The return of the golden monkey.

• Author: Cohn, Jeffrey P.
• Position: Conservation of lion tamarins in Brazil

Captive breeding and education programs in Brazil and elsewhere are revealing new information about the behavior and survival of the endangered lion tamarins

Cecilia Kierulff quickly traversed a path through a dense Brazilian rain forest. Rounding a turn in the path, she spotted a wiremesh cage ahead, one of several she had placed in the forest earlier that day. Inside the cage, four golden heads turned anxiously as Kierulff approached.

The heads belonged to a family of golden lion tamarins, perhaps Brazil's most famous monkeys. Long subject to intense scientific and public attention, golden lion tamarins have become a symbol of wildlife conservation and habitat protection in Brazil and, indeed, worldwide. Kierulffs tamarins lived in a remnant patch of forest on private property. The patch was too small for the endangered monkeys to long survive. Kierulff and her colleagues took them to Fazenda Uniao, a fifty-nine-hundred-acre reserve owned by Brazil's formerly government-run railroad company. There, the translocated tamarins have not only thrived, but they are also helping to conserve their kind.

"They represent a significant portion of the wild population," says Kierulff, a field researcher with the Golden Lion Tamarin Association (Associacao Mico Leao Dourado), of the twenty-three tamarins moved since 1991 to Fazenda Uniao. "Their forest was in serious danger of disappearing. We brought them to a larger forest where they could be protected."

Golden lion tamarins, squirrel-like monkeys found only in the coastal rain forests of Brazil, are one of four closely related monkeys whose brilliant colors, lionlike manes, and playful antics have long endeared them to scientists, conservationists, and zoo goers alike. The four species are distinguished by their colors.

The best known of the group, the golden lion tamarin is a bright golden or sometimes reddish orange from head to tail. The black or golden-rumped lion tamarin is black except for an orange posterior and front legs. The golden-headed is black with an orange face, front legs, and the base of its tail. And the recently discovered black-faced is orange except for its black head.

Other than color, the four lion tamarins look almost alike. They are small monkeys with rounded. hairless faces: thick manes covering their necks and heads; claws instead of toenails; and long, thin tails. All four species are considered critically endangered in the wild by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Once probably widespread along Brazil's Atlantic coast, the lion tamarins now inhabit the few remaining small, scattered forest patches. Less than 5 percent of their original habitat remains intact. The rest has long since been cut, bulldozed, or burned to make way for ranches, farms, roads, houses, and cities.

Thirty years ago, not only were the forests disappearing, but dozens of lion tamarins were also killed or caught for the pet and zoo trades each year. No reserves existed to protect their habitat, no scientists were studying them, and few conservationists or zoos were advocating their cause. No one even knew how many there were in the wild.

The lion tamarins' plight began to improve in the late 1960s. Brazilian conservationists, led by Adelmar Coimbra-Filho, the now-retired director of the Rio de Janeiro Primate Center, persuaded their government to ban exports of golden lion tamarins and other wildlife for the pet trade in 1967.

Further, in 1974 the Brazilian government created a thirteen-thousand-acre refuge northeast of Rio de Janeiro to protect habitat for golden lion tamarins. Named Pogo das Antas, or pool of the tapirs, it is the largest intact stretch of coastal rain forest remaining...