A scientist’s four-decade quest to save the biggest monkey in the Americas
LA TimesA northern muriqui monkey jumps from a tree at the Feliciano Miguel Abdala Natural Heritage Private Reserve in Brazil last month. Karen Strier started studying the biggest monkey in the Americas four decades ago, when there were just 50 of the animals left in this swath of the Atlantic forest, in southeastern Brazil’s Minas Gerais state. Inside the 2,300-acre Feliciano Miguel Abdala reserve, a privately protected area where Strier has based her research program, the northern muriqui population has grown nearly fivefold, to 232. After drought and a yellow fever outbreak killed 100 muriquis — about a third of the reserve’s population — in just five years, Strier has strongly advocated for the creation of forest corridors and supporting species reintroduction projects. In 2016, Fernanda Pedreira Tabacow, a former student and top assistant of Strier’s, heard that there were only two muriqui males left in a patch of forest in Ibitipoca, southwest of the Feliciano Miguel Abdala reserve.
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A scientist's 4-decade quest to save the biggest monkey in the Americas
The HinduA scientist’s 4-decade quest to save the biggest monkey in the Americas
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