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A Golden Future
by John Berry
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Looking up, I saw that the top of the ridge, where we hoped to find golden lion tamarins, was still a long way off. I'm in good physical shape, but this climb was turning out to be a serious challenge. The trail was sinuous and nearly vertical, and the profusion of tree roots, wet leaves, clay soil, and holes made for precarious footing. Andreia Martins, the leader of our hike, had predicted that these tamarins would not be hard to find, but noted that our walk might be a bit tougher than yesterday's. "A bit tougher" was a bit of an understatement!

golden lion tamarin in the wild
National Zoo Director John Berry saw this wild golden lion tamarin in the Mata Atlântica in Brazil. (John Berry/NZP)

The previous day, two different family groups of golden lion tamarins (Leontopithecus rosalia) almost rained down on us from the tree canopy. Those monkeys came within ten feet of us, and while they were vigilant, they did not seem afraid. I was astonished that I could be closer to a golden lion tamarin in the forests of Brazil than in the Smithsonian National Zoo's Beaver Valley, where a pair or family of free-ranging golden lion tamarins lives outdoors each summer.

Now, however, the monkeys were nowhere to be seen, and we continued to climb higher in search of them. Suddenly, I slipped and almost impaled myself on a spiny palm as I reached my hand out to break my fall. We had been walking nearly straight uphill for about 30 minutes. It was ten o'clock, and we had to get back to Rio before mid-afternoon to get some sightseeing done there before dark. It was getting hotter and more humid, and I wished we had started our search for golden lion tamarins earlier that morning.

Jennifer Mickelberg, a graduate student and research assistant who manages the free-ranging golden lion tamarin exhibit at the National Zoo, was almost at the top of the ridge. She looked back and encouraged us to continue. "Don't worry," she whispered hoarsely, having lost her voice the day before. "Andreia has never led a group here that did not see tamarins. She wouldn't let you leave this forest without seeing them!" A few moments later, she added, "Andreia is going back down the hill to see if she can find the tamarin group. She said we should wait here." We were all enormously grateful for the opportunity to rest.

Andreia is field coordinator for the Golden Lion Tamarin Reintroduction Field Team. Every day, the team scampers up and down the steep slippery forested slopes, facing groves of spiny palms and other dangers including snakes, biting ants, chiggers, and mosquitoes as it searches for zoo-born golden lion tamarins and their descendants. There are now about 700 such tamarins in the wild, more than 40 percent of the total number of golden lion tamarins in Brazil's Mata Atlântica, or "Atlantic Forest."

The Mata Atlântica is one of the world's most critically endangered "hotspots" for biodiversity. No more than six percent of the original forest remains, but despite its degraded and fragmented state, it harbors globally important biodiversity and many endemic species, including golden lion tamarins, which occur nowhere else on Earth.

I was in Brazil at the end of May to see the results of the National Zoo's 30-year involvement in the conservation of these endangered monkeys. In the early 1970s, the National Zoo collaborated with two Brazilian nonprofit organizations to create the Golden Lion Tamarin Conservation Program, which has grown into a multidisciplinary, international effort to preserve, protect, and study golden lion tamarins and their forest habitat. The Zoo's participation in the program is a classic example of how it integrates management of zoo populations with conservation in the field.

The program has had a major impact on the survival of the endangered golden lion tamarin; it has also greatly enhanced legal and effective forest protection, and helped to restore and connect remaining forest patches. Using the golden lion tamarin as a flagship species, the program is ensuring the survival of an endangered ecosystem and many threatened species. It may also ensure the survival of species that have never been described by scientists. But there are many obstacles ahead and, I was able to hear about them and the plans to overcome them.

The Golden Lion Tamarin Conservation Program is headquartered in the greater metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, one of the most densely populated areas in the world. The distance from Rio to the tamarins' Mata Atlântica habitat is similar to the distance from Washington, D.C., to Frederick, Maryland—about 50 miles.

We saw the effects of deforestation as we drove from Rio de Janeiro northeast along Brazil Route 101. Cattle and an invasive African grass covered much of the rolling hilly landscape. Some hillsides were severely eroded, with deep gullies cascading down in abstract patterns, exposing the red clay soil. Patches of forest topped the hills like poorly maintained hairpieces, but there was no forested connection between them.

We also passed ceramics factories fueled by charcoal, which Devra Kleiman said sprung up during the oil crisis of 1973. Devra, the coordinator of the Golden Lion Tamarin Conservation Program from 1972 to 2000, and a former assistant director for research at the National Zoo, accompanied us from Rio to see the tamarins.

Along the way, she explained the history of the Zoo's investment in golden lion tamarin conservation. In the 1960s, while massive deforestation fragmented their habitat in Brazil, hundreds of tamarins were captured for zoos and as pets, and the wildlife trade contributed to the near extinction of the species in Brazil. Many tamarins were sent to U.S. and overseas zoos, but by 1970, few survived, because reproduction had been poor. A group of zoos organized a workshop, called "Saving the Lion Marmoset" (as the golden lion tamarin was then known), at the National Zoo in 1972 to determine what could be done to improve breeding and also to help the ever-worsening situation in the wild. At the time, some estimates suggested that tamarin numbers were hovering in the hundreds, down from a probable population of hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even millions, before Europeans arrived in the Americas.

After that workshop, the National Zoo decided to commit its staff and resources to conserving this charismatic monkey. Devra began to manage the studbook, a listing of the genetic lineages of the fewer than 70 golden lion tamarins that were distributed in zoos around the world. More important, she organized a research program in behavior and nutrition to figure out how best to keep and breed golden lion tamarins in zoos. By 1984, the research led to the first successful international reintroduction program for a primate.

Traveling to the Mata Atlântica over rough roads. (John Berry/NZP)

I thought about the tamarins' decline as I rested on a tree stump, which thankfully did not harbor a biting ant colony. I saw Devra below, looking rather hot and exhausted as she clambered up the hill. And then I heard tamarin calls coming from behind her, down the hill. All of us bolted upright and were ready to move downhill again, until Jennifer laughed and said that it was only Andreia, who can produce tamarin "long calls" that are indistinguishable from the monkeys'. Tamarins live in groups averaging six individuals, and as one group approaches another in the forest, they communicate with long calls composed of whines and clucking sounds. Groups of tamarins respond to Andreia's long calls as if she were an invading group.

The long calling continued, and finally Jennifer said that Andreia had indeed attracted tamarins near the area where we had originally started climbing. We tripped, rolled, and slipped down the steep hill. There, at some distance, was a group of tamarins—just a glimpse of gold that disappeared into the canopy.

Over the last day and a half, I had learned much about what was being done to protect existing tamarin habitat and to create more of it. We were hiking on a private ranch near the Poço das Antas Biological Reserve, which was established by the Brazilian government in 1974 to protect golden lion tamarins. Poço das Antas was the first reserve in Brazil created specifically for an endangered species. In 1997, the president of Brazil, Fernando Enrique Cardoso, established a second reserve with excellent forest, which is now called the União Biological Reserve, from a ranch owned by the national railroad company. Since 1994, researchers had been translocating tamarins they rescued from developing areas into União. From an original six tamarin groups, that translocated population has now increased to more than 200 individuals.

More recently, many local landowners have agreed to devote parts of their properties to official private reserves. This is a dramatic change from a decade ago, when local landowners were downright hostile to golden lion tamarin researchers and conservationists, thinking that big government would expropriate any of their land that contained forest or tamarins. The change came about when a few landowners agreed to accept reintroduced zoo-born tamarins onto their property, and then became local heroes after receiving positive local publicity and suffering no negative economic consequences.

Education campaigns also focused on generating local pride based on the fact that golden lion tamarins and the Mata Atlântica are unique to this region of Brazil. Today, the Brazilian government provides some tax benefits to landowners who contribute land to private nature reserves (comparable to conservation easements in the U.S.), and the state of Rio de Janeiro has more of these private reserves than any other state in Brazil. Also, groups of reintroduced tamarins live on more than 28 private ranches. Since the Golden Lion Tamarin Program began, the amount of protected land for golden lion tamarins has more than doubled, an amazing feat considering that forest is still illegally being cut on private lands. More than 100 rural properties are now participating directly in the management, restoration, and protection of golden lion tamarins and their habitat.

We spent one night at one of the private reserves holding golden lion tamarins, Fazenda Bom Retiro. The ranch is owned by Luis Nelson, who is trying to transform it from a typical cattle ranch into a destination for ecotourists. The cabins are sited at the base of a hill and the ranch's gardens, waterfalls, and birdlife made the spot one of the most beautiful I saw during my visit to Brazil. Dozens of hummingbirds flitted in and out to drink from the well-distributed feeders.

Expanding and connecting existing forest in the region is currently the highest priority for golden lion tamarin conservationists. Denise Rambaldi, CEO of the Brazilian nonprofit Associação Mico Leão Dourado (AMLD), or Golden Lion Tamarin Association, showed us how the AMLD contributes to conserving golden lion tamarins, and to improving the economic situation of very poor local subsistence farmers. Denise is a dynamic conservationist: She led the campaign to create União, and worked with landowners and the government to develop and expand the private-reserve process. She also joined forces with multiple municipalities and additional partners to establish a special ecological area with zoning restrictions in the local watershed. Now, the entire watershed of the São João River—nearly 500 square miles encompassing all remaining habitat for golden lion tamarins—has been declared an Environmental Protection Area, a federal conservation unit guaranteeing integrated land-use planning for the entire region.

Denise took us to visit a tree nursery, run by a peasant cooperative, that the AMLD was instrumental in developing. Since 1994, people without their own land have been settling in the region. Some were sent by the government as part of its agrarian reform program, while others encamped illegally on the land as members of the Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST). The MST is a nationwide, grassroots political movement composed of poor, landless Brazilians seeking to redistribute the arable land in Brazil.

Denise and the AMLD trained these settlers in agroforestry techniques and found money to establish the nursery to give them an alternative source of income, so they would not cut the remaining forest, hunt on the nearby reserves, or extract other resources from them. What began as a conflict between the MST and those committed to biodiversity protection has become a reciprocal partnership, and the settlers are now supporters of and contributors to environmental restoration.

The nursery grows only tropical-forest tree species from the Mata Atlântica, to be planted in corridors between forest fragments that harbor golden lion tamarins. Denise told us that the AMLD not only plants trees between small local forest fragments on neighboring ranches, but is also developing a 12-mile corridor between two very large forest fragments: Poço das Antas and a ranch with nearly 250 reintroduced tamarins called Rio Vermelho. We purchased some trees and planted them just before returning to Rio the next day. Among them were two specimens of the now very rare pau brasil. This hardwood is the national tree of Brazil and was one of the first species to be logged from the Mata Atlântica.

Denise talked to us about the future challenges and goals for golden lion tamarin conservation. The current target is to reach 2,000 individual golden lion tamarins living freely in a landscape of about 95 square miles of connected and protected Mata Atlântica habitat by 2025. While the number of tamarins is currently near 1,500, the amount of protected and connected forest is still less than half the goal, which is why building forest corridors is such a high priority.

The Golden Lion Tamarin Conservation Program is recognized globally as the premier model for an integrated reintroduction and conservation program for a Neotropical primate. Within the Mata Atlântica, the golden lion tamarin is the flagship species for the conservation of the region and has instilled pride among local people for their natural resources and unique regional biodiversity. The golden lion tamarin is also known and admired nationally. Brazilian people voted to make it a symbol on one of the newest Brazilian banknotes, the $20 real, and the national post office has issued a commemorative stamp and postcards featuring golden lion tamarins.

When the program began, there were no recipes for organizing and running a reintroduction program successfully; basically, participants in the Golden Lion Tamarin Conservation Program had to write the cook book. Mistakes were made and methods changed, using an adaptive management approach. Andreia and Ben Beck, the American reintroduction coordinator (and formerly an associate director for animal programs at the National Zoo), found that to maximize survival and reproduction, reintroduced tamarins require post-release provisioning, careful management (they must be caught and taken home if they get lost), and veterinary support. Not surprisingly, zoo-born tamarins do not instinctively know how to forage, feed, and navigate in tropical forest. As released zoo-born tamarins learn these skills, the reintroduction team gradually discontinues food provisioning, and eventually the tamarins become fully independent.

The reintroduction team also determined that it is always best to release golden lion tamarins in family groups rather than singly or in pairs, because tamarins are monogamous and live in small nuclear families. Eventually, the youngest animals do the best and become the next generation's breeders. Amazingly, the wild-born offspring of zoo-born animals learn on their own how to forage, feed, navigate, and survive in the wild, and may even teach their parents some of these skills. Between 1984 and 2000, when the last release occurred, the Golden Lion Tamarin Conservation Program reintroduced 147 zoo-born and 12 confiscated wild-born animals. Today, there are about 700 golden lion tamarins derived from the reintroductions and nearly 250 from the translocations to União Biological Reserve. The program has been so successful that the golden lion tamarin was reclassified in 2003 by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) from critically endangered to endangered.

A free-ranging golden lion tamarin at the National Zoo. (Jessie Cohen/NZP)

The future challenge is to connect the isolated populations so there will be genetic interchange leading to a single large, genetically diverse population. As it stands now, there is a strong possibility that inbreeding will have a negative effect on golden lion tamarin survival because, despite the growth rate of both the reintroduced and translocated populations, each of the existing populations is too small and isolated for long-term viability. A major catastrophe such as a fire could wipe out one of these populations.

Scientists are currently planning a meeting to evaluate the potential for inbreeding problems and to make recommendations for managing the entire fragmented population. The meeting will follow a complete census of the existing tamarin population and a genetic analysis to assess what genetic differences exist among the isolated groups. That may lead to a recommendation for additional reintroductions, if the current zoo population has genes not present in the wild. For now, however, future efforts are devoted to increasing the extent of forest in the region, especially by increasing connections between the remaining isolated populations. Until there are corridors linking the isolated populations in a large landscape, reintroduction and translocation will remain the key tools for the management of the species.

As we drove back to Rio de Janeiro, I realized that the goal of 2,000 golden lion tamarins in a connected forested landscape of about 95 square miles is ambitious. Numerous problems, questions, and challenges remain. But I also realized the team in place in Brazil can surmount these problems, with continued support.

Soon after returning from Brazil, I watched the release of a tamarin family into its semi-wild habitat in the Zoo's Beaver Valley, where free-ranging tamarins live each summer. Who knows? This group might eventually find itself in Brazil, as so many zoo tamarins have before.

—John Berry is the Director of the Smithsonian's National Zoo.

Make a contribution to the Golden Lion Tamarin Conservation Program.

ZooGoer 35(6) 2006. Copyright 2006 Friends of the National Zoo. All rights reserved.

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