According to first meeting of the Global Gibbon Network (GGN), the conservation status of India’s only ape is a cause for concern. The first meeting of the GGN was held at Haikou in China’s Hainan province from July 7-9.
Key points
- Gibbons are the smallest and fastest of all apes.
- They live in tropical and subtropical forests in the southeastern part of Asia.
- The hoolock gibbon is unique to India’s Northeast. It is one of 20 species of gibbons on Earth.
- The estimated population of hoolock gibbons is 12,000.
- Like all apes, they are extremely intelligent, with distinct personalities and strong family bonds.
- The current conservation status of gibbon species is alarming – all 20 species are at a high risk of extinction.
- Since 1900, gibbon distribution and populations have declined dramatically, with only small populations in tropical rainforests.
- The hoolock gibbon faces threat primarily from the felling of trees for infrastructure projects.
- American naturalist R. Harlan was the first to describe the hoolock gibbon, characterised by their vigorous vocal displays, from Assam in 1834.
- Over the decades, zoologists thought the Northeast housed two species of the ape – the eastern hoolock gibbon (Hoolock leuconedys) found in a specifc region of Arunachal Pradesh and the western hoolock gibbon (Hoolock hoolock) distributed elsewhere in the northeast.
- However, a study led by Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in 2021 proved through genetic analysis that there is only one species of ape in India.
