“In simple terms, the rainforests, which encircle the world, are our very life-support system – and we are on the verge of switching it off.”
Charles, Prince of Wales
Golden lion tamarins take their name from the magnificent ‘mane’ of golden hair around their necks – bearing a remarkable resemblance to the lions of Africa. There are four species of lion tamarins – all of which are endangered, and all of which are endemic to Brazil.
Each species is blighted with the same major threats to its survival; loss of homes due to illegal logging, haphazard cattle ranching and human settlement. Shockingly, the lion tamarins have now been left with only eight per cent of their original habitat. Put another way, a staggering ninety-two per cent of their native Atlantic Brazilian forest has been burned or felled. This has jeopardised their freedom to roam for food, shelter and genetically diverse mates, rendering them one of the most endangered species on the planet.
Colonisation is not new to the Atlantic forest. Europeans first settled here in the 1500s. Historically, destruction began with coffee and sugarcane plantations. During the 18th and 19th centuries demand was high for both commodities, heights matched only by the devastation caused by these activities. Despite this, today’s damage far surpasses anything achieved previously.
Current deforestation has created a specific danger for young golden lions. These highly sociable little animals are far more exposed in their ‘play areas’ than before, making them vulnerable to predators. Over forty per cent of 
juvenile tamarins do not live past one year, even in normal circumstances, and this can only add to the difficulties of re-populating the troops. The average lifespan of any golden lion tamarin surviving the age of one, in the wild, is fifteen years.
There are several conservation programs designed to combat the decline of the species in the wild. Animals have been reintroduced from various worldwide captive breeding programs, which incidentally move individuals among the various zoos to prevent inbreeding. Survival rates have been notable, but their habitat is now so sparse, the problem with finding suitable homes and feeding grounds has not abated.
Fortunately, tourism has also begun to play its part, using the golden lions as a an attraction to be seen rather than harmed. This can only be a step in the right direction.
Also known as golden marmosets, the golden lion tamarins are easily recognized New World monkeys that sport a vivid orangey-red coat, with a long mane surrounding a hairless face of dark, rich purple. It has been said that the colour of the coat may have come from direct exposure to sunlight coupled with carotenids in the diet.
Golden lion tamarins are callitrichids, which have the defining characteristic of claw-like fingernails on all digits except the hallux (big toe). These adaptations aid climbing, clinging to tree trunks in vertical fashion, quadrupedal movement through the branches and feeding. Both male and female are similar in size reaching a height of about ten inches and weighing an average of one and a half pounds.
Golden lions are arboreal, sleeping in tree hollows at night hoping for some protection from predators. Unfortunately, nocturnal predators, such as snakes and wild cats, often get the better of them. When one monkey sees a predator, an alarm call is emitted to warn the rest of the troop. Sadly, this is often too late.
These tamarins, like the others, are omnivorous and travel through the branches (at up to 24 miles per hour, no less) to forage during the day. They live in troops of anything up to nine individuals and often these delightful primates share food with each other. Normally these troops would be made up of a male, a female and some younger members of the family.
Lion tamarins are monogamous and mating usually takes place at the end of the rains (March to June), after which there is a gestation period of four months. The species is unusual in that twins are normally born. Most primates will give birth to a single infant. Three and four babies have also been known to be birthed, but the chances of survival of all are quite remote. The weakest will usually go first. All group members, especially the father, will help with the care of the babies. Infants are totally dependent on their mothers for the first four weeks. At five weeks they will become a tad more independent and start to explore their surrounding, but still keeping close to mother. Seventeen weeks will see them socialising with others in the troop, and at the age of fourteen months they will be considered young adults.
Natural Habitat
Coastal primary tropical forests.
Where
The diminishing Atlantic coastal forests of Brazil.
What they eat
Soft fruits, insects, flowers, nectar, eggs, invertebrates and small vertebrates.
Threats
Habitat loss and fragmentation due to aggressive logging, reckless agriculture and extensive human settlement. Loss of suitable habitat has made reintroduction to the wild difficult because of the lack of sufficient clustered trees. Though more than four hundred animals have been reintroduced into Brazil since 1984. Capture for the illegal pet trade seriously depleted populations in the past, however, this practice has lessened since laws were passed making the keeping of exotic pets illegal. But, it has not ceased. Natural predators include birds of prey, snakes and wild cats.
Status: Endangered
The golden lion tamarin (Leontopithecus rosalia) is listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as Endangered. It is also included on the Brazilian Official List of Species Threatened with Extinction (Lista Oficial de Espécies Brasileiras Ameaçadas de Extinção) and on the regional threatened species list of the state of Rio de Janeiro. The golden lion tamarin is protected under CITES Appendix I.
Dedicated conservation efforts have brought the numbers of golden lion tamarins from less than two hundred in the wild in the early 1970s, to over fifteen hundred living in the forests today.
Approximately four hundred and fifty are known to be living in one hundred and fifty zoos around the world.
Various conservation measures and programmes are in place, including the National Zoo
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believe that burning the Asiatic golden cat’s pelage will drive tigers away and that cooking and eating the whole cat will protect against tiger attacks. Those of the peaceful and nature-loving Karen tribe, the largest of the major tribes of northern Thailand, maintain a single hair will do the same job, but how they come by this one hair is not disclosed. The Asiatic cat is also believed, by most indigenous peoples, to be ferocious. Though few signs of this have been demonstrated in captivity.
they are hunted for their beautiful pelts and body parts – no surprise there then! Evidence of this appeared in four separate markets in Myanmar between 1991 and 2006. Parts and skins from one hundred and ten individual cats were reported. These markets can still be found on the borders of China and Thailand, and are still trading in this very rare creature and other animals. The markets are well-attended by international buyers. The fact that the golden cat is fully protected in Myanmar does not seem to be helping it at all here.
Asiatic golden cats are quite solid creatures and tend to resemble the domestic cat in all but size. They typically weigh about twenty-five to thirty-five pounds and can reach up to forty-one inches in body length. Males are usually larger than females.
Most of the information on reproduction in golden cats is derived from observations of the species in captivity. There is apparently no specific breeding season for the golden cat, and if one litter is lost another will be produced within four months. After a gestation period of up to eighty days, the female will give birth to one to three kittens, each weighing about eight and a half ounces. The kittens will grow very quickly and have tripled their size by the age of eight weeks. Their coats are already patterned at birth, but their eyes will be closed for the first six to twelve days. Males play an active role in rearing their young. The kittens will be fully weaned at six months and fully mature at eighteen to twenty-four months, depending whether male or female.
But being one of a kind has not protected this species from the onslaught of encroaching agriculture and road building. A great many maned wolves are killed on the roads every year. A problem which has been addressed with introduced speed limits and local awareness, but as usual, not everyone takes note and fatalities on the roads are still high.
Let’s not forget, of course, the now-to-be-expected threat of folk medicine. The eyes of the maned wolf are purported to bring good fortune and as a result are made into amulets. This is very local, not big business, and certainly not a serious threat to the species, but a change would be helpful.
Maned wolves weigh up to seventy-five pounds, can reach over three feet at the shoulder and be as long as five and a half feet from head to tip of tail. The ears are large, and can be rotated when listening for prey moving through the high grass. 
Maned wolves are monogamous, coming together only during the breeding season. There is a gestation period of up to sixty-five days. After which a litter of anything between one and six pups, each weighing about one pound, will be born. Both eyes and ears are closed until the pups are nine days old. The mother will provide regurgitated food when they reach four weeks. By ten weeks, their black fur will change to red, and by fifteen weeks they will be fully weaned. They will still be reliant upon their parents for provision of food for their first year, at the end of which they will be fully grown. Originally, it was thought the female alone cared for the young. Now it is believed the male also takes part in this process.
a huge failure the way chimps are kept as pets and as items of display, to say nothing of the abhorrent practice of using them in so-called ‘science laboratories’.
Chimpanzees are one of the five great apes, along with gorillas, bonobos, orangutans and man; of those we are the only ones who are flourishing. Together with their near cousins, the 
There are four sub-species of chimpanzee: The Western chimpanzee (P. t. verus), the Central chimpanzee (P. t. troglodytes), the Eastern chimpanzee (P. t. schweinfurthii) and the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee (P. t. ellioti). All four are endangered. Reasons for this vary with location.
almost every day. They also travel on the ground when covering long distances or in search of food not found in the trees. Although known as ‘knuckle-walkers’, they are capable of standing and walking upright. Chimpanzees do not like water and cannot swim. Any who do fall into water are in danger
Chimpanzees breed all the year round. After a gestation period of eight months, a single infant will be born. Twins are rare. Newborns are totally dependent on their mothers (their sole carers) for support for the first two months of their lives. The quality of care the mother gives is essential to the emotional and physical growth and well-being of the infant. This maternal dependency is long-lasting. The relationship is close and they are rarely separated. Babies cling to their mother’s underside at first and progress to the back when they are about five or six months old. By the age of two they will be able to move around and sit unaided, staying very close to mother, and by the age of three they will have started to move a little further away. But it is not until they are five or six years old that they will be fully weaned and virtually independent.
trees it nests in and the bamboo it eats have disappeared. With over ninety per cent of its diet made up of something which is now in very short supply, hunger now looms.
But, back to the red panda itself. Also known as the lesser panda or red cat-bear, these little bears are not much bigger than the average domestic cat. They have rust-coloured fur on top with black legs and undersides, long bushy ringed-tails and cream-coloured markings on the face, and cream to white ears. Their fur is thick and covers their entire bodies including the soles of their feet. In winter they wrap their long, fluffy tails around themselves maintain heat. They have a low metabolic rate to further ensure their survival in extreme temperatures. A red panda can lose up to fifteen per cent of its body weight during the winter months.
Red pandas are shy and solitary except when mating. Females (sows or she-bears) birth once a year. They build nests in hollow tree trunks or small caves. There is a gestation period of about one hundred and thirty-five days followed by the birth of one to four cubs. Baby red pandas weigh an average of one hundred and ten grams when born. They have fluffy cream and grey fur and their eyes and ears tightly closed. They remain in their protective nests for roughly ninety days. Only their mothers care for them. Male red pandas (boars or he-bears) take little or no interest in the babies. At six months old, the babies are weaned from their mother. 
Young red pandas grow relatively slowly, reaching adult size after one year. They reach full maturity at eighteen months. This pattern of growth results in an inability to recover efficiently from the devastating declines in population. There is also a fairly high infant mortality rate.
Many may remember the notorious killings in 2012 at the Epulu Conservation and Research Center, where seven people were slaughtered by armed poachers in retaliation for the Center’s part in the hindering of their illegal poaching activities (this was apparently a warning to others). All fourteen of the peaceful, captive 
Okapi have large black eyes with poor eyesight and large ears with keen hearing. Their tongues are long (up to eighteen inches in total), blue, and prehensile for stripping leaves from trees; and for personal grooming.
All wild chinchilla species are listed in 
shares the blame for the torture and gruesome deaths of millions of animals each year.”
In 1918, the government of Chile, (along with those of Peru and Bolivia) declared the trapping of animals and exportation of pelts illegal; but, it was all too little, too late. Needless to say, this activity did not cease then, and has still not ceased today. Poaching in Chile persists. But, possibly due to much smaller populations now, they are not being taken in such large numbers.
2013, two rangers were fired upon by five poachers they had tracked to the Umphang Wildlife Sanctuary in northern Thailand. On their way, the poachers had poisoned various animals, which the rangers suspected had been left behind as tiger bait (although, it is known they were hunting for various species). Four of the rangers were shot in the incident, and two later died. To add to the tragedy of the deaths of the rangers, when shots were exchanged, shockingly, the hunters were seen to be armed with 
males as much as eight feet six inches. They can stand at anything between two and four feet high at the shoulder and weigh between one hundred and four pounds and two hundred and eighty-four pounds.
is strictly the privilege of the more well-to-do. Oil money has taken care of that, and red colobus is now considered a luxury item on the menu. As more have developed a penchant for the meat, the price has shot up, trade in the island’s market of Malabo is burgeoning, demand is high, and the red colobus are rapidly declining in numbers. The usual arguments about the indigenous peoples being hungry and depending on a species for food, are meaningless here. The local populace are eating this animal because they want to.
Red colobus are arboreal, slow and noisy. When not simply leaping across the branches, they move through them by bending the thinner, more flexible ones and using them as catapults. They live in groups of twelve to eighty comprising of both male and female individuals, with females outnumbering the males twofold. Females tend to remain with the same group throughout their lives, whilst males move between troops. They communicate between each other and other troops using a series of barks and squawks.
Mungai and the Goa Constrictor 