Study: Half world's primate species in danger

Where have all the primates gone?

Driven from their homes by deforestation, researchers say, or hunted down as safari prizes or exotic meat.

An extensive new survey of primates worldwide shows 48 percent of recognized primate species are endanged or vulnerable. The figure rises to 71 percent in Asia.

"It is quite spectacular; we are just wiping out primates," the BBC quoted Jean-Christophe Vie, deputy head of the IUCN Primate Species Program, as saying.

The findings were issued at the International Primatological Society Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland. Click here to read the full BBC article, as well as to see a map of endangered areas for the primates.

One bright spot: the population of western lowland gorillas, recently thought to be as low as 50,000 worldwide, has been bolstered by a new census showing as many as 125,000 in two remote provinces of the Congo Republic. As an editorial in this morning's New York Times notes, "This news is that rarest of things: a second chance for a critically endangered species.''

Click here to read the full editorial.