To Strier's surprise, the northern muriqui turned out to be radically different from large primates studied by Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, the primatologists who made chimpanzees and mountain gorillas, respectively, globally famous emblems of conservation.Īmerican Biological Anthropologist Karen Strier observes northern muriqui monkeys at the Feliciano Miguel Abdala Private Natural Heritage Reserve, in Caratinga, Minas Gerais state, Brazil, Wednesday, June 14, 2023. Rampant deforestation had dramatically reduced and fragmented its habitat, creating isolated pockets of muriquis. Scientists then knew almost nothing of the species, except that it was on the verge of extinction. "It was a complete and total sensory experience that appealed to my mind as a scientist, and to my mind as a person." "I love everything about them they're beautiful animals, they're graceful, they even smell good, like cinnamon," the American primatologist told The Associated Press on a recent field trip. Strier immediately fell in love with the northern muriqui, dedicating her life to saving it and launching one of the world's longest-running primate studies. She started by thanking peers and the many students who are carrying forward her work.Karen Strier started studying the biggest monkey in the Americas four decades ago, when there were just 50 of the animals left in this swath of the Atlantic forest, in southeastern Brazil's Minas Gerais state. “As this project is unprecedented, we have no models to follow, but we have great knowledge about how the species behaves.”Įarlier this month, primatologists, environmentalists and other muriqui enthusiasts from Brazil and abroad converged on the small city of Caratinga to celebrate Strier’s 40th year of uninterrupted study. “The information we had (from Strier’s research) facilitated everything, we avoided many mistakes that could have been made,” said Tabacow, who also works with Strier in the reserve. The final objective, once there are at least a dozen members in the group, is to release them into the wilderness, Tabacow says. They placed both males in a nearly 15-acre (6-hectare) enclosed area in their native forest along with three females that got lost in their searches for a partner, plus two young orphans.Ī year later, in 2020, the experiment bore its first fruit, with the birth of an infant muriqui. With that experiment having failed, it was time for more drastic measures. To give them a chance to survive, Tabacow relocated a female into the area, but she disappeared before the animals could mate. That’s about one-fifth of the critically endangered species’ overall population. The critically endangered northern muriqui monkey population has grown nearly fivefold, to 232. She knew that, without any intervention, they were doomed.īiologist Clariane Caroline de Araujo climbs onto a platform in a protected area of forest to feed a group of northern muriqui monkeys, in Lima Duarte, Minas Gerais state, Brazil, Saturday, May 6, 2023. In 2016, Fernanda Pedreira Tabacow, a former student and right arm of Strier’s, heard that there were only two muriqui males left in a patch of forest in Ibitipoca, southwest of the Feliciano Miguel Abdala reserve. Strier and her team know each of the reserve’s 232 muriquis by name, and which monkey they are related to, not by tagging or marking them, but based on detailed illustrations of their facial pigments and other physical traits.Īfter drought and a yellow fever outbreak killed 100 muriquis - about a third of the reserve’s population - in just five years, Strier has strongly advocated for the creation of forest corridors and supporting species reintroduction projects. “There are very few (primate projects) that have run that long, continuously, and of that kind of quality in the world,” said American primatologist Russell Mittermeier, chief conservation officer at Re:wild, who introduced Strier to the muriquis. Inside the 2,300-acre (950-hectare) Feliciano Miguel Abdala reserve, a privately protected area where Strier has based her research program, the northern muriqui population has grown nearly fivefold, to 232. “We now see a lot more variations among primates, and I think the muriquis helped open that door to understanding better some of this diversity,” Strier said.
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