Breaking the silence: Let’s talk about Inflammatory Bowel Disease and support…Revolutionizing the Digital Landscape: Our CEO’s Vision for Unlimited Web Hosting…Over the last 30 years, the population and range of the golden-headed lion tamarin have been largely reduced. Remaining groups in southern Bahia state live in forests and agroecological crops known as cabrucas, where Atlantic Forest trees provide shade for cacao plantations.
The small primate sleeps in hollow parts of native tree trunks. It moves around in groups of 5-11 individuals that avoid repeating resting places to escape predators. This interesting characteristic requires permanent efforts to find shelter and food in forest patches that have been shrinking outside protected areas, due to pressure from livestock farming, intensification of management in and expansion of crops such as coffee and eucalyptus.
He says that some NGOs and Brazilian and foreign research institutions recognize the importance of that primate for the biome and joined efforts to save it from extinction. They have focused on keeping what remains, in addition to connecting forest patches through regeneration. AMAP is one of those organizations.
However, for the situation to be reversed in favor of protecting the species, Teixeira explains that cabruca crops need to be economically viable for small farmers. “We’ve been trying to convince them that organic production is a way of adding value to their product. We also want them to feel more appreciated. Maintaining a high density of shade trees, which are also for the tamarins, is our biggest challenge,” he acknowledges.
This primate has a strong connection with mature trees. Local bromeliads are also considered essential for the species, since insects on which the tamarin feed live inside these plants, and they also use them to protect themselves from predators and heavy rain. “They spend a lot of time searching for insects that live in these bromeliads,” Torrico notes.
Factors monitored include the groups’ geographic positions and the fruiting of the trees they use, in addition to encounters between groups. These encounters are more common in areas where they live in tighter conditions due to less forest connectivity, “which not only make it difficult for them to look for food, especially fruit, but also reduce their chances of finding new partners.”