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Kai Althoetmar

Primate Tales

In Search of the Last Snub-nosed Monkeys of Vietnam

Nature Press

There is a list circulating among primatologists that sounds like the text of a "Wanted!" poster. "Primates in Peril. The World's 25 Most Endangered Primates". This list is launched once every few years by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Three of those top places in the ranking go to Vietnam. Only Madagascar shows more candidates for the extinction of species. With its 25 different kinds of primates Vietnam is a hotspot of diversity of species among the Amazon Region, Indonesia, Madagascar and the Congo Basin. It outnumbers every other country on the continent of South East Asia.

Eight species of phyllophagous Old World monkeys amongst these 25 listed ones belong to the rarest ones. “Almost all are in danger because of exploitation for medical purpose, meat or as pets – and their populations are shattered and drastically diminished” say the US-scientists Eleanor Sterling, Martha Hurley and Le Duc Minh in their standard piece of literature “Vietnam – A Natural History“.

Some of the most endangered primates can also be characterised as “the most wanted ones”. The Holy Grail of the primatologists, the Golden Fleece, the Amber Room of primatology – each of the Top 25 species is so rare that it can serve as a legend. This may result from the fact that one or the other of these species have vanished from the scene for a century or a half and therefore was thought of as extinct. Or if one species is seen at all, the encounter stands at the end of a long journey. For example an encounter with Rhinopithecus avunculus.

The Vietnamese call it Vooc mui hech. In English the cute fellow is called Tonkin snub-nosed monkey or Dollman’s snub-nosed monkey. It looks like a clown with a pushed in nose. This species is so rare that the hole population could find place in a Vietnamese junk.

For decades, the “Tonkins” were said to be extinct. But in 1989 they were rediscovered. Now, the last few hundred specimens swing through the treetops of the subtropical mountain jungles of North Vietnam. The biggest population lives in the reservation Khau Ca next to the Chinese border, a restricted zone for foreigners. Scientists who don’t fear the gigantic dragon of Vietnamese bureaucracy may be excluded. And this is exactly the area, where we want to go to.

Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys are one of the five species of snub-nosed monkeys, and the only one living in Vietnam (see text in the box). The quintet has hardly been examined. Till 1993, the snub-nosed monkeys were included to the monkeys. Meanwhile they form their own class. Taxonomically both species belong to the family of Cercopithecidae. On a family tree the “Tonkins” would range between red-shanked monkeys and the four other snub-nosed species.

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Snub-nosed monkeys: they are all endangered

Snub-nosed monkeys only live in Asia and belong to the family of Cercopithecidae. Three of the five species are residents of south and central China. Amongst the Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys there are four other families which are also endangered in their existence.

Yunnan snub-nosed monkeys: Their number is estimated as 1,500 to 2,000. IUCN-Status: “highly threatened”. No other primates live as high as the Yunnan snub-nosed monkeys in Tibet, who brave snow and ice for months in 3,000 m to 4,700 m. In the last twenty five years, their number sank by one fifth. Attempts to breed them in captivity did not succeed. Sling hunting for musk deer who are hunted illegally for their glands that are needed for the perfume industry, simultaneously decimates those primates. Recently, a whole population of fifty animals died of pesticides, others are endangered in long term by inbreeding.

Guizhou snub-nosed monkeys: They are limited to the region of Mount Fanjing, a region not easily accessible in the Mountains of Wuling in Central China. Their number is estimated at 750 to 900 animals. They are listed as “highly threatened” on the Red List. In winter, small groups descend from hights up to 2,500 m down to the river valleys. They also face widespread habitat loss, illegal poaching and mass tourism.

Stryker's snub-nosed monkey: This species, also konwn as Burmese snub-nosed monkey, has only been known shortly. In 2010, a team of scientists of the Swiss Primatologist Thomas Geissmann discovered these primates with their black fur and white ear tufts in the cool temperate climate zone in the mountain rain forests of northern Myanmar. Hunters told of the monkeys in the valley of the Maw river and said that on rainy days, they sat on trees, their heads between their knees making themselves noticeable by sneezing loudly. Their number is estimated at 300 individuals. IUCN-Status: “critically endangered”. In 2011, a completely unexplored population of Stryker's snub-nosed monkeys was discovered in Yunnan, just across the border of China. Dam construction projects and roads for forest clearances menace to open up the isolated range in Myanmar, illegal poaching contributes as well. The species is so unknown that the recently published mammoth documentation "Handbook of the Mammals of the World", the so-called bible of mammal zoology, tersely comments on reproduction of these animals: “no information available”.

Golden snub-nosed monkey: The only snub-nosed monkeys that are not threatened with extinction are the golden snub-nosed monkeys, living in western Central China in the giant panda’s distribution area. The population of three subspecies add up to 15,000 animals. But still their status is “endangered”. The reasons: loss of habitat because of farming and street building projects for tourism; in case of one subspecies illegal poaching. In China, in the old days the fur of the golden snub-nosed monkeys was used for ceremonial clothes of the mandarins. The frost-tolerant primates with their red-gold-brown-orange shimmering fur, roaming the mountain forests up to an altitude of 3,000 m, live together in groups of several hundred individuals. At the start of winter they pull back into the valleys losing their summer fur that is followed by a more reddish winter coat. They are the only species of the snub-nosed monkeys that are successfully kept in Chinese zoos – with breeding success.

The golden snub-nosed monkeys are the ones with the most numerous natural enemies – especially in the valleys: Asian wild dog, leopard, wolf , golden eagle and hawk. Those monkeys living in subtropical areas have to fear the clouded leopard.

It takes a long time untill a snub-nosed female gives birth for the first time. With Guizhou snub-nosed monkeys it takes about nine years, with Golden snub-nosed monkeys it takes up to six years. The interval between births may be three years – compared to the population dynamics of a vole or a rabbit this is miles apart. Life span has hardly been examined. Golden snub-nosed monkeys are reported to have lived up to thirty years in captivity.

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In 1912, Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys have been described scientifically for the first time. Their names are taken from the adjacent Gulf of Tonkin, They live in the subtropical forests of the karst mountains of North Vietnam at altitudes up to 1,300 m. This species has always been endemic, but originally it was spread in more Vietnamese provinces than today. The IUCN categorizes them as “critically endangered”. Experts assume a population of only 200 to 250 individuals. The primates had almost been eradicated by decade-long deforestations and hunting activities. Then in 1989, there was big surprise: when a group of these animals was rediscovered near the city of Na Hang in the province of Tuyen Quang, 100 km south of the Chinese border.

We are the first group of Europeans that are allowed to enter the wildlife preserve of Khau Ca. “At present, they have problems with minorities”, says Tilo Nadler with a Saxon accent. Nadler, born in Dresden in 1941 but almost ageless, with white whiskers, metal-rimmed glasses and almost bold, always dressed in a safari shirt with a gorilla sticker of the ZGF, the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS), which has been founded by Bernhard Grzimek. He is always restless, has adopted Vietnam as his home country, sees himself as a conservationist, is a primatologist, filmmaker, originally trained on air conditioning and, last but not least, he is a sarcastic commentator of the big extinction of species. With “they” he means the provincial government. A few years ago, there have been 150 casualties; therefore the rigorous checks and the restricted zone.

Nadler has initiated this field trip, a post-conference tour, as it is known in terms of scientists. 120 km south of Hanoi, together with his Vietnamese wife Nguyen Thi Thu Hien, Nadler manages the Endangered Primate Rescue Centre (EPRC), sponsored by the Zoo Leipzig (Germany).

No monkey cuddler

In 1993, Nadler became FZS project manager in Vietnam. Shortly after his appointment, he confiscated two living individuals of the rare Delacour Monkeys, other confiscations followed – this was the beginning of the Primate Rescue Centre. In Hollywood he would probably be known as the “Monkey Whisperer”.

It is warm, comfortable 28 degrees, a fine October day in the subtropics. “We once had a summer when it was never less than forty degrees in day time and never below thirty five degrees during the nights – and this lasted for more than two weeks”, explains Nadler. It seems to say: “This marvellous surrounding can easily change into hell”. Nadler doesn’t want any monkey cuddlers, no nature rescue romantics, no snivelling individuals on this field trip. And that’s what he says.

From Hanoi, the lively subtropical capital in Northern Vietnam it takes three hundred and eighteen kilometres into the provincial capital of Hà Giang and from here it takes another half an hour by car into the forests of Na Yen to the Khau Ca Tonkin Snub-Nosed Monkey Species and Habitat Conservation Area. So altogether, this journey is a day trip. So, together with Nadler, Hien, Christian Roos and Kerstin Mätz-Rensing from the German Primate Centre in Göttingen and the US zoologist Hugh Baley from Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, I am sitting in the family van.