JAKARTA - The Indonesian Biodiversity Foundation (KEHATI) shared a number of interesting facts as a form of education and an invitation for the public to know and love wild animals, especially Indonesia's endemic primates.
"In addition to protecting individuals and species, education to raise awareness for primates must continue to be built, especially for people who live near their habitats," said KEHATI Foundation Communication and Partnership Director Rika Anggraini in a release regarding the commemoration of Indonesian Primate Day every January 30 which received in Jakarta, Sunday, as reported by Antara. "The public must be given an understanding that there are many benefits if they live in harmony with the forest and the animals that live in it, including primates," continued Rika Anggraini.
He added that the term do not know then do not love also applies to animal conservation in Indonesia. Many primates are endemic or only found in Indonesia, but based on ProFauna's records, the trade is quite high, with more than 95 percent of the trade being caught from the wild.
In addition to illegal trade, other causes of the decline in primate populations in Indonesia are habitat destruction due to natural disasters, land conversion, and poaching. Another fact is that 78 percent of the distribution of the orangutan population is outside the conservation area.
Currently, 59 species from 11 genera of primates inhabit various types of natural habitats, but their existence is very worrying because most of them have a critical, threatened and vulnerable status by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. /IUCN). This number includes protected and endemic primate species.
Indonesia has 12 percent of the total animals in the world, where the number of primate species in Indonesia ranks third after Brazil and Madagascar.
The highest primate species in Indonesia come from the genus Presbytis (Surili) with 15 species, followed by Macaca (Macaka) with 10 species, Tarsius (Tarsius) with 9 species, Hylobates (Gibris) with 8 species and the genus Nycticebus (Loris) with 6 species. four major islands, namely Sumatra, Kalimantan, Java and Sulawesi, while in Papua and the Maluku Islands no primate species were found.
Another fact about primates that KEHATI shared is that most of these wild animals eat fruit and leaves. This makes primates very active seed dispersers, so that their presence in the forest has an ecological impact on each other.
Primates are good pest controllers, the abundance of primates in the forest avoids leopards and other big cat species from preying on residents' livestock. As for tourism, the presence of primates attracts tourists with special interests.
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