Saving the Hainan gibbon from extinctionThe Hainan gibbon is the world's rarest ape, with a global population of only about 27 animals in Bawangling National Nature Reserve on Hainan Island. ZSL's work includes research on gibbon ecology and local community forest use to identify priority conservation actions, developing new gibbon monitoring technologies, awareness-raising and capacity building, and reconnecting forest fragments to encourage gibbon population growth.
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Conservation of freshwater cetaceans in AsiaZSL has been involved with trying to prevent cetacean extinctions in the middle-lower Yangtze drainage for over 10 years. The Yangtze River dolphin or baiji (Lipotes vexillifer) was tragically declared extinct in 2006, and ZSL is working to prevent the imminent loss of the Critically Endangered Yangtze finless porpoise (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis), through research to identify which human activities are primarily responsible for driving the porpoise's ongoing decline, and by supporting an evidence-based approach to decision-making by conservation managers.
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