Golden Monkey of China - Efforts to save an endangered Species

	Navigation Background Information Lesson Plans Helpful Links Back to Homepage Introduction Chinese children are very familiar with the legend of a magical monkey called "Sunwukong" (Monkey King), who helps the weak with kindness, and fights evil with justice. But the real monkeys are fighting mankind for their own survival. There are three species of Golden Monkeys who all live in the forests of China, with some species in the mountains.

Background Information

1. The Golden Monkey
2. 2004 is the Year of the Monkey
3. Endangered Species
4. Efforts to Save the Species

The Golden Monkey

Common names: Golden Thread Monkey, Sichuan Snub-nosed Monkey, (or snub nosed langur), Golden Monkey.
Scientific name: Pygathrix roxellana

Chinese children are very familiar with the legend of a magical monkey called "Sunwukong" (Monkey King), who helps the weak with kindness, and fights evil with justice. But the real monkeys are fighting mankind for their own survival. There are three species of Golden Monkeys who all live in the forests of China, with some species in the mountains. Golden monkeys live in large groups into the hundreds. They seem to have a hierarchical society, like baboons, and inhabit the bamboo jungles, coniferous forests, and rhododendron thickets found in the high mountains of central and western China. This area is snowbound in the winter. To adapt to the cold, golden monkeys have developed robust bodies and long thick fur, particularly over their shoulders. During winter, they survive by eating slow-growing lichens. Their bright blue faces are offset by flame-orange fur. Sexual dimorphism is expressed in the greater length of the males' canines. The males also produce wart-like growths at the corners of their upper lips, which are considered a secondary sexual trait.

2004 is the Year of the Monkey

The Chinese are searching for better, safer ways to preserve this mascot of good luck. To this end, the Golden monkey has been placed under top state protection. It is hoped that the Year of the Monkey on the Chinese lunar calendar, which began this year on Jan. 22 of the Gregorian calendar, will improve the monkey’s chances for survival.

Endangered Species

Golden monkeys are rare and obscure, and they're just beginning to be studied. They are highly endangered, so it's a race to study them before they disappear. Living in the mountains of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan Provinces, Chinese golden monkeys are seeing their habitats disappear rapidly as the countryside is cleared for more pastures, villages, and roads.

The monkeys are killed for their beautiful fire-orange fur and also their bones, which are believed by Asians to hold special medicinal powers.

In the past 40 years, the living area of the Yunnan golden monkeys has shrunk by a third, while the pasture area created by fire and timber-harvesting has doubled.

More than 86 percent of monkey groups were separated by roads and villages, which blocked communication and resulted in in-breeding and species degeneration. Small groups in the forests have been wiped out. Those that are left are too few to carry on the species line and are at the edge of extinction.

Chinese scientists confirmed the existence of Yunnan golden monkeys in 1962 and listed them on the top protection list in 1977. State-run nature reserves were set up later, but illegal hunting continued because the monkey's brain is considered a delicacy in some local cuisine.

Efforts to Save the Species

Attempts at artificial breeding of Golden Monkeys have encountered many difficulties. In Kunming Institute of Zoology, almost all the 10 monkeys born in the past decade were male, which scientists could not explain. Perhaps not surprisingly, researchers have discovered that the best place to protect them is not in laboratories or breeding centers, but in their natural habitats.

Lesson Plans

Helpful Links

• http://www.china.org.cn/english/NM-e/17201.htm
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