Searching for <i>Alouatta palliata</i> in northern Colombia: considerations for the species detection, monitoring and conservation in the dry forests of Bolívar, Colombia

Abstract

The conservation status of A. palliata, commonly referred to as black mantled howler monkey, is vulnerable in Colombia because of its decline in population. The distributional limit in the northeast of the country is not well defined and the dry forests of the north of the country are being destroyed at alarming rates. In the municipality of El Guamo (Bolívar) less than 20% of the landscape is composed of forests. The two largest remnants of forests in the municipality have extensions of 3,544.7 and 879.6 ha each. From interviews with the community, I concluded that habitat loss is the main threat to primate populations. 37.6 % of the community of inhabitants said they had seen the monkey in the municipality of Guamo, however, I found no A. palliata during a short transect sampling. Individuals of the species Alouatta seniculus and Saguinus oedipus were detected during these walks. Conservation actions such as reforestation, establishment of agroforestry systems and corridors designed to improve the habitat of A. palliata should encourage the participation of the human communities.

The natural place to begin: The ethnoprimatology of the Waorani

“…This observation has particular implications for projects which use photographic methods to identify the presence of specific species. For example, Dechner [2011] used visual prompts to enable local informants to identify forest fragments where the black mantled howler monkey ( Alouatta pallinata ) had been observed. Although 38% of individuals recognized A. pallinata , howler monkeys are very cryptic species, and vocal encounters are more frequent than sightings (personal observation).…”

Densidad poblacional y conservación de los primates de la Reserva de Biosfera del Noroeste, Tumbes, Perú

“…Study species.-Mantled howler monkeys (Fig. 1A) are facultative folivorous species (Milton 1982) and even though their vocalizations can be heard up to 1 km depending on the vegetation, they are cryptic animals hard to register (Dechner 2011). To the best of our knowledge, there is not a complete taxonomic revision nor diagnosis of the Alouatta palliata populations distributed in Central and South America, but A. p. aequatorialis is restricted to this area and its distribution is imprecise (Cortés-Ortiz et al 2015).…”