Bearded sakis in south-eastern Amazonia—back from the brink?

Abstract

The endemic bearded sakis Chiropotes satanas satanas and Chiropotes satanas utahicki of south-eastern Amazonia are among the most threatened of this region's primates because of a combination of deforestation and hunting, and their apparent intolerance of habitat disturbance. Recent surveys at eight sites confirm that sakis are locally extinct in some areas where intense habitat fragmentation is exacerbated by hunting pressure, but also show that, in the absence of hunting, they can be relatively abundant in isolated forest fragments. Density was unexpectedly low in one protected area, however, which implies that caution is necessary for the planning of long-term conservation strategies. Well-protected forest fragments of reasonable size ( > 5000 ha) appear to have good potential for the protection of bearded saki populations. While many of the region's major landowners may thus make a significant contribution to the management of saki populations, land conflicts are a potentially serious problem for the long-term conservation of not just these primates, but the region's fauna and flora as a whole.

Forecasting Extinctions: Uncertainties and Limitations

“…For example, Johns and Ayres proposed that an Amazonian primate, the southern bearded saki (Chiropotes satanas satanas) was already ‗beyond the brink' in eastern Amazonia due to deforestation, hunting, its sensitivity to habitat disturbance and a dependence on many tree species valued for their timber, and would be extinct by the end of the Century [42]. Subsequent studies in the late 1990s demonstrated that the monkeys were still relatively abundant in some forest fragments where hunting was absent [43]. Of course, dire forecasts of mass extinction or of the disappearance of a specific species may influence the allocation of resources reducing the likelihood of the prediction being realized-and this is clearly often the aim.…”