Jonathan Kaiman “Hainan gibbon ‘clinging on’ with 25 left in China” http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/19/hainan-gibbon-endangered-species-china-extinction
中国海南島に棲息するHainan gibbon（海南黒冠長臂猿）は、現在25頭の棲息しか確認されておらず、世界で最も稀少な霊長類といわれている。
Samuel Turvey*1, a senior research fellow at the Zoological Society of London, said the Hainan gibbon was “definitely the world’s rarest ape species, the rarest primate species, and one of the rarest mammal species. They’re kind of clinging on, literally and metaphorically, to patches of forest in the mountains which people haven’t gotten around to cutting down yet.”He said both the species and its habitat were protected under Chinese law, but “the population is so low now that simply removing the threat isn’t enough … If by chance one or two of them die from disease, or a typhoon, their chance of recovery [would be] massively impacted.”
Turvey added: “The Hainan gibbon can become one of the world’s conservation success stories if everyone works together and the right steps are carried out.”
1950年代から70年代までの減り方が凄いけれど、その間の海南島の歴史については全然知らないのだった（汗）。ただ、「保護」活動の成果は少しずつ実っているようだ。200年の或る記事には、覇王嶺自然保護区では13頭しか残っていないとある*5。2010年の記事だと、22頭*6。また、百度百科によると、中国医学では海南黒冠長臂猿は「烏猿」と呼ばれ、その骨（「烏猿骨」）が薬材となり、そのための密猟も海南黒冠長臂猿の減少に関係しているという。「骨」を狙われるという点では虎と同じか*7。
Hainan is China’s smallest and southernmost province, an island of rainforests, mountains and sandy beaches in the South China Sea. The gibbons – gangly creatures with small black faces and thick beige fur – live in the Bawangling national nature reserve*2, a 26 sq mile swath of rainforest more than 120 miles from the provincial capital, Haikou.The reserve was home to more than 2,000 gibbons in the late 1950s, but poachers and loggers slowly encroached on the area, leaving only 30 or so left by 1980, when the Chinese government declared the park a protected area*3.
Greenpeace China’s forest campaigner Wu Hao said the island – one of China’s most biodiverse regions – lost 72,000 hectares of rainforest between 2000 to 2010, mostly to make way for rubber and paper plantations. “The plantations are still there, which is actually still a big problem for the nature reserve, for the gibbon and for other species,” he said*4.
海南黒冠長臂猿に関して、英語ではあるが、
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainan_black_crested_gibbon
Alan R. Mootnick, Xiaoming Wang, Pierre Moisson, Bosco P. L. Chan, John R. Fellowes & Tilo Nadler “Hainan Gibbon” http://primates.squarespace.com/hainan_gibbon
Shao Yang “About: Hainan gibbon” http://www.fauna-flora.org/species/hainan-gibbon/
をマークしておく。
*1:See http://www.zsl.org/users/samuel-turvey
*2:「覇王嶺自然保護区」
*3:See http://en.hainan.gov.cn/englishgov/map/baisha/ScenicSpot/201001/t20100118_40765.html
*4:http://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/multimedia/videos/forests/hainan-gibbon-forests-destruction/
*5:「海南最後的13只黒冠長臂猿」http://www.hi.chinanews.com/hnnew/2005-08-15/27803.html
*6:華声「覇王嶺和海南黒冠長臂猿」http://www.yhnkzq.com/NewsShow.jsp?msgId=9900
