Environment     

UK and Sri Lanka join to save endemic loris species

Updated: 2011-09-07 By

• UK and Sri Lanka are working together to conserve an extremely rare species of loris that was considered to be extinct until 2009, a statement from the British High Commission in Colombo said on Tuesday.

  Loris. [Oxford Brookes University]

  The statement noted that Dr. Craig Turner, EDGE Conservation Biologist from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Sri Lankan zoologist Saman Gamage are working together to formulate a conservation strategy for the red slender loris.

  Until recently, the Horton Plains slender loris was believed possibly extinct. In 2009, after two hundred hours of surveying, ZSL EDGE researchers rediscovered this sub-species and took the first ever photographs and measurements of a specimen.

  The principal threat facing the slender loris is habitat change, resulting from nearly two centuries of over exploitation for tea, rubber and cinnamon. Combined with the fact that the species is unique to central and south-western Sri Lanka and is typically found in the southern "wet zone" of the island up to the central " intermediate zone," the picture is bleak, according to the statement.

  It added that the ZSL EDGE programme is engaged in a collaborative project with the University of Colombo and the Open University of Sri Lanka to bring conservation focus to this species and its remaining habitat.

  A key part of this has been undertaking an assessment of loris "occupancy" in over 100 different forest patches, with nearly 1, 000 surveys completed. Led by the project's Sri Lankan field team, this has provided the first spatial data on loris at this scale in Sri Lanka, allowing questions regarding habitat use, forest preferences and distribution to be answered finally.

  This information is fundamental in informing a conservation action plan which is currently being drafted. The group recently launched a small reforestation project supported by the BBC Wildlife Fund in the Nuwara Eliya area.

  Dr Turner added, "We are currently finalising a national species conservation strategy for the red slender loris, with our partners and the Forest Department, Department of Wildlife and Conservation and the Ministry of Environment. This will be published later this year."

  ZSL's EDGE of Existence programme ranks species according to their evolutionary distinctiveness and how globally endangered they are. Species that are both highly distinct and highly threatened are immediate priorities for conservation attention.

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