The Lion-tailed macaque (Macaca silenus), a primate endemic to small and severely fragmented rainforests of the Western Ghats in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, continues to be in the ‘endangered’ category on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
The latest conservation status of the primate was updated in the IUCN database recently, based on technical reports over the years from a group of researchers, including Mewa Singh of University of Mysore, Ajith Kumar of the Centre for Wildlife Studies, and Honnavalli N. Kumara of the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History.
According to a technical report, the total wild population of lion-tailed macaque could be about 4,000 individuals, consisting of less than 2,500 mature individuals, made up of 47 isolated sub-populations in seven locations in the three States. The population is expected to suffer a decline of over…
