Requiem for a Primate
by John Tidwell

There it was, in his hands: a tail, nearly two feet long, with glossy black fur forming a pointed tip at one end, and auburn hair sprouting at the other. The tall American scientist studied his find like a relic while a muscular Togolese hunter named Efu watched with amusement. Villagers crowded around the two in a semicircle, whispering to each other that at last the crazy foreigner had what he came for.

Miss Waldron's red colobus
Miss Waldron's red colobus monkey. (Stephen D. Nash/Conservation International)

Ohio State University primatologist W. Scott McGraw hadn't expected to find anything in this forgotten corner of southeastern Côte d'Ivoire. It was the third time he had driven to the country's shoreline border with Ghana since 1999. He and his colleagues had pored over satellite maps and detailed survey notes of this area, which McGraw calls the Ehy Forest: a stretch of tangled, shaggy trees that grows between the nearby Ehy Lagoon and the sea. There was no reason to think it held anything special.

But local hunters urged him to come back. The place was teeming with "red-and-black monkeys," they claimed. So McGraw decided to give it one last look. Now he stood amid wattle-and-daub huts in a village that wasn't on the map, looking at the freshly butchered tail of a primate that wasn't supposed to exist: Procolobus badius waldroni, Miss Waldron's red colobus monkey.

McGraw searched for signs of waldroni for more than ten years without success. After a final fruitless search of forests in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, he and some of the world's top primatologists, including John Oates of Hunter College and Thomas Struhsaker of Duke University, sadly concluded in a 2000 Conservation Biology article that Miss Waldron's red colobus was probably extinct.

The scientists' announcement was ominous. Not only had a beautiful African monkey been lost, but it was also the first hard evidence of the extinction of a primate in more than 500 years. And this lost-and-found monkey is one among many that face similar threats in the shrinking woodlands of West Africa. The authors warned that the loss of waldroni heralded the beginning of a wave of West African animal extinctions unless swift and effective action was taken to protect them.

But now McGraw is in the unusual position of proving himself wrong about waldroni, and he couldn't be happier about it. In an upcoming article in the International Journal of Primatology, he says he has proof that a handful of Miss Waldron's red colobus may somehow still survive. It's even possible some could be hiding among the twisted branches of the Ehy Forest. If so, are there enough of them—and can they be sufficiently protected—to regenerate the subspecies?

The Monkey's Tale
Procolobus badius waldroni was unknown to science until one day in December 1933, when the British naturalist Willoughby Lowe shot and preserved eight of the large red-and-black monkeys during a collecting expedition in the southwestern Ashanti region of the Gold Coast, now Ghana. Back at London's British Museum of Natural History, mammologist R.W. Hayman named the primate for Miss F. Waldron, a museum employee who accompanied Lowe, and who, Hayman wrote, "…contributed much to the success of the expedition." Miss Waldron's red colobus monkey was described as a subspecies of western red colobus (P. b. badius), with a red forehead and shanks. In all other respects, however, it was like any other red colobus: It lived high in the canopy of pristine forest, where it dined on the leaves of more than 100 tree species. Like all colobus monkeys from Africa to Asia, waldroni ate what other monkeys couldn't, digesting cellulose from leaves and twigs with a ruminant, four-chambered stomach similar to a cow's.

West Africa was once home to millions of red colobus of several different varieties that roamed the rainforest canopy in bright, boisterous packs. Today red colobus are rare in Côte d'Ivoire and extirpated in Ghana. Oates noted in a Conservation Biology article that if Miss Waldron's red colobus were truly gone, it wasn't for lack of warning from scientists. Practically since its discovery, scientists noticed waldroni had a more localized population than other red colobus. Its range was limited to the border region between western Ghana and eastern Côte d'Ivoire: tiny compared to its western red cousins, which were found throughout most of southwestern Africa.

It wasn't until the 1950s that anyone noticed Miss Waldron's red colobus was disappearing. Ernest Hemingway was extolling the virtues of the hunt, and both Africans and foreigners thought the supply of game—and trees—was limitless. Europe's ravenous commercial logging was taking large bites from the primary habitat of waldroni, Ghana's southwestern Tano-Nimiri Forest. No one realized it then, but deforestation was particularly devastating to these monkeys. "Red colobus monkeys in general are very, very sensitive to habitat perturbations," explains McGraw. "They depend on these trees for food, and unlike other monkeys that actually can thrive in disturbed, secondary forests, red colobus can live only in pristine, high-canopy forest."

As the great forests of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire began to vanish, so did Miss Waldron's red colobus. In the spring of 1954, Angus Herdman Booth, a scientist from the British Natural History Museum, noted a troop of western reds and waldroni moving swiftly through the trees on the eastern bank of the Nzi River in Côte d'Ivoire. He didn't know it then, but his was the last documented sighting of Miss Waldron's colobus in that country. Two years later he wrote in the Journal of the West African Science Association that the waldroni population was dwindling so fast that the possibility of its extinction in Ghana "…in the near future must be regarded as a probability unless effective legislation to protect both the animal and its environment are forthcoming." Nothing of any significance was done.

Twenty years later, commercial logging had turned once-thriving Ghanaian forests into little islands of wilderness surrounded by an ocean of human settlement. Wide logging roads cut deep into the forests, allowing bushmeat hunters into virgin territory. Red colobus like waldroni, already stressed by a diminishing food supply, became an increasingly rare delicacy for locals.

In the mid-1970s, international conservation organizations began to pressure Ghana to preserve its natural resources. McGraw says the Ghanaian government created two national parks, largely as a political gesture: Bia on the western border, and Nini Suhien in the far southwest. But little was done to effectively manage or protect them. Loggers and bushmeat hunters continued to use the parks as a business resource, and animal life steadily dwindled. From 1978 to 1986, Western and African conservationists made surveys of the animals in these parks, and while Miss Waldron's red colobus appeared on these surveys, McGraw and his colleagues suspect the numbers were based on earlier reports. It was clear, however, that populations of these monkeys were declining precipitously, and in 1988 waldroni was one of the first primates to be listed on the International Conservation Union's (IUCN) Red List of endangered species.

By the early 1990s Western organizations such as Conservation International and the World Wildlife Fund began to take note of what was happening in West Africa's forests, particularly when Oates and Struhsaker reported a depletion of animals in Ghana's showcase national parks. Oates, the Ghana expert, and McGraw, who specialized in Côte d'Ivoire, were especially concerned about monkeys, a favorite bushmeat item that reportedly was becoming rare, expensive, and sought-after at local bazaars. Between 1993 and 1999, McGraw, Oates, and their colleagues surveyed 19 forest areas in the southern borderlands of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, with a particular emphasis on Miss Waldron's red colobus. After combing through museum records, exploring bushmeat markets, questioning scores of hunters and local villagers, and spending weeks walking through miles of forestland, neither man found any sign of waldroni. "If there are red colobus around, you can't miss them," says McGraw. "They travel in big, loud groups and don't even try to be cryptic. Their strategy is safety through having lots of eyes and ears."

Worse, not only had most park guards in both countries not seen any red colobus monkeys—they didn't even recognize pictures of them. Clearly, these primates had been gone not for years, but for decades.

What the scientists did find was sobering: Most forests were littered with spent shotgun shells, acetylene headlamp carbides, recently used snare wires, and the remains of hunting camps. In many cases gunshots could even be heard in the distance. In their 2000 Conservation Biology article, Oates and McGraw broke the bad news to the world: Miss Waldron's red colobus could not be found anywhere. But they also added: "…we cannot be absolutely certain that a few Miss Waldron's red colobus monkeys do not linger in one of the forests we surveyed, or in some other area…."

In Pursuit of an Apparition
The first time McGraw saw the Ehy Forest, he was tired and skeptical. When he completed his surveys in 1999 several hunters told him about a little stretch of forest near the Ehy Lagoon in Côte d'Ivoire's extreme southeast. They said the place was crawling with singes rouge (red monkeys) that they shot there all the time. McGraw wasn't convinced, but was intrigued enough to decide he would have a look when he returned.

A year later, he drove his Land Rover down a dusty dirt road full of potholes and rocks, heading for the unknown. At last he came to the end of the road and to Kadjagnazonkro, a remote village on the Tano River that is a trading center for boats carrying goods (and often bushmeat) across the border between Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire. McGraw set up his headquarters there and recruited the best hunters in the area to head out into the lagoons in search of red monkeys.

Côte d'Ivoire's lagoon region is a narrow strip of coastline that runs from the Ghanaian border all the way to Abidjan, its capital. Low sandbars and islands form natural barriers between the region's rivers and the Gulf of Guinea, resulting in brackish lagoons and tidal pools that lie parallel to the coast. Here black mangroves (Avicennia germinans) thrive alongside other salt-tolerant trees, creating a tangled beard of nearly impenetrable wetland forest.

There is a 45-kilometer-long peninsula of this sort of forest at the convergence of the Tano River and the Ehy Lagoon, and for want of a better name, McGraw dubbed it the Ehy Forest. Led by Ivorian guide Isaac Monah, Efu the bushmeat hunter, and a handful of local trackers, McGraw spent three weeks looking for the slightest sign of Miss Waldron's red colobus in this flooded wilderness. Unlike inland forests, which are easy to walk through, the Ehy Forest is densely overgrown, and the men were knee-deep in muddy, leech-infested water. Clambering along roots and branches, battling hordes of mosquitoes that considered him bushmeat, McGraw found a scattering of various monkey species—but no trace of waldroni.

One evening his men did find a band of Ghanaian poachers relaxing in crude hammocks strung between the trees, while a load of freshly killed black-and-white colobus (Colobus vellerosus) meat smoked over a small fire. It was proof that although the Ehy Forest was hard to penetrate, it posed no obstacle to determined bushmeat hunters. It also indicated that monkeys were so scarce elsewhere that poachers had to go into inhospitable backwaters like Ehy to get them.

But everything changed for McGraw when Efu gave him the tail in February 2001. The wily hunter said he shot the red monkey a week after McGraw had left in 2000, and saved the tail for him. The question was, from what species of monkey did it come? There were only two kinds of monkey in the area that had black tails: Roloway guenons (Cercopithecus diana roloway) and Miss Waldron's red colobus. And it couldn't have come from far away, or it would be dried and smoked like all bushmeat. Months later, an analysis of the DNA from the tail by scientists at New York University determined it was a colobus—and the only colobus native to far eastern Côte d'Ivoire was Miss Waldron's. It wasn't a live monkey, but it was proof waldroni had recently existed.

McGraw returned to Kadjagnazonkro in January 2002 and the villagers told him a local farmer named Steven killed a red colobus the previous July. "We went out to his little hut in the forest, and when we walked up there was this monkey skin hanging on a clothesline," McGraw recalls. "It was recent, there was dried blood on it, and it was clearly a Miss Waldron's. The markings were unmistakable." Steven said he shot the monkey about 2.5 miles (four kilometers) southwest of Kadjagnazonkro, as it traveled through the forest with a troop of black-and-white colobus. McGraw says this behavior makes sense: A lone red colobus might seek out other monkey species for safety and companionship.

McGraw, the hunters, and Monah spent the next three weeks searching for waldroni in the places where Steven and Efu had shot theirs, up and down the Tano River and all over the Ehy Forest. They looked for telltale droppings, scoured the branches with binoculars, and tried to flush Miss Waldron's colobus into view by mimicking baby monkey calls or the cries of crowned hawk-eagles (Stephanoaetus coronatus), the monkey's natural enemies. They found nothing, save for a few puzzled Roloways. McGraw had to go back to Ohio State University, but Monah agreed to keep searching until he returned the next December.

No one expected what happened next. In September 2002, Côte d'Ivoire erupted into civil war, and foreign conservation workers still in the country were forced to leave as the violence escalated. A truce was called in July 2003, but McGraw hasn't been back to Côte d'Ivoire since the spring of 2002. With unrest continuing even today, he doesn't know when he will see the Ehy Forest again.

Yet half a world away in Ohio, the quest for Miss Waldron's red colobus continued. In December 2002, McGraw was brooding over the fighting in Côte d'Ivoire when he got a letter from Adam, a Ghanaian tracker (and Steven's nephew) who lived near Kadjagnazonkro. Before McGraw left, he instructed Adam to keep a sharp lookout for red monkeys. The letter spoke only of Adam's plans to return to Ghana and open a garage, but a snapshot he enclosed took McGraw's breath away. In it, Adam posed with a dead monkey, which as far as can be discerned, is a Miss Waldron's red colobus. Ironically, this is the only known photograph ever taken of a waldroni—and it may well be the last.

McGraw is convinced this photo isn't old or taken elsewhere in the country. Given the fighting going on, it's unlikely that hunters would bring a fresh, unsmoked monkey from far away. He suspects that Adam saw the carcass at a local bushmeat market and, knowing McGraw's interest in red colobus, bought it and had his picture taken with it before cooking it for dinner. But we may never know the full story: McGraw has had no word from Adam since then, and doesn't know where he is or even if he is still alive.

Now McGraw has three pieces of compelling evidence that Miss Waldron's red colobus monkey still exists in isolated patches of West African forest: a tail, a skin, and a photograph. For him, it's a bitter triumph. "I have very mixed feelings about these items," he says. "I'm happy there is evidence, but it's evidence of dead animals. It means there are three less of an already critically endangered animal."

Primates in Peril
McGraw and his colleagues never said Miss Waldron's red colobus was completely extinct; that, McGraw says, was the pronouncement of various news media in the wake of his Conservation Biology article. He concedes that extinction would be exceedingly hard to prove. But this places waldroni in the strange ecological limbo of cryptic animals and remnant populations: not extinct, but in such small and scattered numbers that most scientists would classify the subspecies as dead, or not having enough individuals to prevent inbreeding or maintain a genetically diverse population. It's a fate that many African primates currently face.

According to an April 8, 2004, report by Conservation International scientists published in Nature, more than 300 of the rarest animal species on Earth live in unprotected wilderness and are vulnerable to extinction. The IUCN also stated in May 2000 that more than 138 of the world's primate species and subspecies were classified as endangered, and 50 of them were so depleted that in a few decades they could become extinct. The causes, said the IUCN, were primarily the bushmeat trade and habitat destruction due to logging—the same basic reasons waldroni had disappeared.

McGraw says as much as 93 percent of the primary old-growth forests of Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana are gone, replaced by villages and oil palm and cocoa plantations. Primates across West Africa, including mangabeys, guenons, colobus, drills, chimps, and gorillas, are dwindling as their woodland homes fall. Two West African monkeys, the Roloway guenon and the white-naped mangabey (Cercocebus atys lunulatus) are as sensitive to habitat disruption as waldroni, and could be next on the list of lost monkeys. According to primatologist Thomas Struhsaker, who is arguably the world's leading expert on red colobus, their loss would send an ominous signal. "These monkeys are key indicator species," he explains. "Especially the red colobus—they're like the proverbial canary in the mineshaft. When you don't find red colobus in a forest you know things are starting to slide. In this case it might be more like an extinction wave."

Miss Waldron's red colobus is part of a large group of red colobus that ranges across the African continent. Taxonomists still argue about whether red colobus should be grouped into one species with about 18 subspecies, or split into four separate species. In the early 1970s, some even advocated classifying waldroni as a full species unto itself. But today, the majority of scientists believe that Miss Waldron's is a P. badius subspecies.

While P. badius monkeys may not be extinct, their numbers certainly aren't healthy. Struhsaker estimates that about 70 percent of this group is threatened, vulnerable, or endangered. Bouvier's red colobus (P. b. bouvieri) of the Congo region hadn't been seen for 30 years, and the few thousand existing Kenya's Tana River red colobus (P. b. rufomitratus) live exclusively in the small, unprotected gallery forests of the Tana River. Only about 1,500 Zanzibar red colobus (P. b. kirkii) are left on Zanzibar, in the Jozani Forest Reserve, and Struhsaker says their continued existence largely depends on the mood of the local government. The only red colobus that's still abundant is Oustalet's red colobus (P. b. oustaleti), in the more intact forests of the Central African Republic. But increased logging may take a toll on these monkeys as well.

Fortunately, not all colobus monkeys are in trouble. Black-and-white colobus of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire are probably the most plentiful colobus in Africa, and are abundant from Guinea all the way to Kenya. They often inhabit the same forests as red colobus. So why are the reds disappearing while their black-and-white cousins thrive?

The answer, McGraw believes, has to do with their differing adaptations. While both species eat leaves and live in forests, red colobus are so sensitive to habitat change that no one has ever succeeded in keeping them in captivity, possibly because a vital component of their diet was missing. On the other hand, black-and-white colobus actually thrive in disturbed forest, and can be found in most zoos around the world. Another key factor is behavior. When black-and-white colobus notice a predator, be it chimp, leopard, or human, they quietly leave the area in small groups. This is not the case with their ruddy relatives. "Red colobus are not the brightest monkeys in the forest," says Struhsaker sadly, "but they are probably the easiest to catch. When they detect a predator, they run to the top of a tree and stay there, the whole noisy bunch of them. Hunters have told me they could wipe out an entire group of red colobus if they had enough ammunition. They just pick them off one by one."

What to Do?
Many scientists, political and biological, have spent a lot of time debating how to effectively conserve Africa's biodiversity. Most Western conservationists agree that protecting large tracts of intact national park land is important, and that well-trained guards and strong law enforcement against poachers are crucial. But spending a lot of time and money to save monkeys is a hard thing to sell to poor, hungry people living through a civil war. Certainly it's not the uppermost priority in the minds of the presidents of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire.

"One of my Ivorian researchers told me recently that we lost 27 western red colobus from our study group in the Tai Forest," McGraw says. "He found them for sale in a bushmeat market just outside the forest. Tai is one of the biggest and best preserved forests in West Africa, and if we can't stop poaching there, what hope do we have for smaller, less prominent forests?"

Big changes often have small beginnings. When the fighting stops in Côte d'Ivoire, McGraw says he will return to the Ehy Forest and resume his search for Miss Waldron's red colobus. If he finds one this time, he will team up with Conservation International to convince Ivorians to make Ehy a protected wildlife refuge. Maybe that would deter the bushmeat hunters and buy waldroni a few more years to hang on.

Maybe in that time, conditions in West Africa will change. Maybe the wars will end and maybe people will stop eating their wildlife. A lot of maybes, but for McGraw and his colleagues, hoping and trying is all one can do.

"I am still optimistic," he says. "Otherwise I wouldn't be going back. I guess we have to be. My fingers are crossed."

—John Tidwell is a freelance journalist living in Silver Spring, Maryland. He has written numerous articles on conservation for ZooGoer.


ZooGoer 33(5) 2004. Copyright 2004 Friends of the National Zoo.
All rights reserved.



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