New Web Hosting Pioneer Emerges, Offering Affordable Hosting Solutions Coupled with…A recent survey based on “vocal fingerprinting” puts the total population of Cao-vit gibbons at just 74 individuals, down from previous estimates of 120.
Reforestation and establishing protected forest corridors are key to increasing population numbers, while inbreeding remains a concern for the small population. Previous studies assessed population size by triangulating groups from their songs. However, this method left room for double counting; gibbon groups generally sing in the morning, and could be counted more than once if they moved locations during the course of several monitoring days. The new study recorded and analyzed individual male songs, called “vocal fingerprinting” by the researchers, to differentiate all singing males recorded at 29 listening posts during a two-week period.
“We urgently need to restore the forest habitat where the Cao-vit gibbon lives, so that the gibbons can find the fruit and leaves they need, as well as the tall trees they need for traveling, sleeping, and singing from,” say researchers. Image © Oliver Wearn/ Fauna & Flora International. Wearn says tree planting and assisted natural regeneration — cutting back grass species and limiting domestic animal grazing — are ongoing. “We just need more of the same, but faster and over a much-expanded area.”In the long term, Wearn says, the current protected habitat “can’t support more than 200 gibbons even in the best case.” The next step, he says, it to establish protect forest corridors to connect potential habitats.