they being hunted for illegal pet trade, sometimes for food, and ofcourse the biggest killer is the lost of environment !! Lets do more, lets know where your food come from and how it is source, its our responsibility and duty to do so !! People power may safe the rest from extinction and it may safe us in a process !! If we destroy nature...we destroy ourselfs !! Forest and animals are the medicine of earth !

"This loss is particularly tragic", says anthropologist Thomas Geissmann, "because the extinct Chinese population was described as a distinct subspecies, the so-called Yunnan white-handed gibbon." This subspecies (Hylobates lar yunnanensis) is not known from any other place. Geissmann now hopes, that the subspecies may have survived in neighbouring Myanmar, but so far, he has no evidence for this.

"The extinction of the Chinese white-handed gibbons is an urgent alarm signal, because several other ape species in Chinas are also endangered by extinction", says Geissmann. For instance the white-cheeked crested gibbon (Nomascus leucogenys) has not been sighted in China since the 1980s. Of the Cao-Vit crested gibbon (N. nasutus) in the provinces Guangxi (China) and Cao Bang (Vietnam) there are less than 50 individuals, and of the Hainan crested gibbon (N. hainanus) on the South-Chinese island of Hainan less than 20 individuals, to mention just the two most endangered species. Therefore, the scientists warn that the loss of the Yunnan white-handed gibbons may only be the beginning of an unprecedented wave of extinctions which threatens to terminate most, if not all, Chinese ape species.

"We hope that our research results will alarm the Chinese government as well as international conservation agencies and encourage them to initiate immediate efforts to save China￿s last surviving apes", says Geissmann.

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November 9th, 2014