Climate change has already spread its tentacles in all corners of the world, and its gruesome aftereffects can be well-felt, worrying scientists of the forthcoming devastations. Amidst the rise in sea levels, disappearance of British butterflies, erosion of coral reefs – the significant and prominent indicators of the change – researchers have spotted yet another change in the natural phenomenon that can well be linked to climate change or global warming. A conservation group has discovered a new monkey-population in Kenya, far away from their normal habitat!
It seems, climate change is hitting Africa hard and fast! The De Brazza’s monkey population largely lives in the wet areas west of the Rift Valley, but has been found in the country’s arid north!
Are the primates in peril?
Although the white bearded and shy De Brazza’s monkey exist in central Africa, their population in Kenya is low and under immense anthropogenic pressure.
World-renowned Kenyan conservationist Richard Leakey said,
The De Brazza’s must have had a wet forest corridor from western Kenya across the Rift Valley to this new (dry) locality.
Heading the Wildlife Direct, a conservation panel, Leakey warned,
It is a critical issue for study as it puts climate change again as the most critical consideration as we plan for the future.
The monkeys must have come to this unusual area, forced by extinction-threat owing to human-wildlife conflict, including indiscriminate deforestation and survival competition from other species. Whatever be the reason, the monkeys are surely having a hard time in their bid to battle their changing habitats.
Image
