Africa's primates in 1992: Conservation issues and options

There are about 60 species of African primates, and over 50% of these are generally considered to be vulnerable to extinction. Planning for the conservation of these primates, and the objective assessment of the degree of endangerment faced by different species and subspecies is hampered, however, by poorly resolved taxonomy and inadequate data on geographic distributions, ecology, and population biology. The African primate species at most imminent risk of extinction may be Sclater's guenon, threatened by forest destruction and hunting in an area of Nigeria with a very dense human population. The most endangered African subspecies may be Bouvier's red colobus, whose continued existence in Congo is uncertain. The taxonomic position of each of these monkeys is debated. Their predicaments illustrate some general phenomena: almost all threatened African primates are forest dwellers; habitat destruction and/or hunting are the major threats to the survival of forest primates; endangerment is the result of an interaction of external threats with features intrinsic to particular primates. The African primates most widely used in biomedical research are savanna-zone species that are not generally endangered at present, although there are disturbingly high levels of trapping in certain countries. Ideally, all Africa's primates would be protected by a network of large reserves, but in a few cases such a conservation strategy may not be a viable option; population manipulations may become important management tools, and these manipulations may be aided by new techniques developed by reproductive biologists. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.