[Animals] Trip to Monkey Mountain: an oasis of peace for this strange Vietnamese monkey

[FNX Magokiler]

In this central Vietnamese city of 1.2 million people, almost every inch of land has been gobbled up by real estate developers. Imposing hotels line a kilometer-long beach of white sand. But there is a privileged area that remains almost intact: the mountainous and forested end of the city's peninsula. This is a 2,600-hectare nature reserve called Son Tra, or, as it is also known, "Monkey Mountain."

The reserve, which also houses a military base, is the last refuge of the red-capped douc, a critically endangered langur that only numbers about 2,000 in Son Tra. On a recent visit, conservationist Hoang Van Chuong quickly spotted several brightly colored long-tailed monkeys high in the treetops. "It's hard to hide with those traits," said Chuong, development director of local nonprofit GreenViet, with a laugh.

Preoccupied with snacking among the leaves, the animals did not seem very bothered by our presence. But doucs have good reason to fear humans. Long hunted for meat and medicine, they have lost much of their native forest habitat, which once stretched across the region. Hidden in small jungle enclaves, today they are only found in a few pockets of Laos and in two isolated po[CENSORED]tions in Vietnam, the largest of which clings on here, in Son Tra.

 

 

Doucs are one of many species that have suffered huge declines due to habitat fragmentation, which studies show is the main driver of biodiversity loss around the world, and especially in Southeast Asia. Urban growth is one of the main causes of the problem. The po[CENSORED]tion of cities around the world will increase by 2.5 billion over the next 30 years, tripling the global footprint of cities. Experts warn that animals unable to adapt to urban environments may be pushed into increasingly smaller and more isolated places.

"Species that need relatively large, intact wilderness areas," such as doucs, "will be lost, [while] native and introduced species that thrive in cities can take their place," says Rohan Simkin, an ecologist at the University of Yale (United States), which studies the impact of urban expansion on fauna.

According to him and other researchers, there are likely to be many more urban "evader" species (species unable to adapt to urban environments) than "adapters," although there have been no major studies to confirm this.

 

https://www.nationalgeographic.es/animales/2023/12/douc-canillas-rojas-montana-monos-oasis-paz-vietnam