Human settlements, tea gardens posing threat to primates

Human settlements and tea gardens are posing a threat to primates in the Hollongapar Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary in Assam's Jorhat district, the only one in the country to be named after a primate species. The sanctuary, commonly known as the Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary, shelters seven species of primates, the highest in any protected area in the country, and though its population has registered an increase, habitat fragmentation is posing a severe threat to them. Gibbon Conservation Centre's Executive Director Dilip Chetry said that a railway track bisecting the forest is a major concern for the conservation of the Gibbons. The movement of the arboreal gibbons has been limited by the railway lines for the primates living on either side of it. "Gibbons being tree-dwellers do not come down to the ground and the railway track has made a large tract of the jungle out of reach. This is a serious situation and problems like inbreeding are palpable," Chetry said. The tea gardens surrounding the 20.98 sq km sanctuary have also created conservation problems. The seven primate species found in the sanctuary are hoolock gibbon, capped langur, Stump-tailed macaque, pig- tailed macaque, Assamese macaque, rhesus macaque and slow loris. MORE