Golden Lion Tamarin

(Leontopithecus rosalia)

The first time I met a golden lion tamarin face-to-face was at the National Zoo in Washington, DC, on a beautiful spring morning in 2007. I also met Dr. Devra Kleiman, who had kindly offered to share some of her vast knowledge of the species to which she has devoted much of her life.

In the early 1800s, golden lion tamarins were apparently common in the Atlantic Coastal Forest of eastern Brazil, but their number was drastically reduced throughout the second half of the twentieth century as they were captured for exotic pets and zoos, and their forest habitat was destroyed to give way to pasture for cattle, agriculture, and plantation forestry. Today less than 7 percent of the original Atlantic Forest remains, much of it fragmented.

Rescued by Brazil’s Father of Primatology

There are four species of lion tamarins: the black lion tamarin, Leontopithecus chrysopygus; the golden-headed lion tamarin, L. chrysomelas; the black-faced lion tamarin, L. caissara; and the golden lion tamarin, L. rosalia. The golden lion tamarins are among the most endangered of all New World primates. They might have vanished altogether but for the dedication, passion, and persistence of Dr. Coimbra-Filho—often called the Father of Primatology in Brazil—and his colleague Alceo Magnanini.

As early as 1962, these two scientists recognized the need for a breeding program for golden lion tamarins, with the goal of reintroducing them into protected forests. But they got little support, and the attempt to start the facility failed. However, they continued their work throughout the 1960s and 1970s and, mostly using their own money, traveled to many municipalities in search of the tamarins, visiting villages and interviewing the local people, especially hunters. The work was hard and often depressing. They identified two areas that would have been ideal sites for reintroduction—but both had been destroyed, along with countless other tracts of forest, when they returned a year later.

Devra Kleiman at the small mammal house of the National Zoo, checking on this golden lion tamarin’s climbing abilities before its release into the rain forest of Brazil. (Jessie Cohan, Smithsonian National Zoo)

Difficult times indeed, yet extraordinarily valuable, for they gathered data confirming the desperate plight of the lion tamarins and their habitat, which was essential for their battle to save them. And they earmarked an area of forest that, due to the persistence of Dr. Coimbra-Filho, eventually became the Poço das Antas Biological Reserve, created for the purpose of protecting the golden lion tamarins. It was the first biological reserve in Brazil.

In 1972, a groundbreaking conference titled Saving the Lion Marmoset (as they were called in those days) brought together twenty-eight biologists from Europe, America, and Brazil. It focused international attention on the urgent need to prevent the golden lion tamarin from sliding into extinction. Plans were drawn up for conservation in the wild, support was obtained for Dr. Coimbra-Filho’s breeding program in Brazil, and a strategy was created for a coordinated global captive breeding program in zoos. It was this conference that led to the Golden Lion Tamarin Conservation Program at the National Zoological Park in Washington, DC. And it was at this conference that Devra began her long involvement with the little primates.

Meeting a Golden Lion Tamarin Family

My visit to the National Zoo took place thirty-five years after that conference. I had never met golden lion tamarins close up, and it was a real treat to go with Devra and their keeper, Eric Smith, into the newly constructed enclosure of a family group. There I met the adult pair, Eduardo and Laranja; two adolescent females, Samba and Gisella; and two youngsters, Mara and Mo. I was enchanted. They are like living jewels of the deep forest with shining golden hair that cloaks their bodies and frames the face with a leonine mane. As I watched them, slightly apprehensive with so many strangers in their new home, I felt a surge of gratitude for all the hard work and tears that had prevented their extinction.

Afterward a small group of us gathered to talk tamarin. I asked Devra how she got involved. She told us she grew up in suburbs of New York, with no nature and no pets, destined for medical school. Then as part of a college project, she observed a wolf pack in a zoo, became fascinated, and realized that she wanted to study animal behavior. Interestingly, she spent time at the London Zoo and worked with Desmond Morris—just as I had. She specialized in the comparative and social reproductive behavior of mammals and worked with many species—until she learned about the plight of the golden lion tamarin.

“I was determined to do my best for those enchanting little creatures,” she told us. So she set to work to raise money, gather information, and start a coordinated breeding program. Many people believed such a scheme would never work. Smiling, she recalled the advice given her back then: “Don’t get involved with tamarins. They are going extinct—it will be bad for your career.

“I am so glad I didn’t follow that advice,” she added. Indeed, it was fortunate for all of us, especially the golden lion tamarins!

Devra contacted all the zoos that kept golden lion tamarins and found that almost nothing was known about tamarin reproductive behavior. “No one even knew whether they should be kept in monogamous or polygamous breeding groups,” she said. But eventually she came to believe that tamarin groups in the wild, containing two to eight individuals, might be composed of a mated pair and their offspring. So she recommended that the zoo keep adult pairs on their own, so that family groups could form naturally. This was the key to success. Over time, as more became known about the tamarins’ natural diets and social system and was applied to their care, the situation improved. But even so, by the end of 1975, there were still only eighty-three golden lion tamarins spread through sixteen institutions outside Brazil and another thirty-nine individuals at the facility in Brazil.

Return to the Wild

Gradually, though, the captive population grew, and Devra began to concentrate on the next stage—returning the species to the wild. The first step, of course, was to find a safe environment for them. “I traveled to Brazil to visit the reserve where it was hoped the tamarins would be released,” Devra recalled. “The Atlantic Coastal Forest there had been decimated, and even when we got to the reserve, there was still very little forest remaining. To my horror, the guard at the gate to the reserve had a pet tamarin on a leash! It seemed impossible that we could do a successful reintroduction there. But that was all that was left of their natural habitat. We would have to work with what was there.”

The scientist and conservationist Dr. Benjamin Beck was selected to take charge of coordinating the release program. First the groundwork had to be laid. Devra and Ben made repeated trips to Brazil, developing close relationships with their Brazilian colleagues. By 1984, all was ready: A release area had been secured, Brazilian partners and staff acquired. The first captive golden lion tamarins were released in the forest.

“We realized after that first release,” Devra told us, “that the captive-born animals had problems moving about in the trees; they simply did not know how to navigate complex 3-D environments.” But they managed somehow, and at the same time the team was learning a lot about their behavior. One day, Devra told me, she was following an adolescent female and her two young brothers, Ron and Mark, who had separated from the rest of the group. Farther and farther they wandered, exploring their new world, and as dusk fell Devra feared they might be lost. But suddenly the female gave a strange call and headed off with great purpose, calling as she went. Ron and Mark immediately followed—and Devra followed them. “I almost felt like part of the family,” said Devra. “We all kept up, following the calls.” And in less than thirty minutes, they were back at the nest box. Subsequently, the researchers learned that this call means “Let’s go!” They named it the “vamonos call.”

Adapting to the Forest

Soon after this, Devra and Ben made a bold and innovative decision—they would allow some of the golden lion tamarin families to roam freely in a small patch of forest on the grounds of the National Zoo in DC. This would allow them to become familiar with treetop travel before being released in Brazil. The plan, under Ben’s direction, was a success. “For one thing,” said Devra, “once they were outside, they instinctively began giving the soft ‘vamonos’ calls that I had heard in the wild. It was wonderful!”

Not only did the tamarins learn climbing skills, but family groups established small territories—about a hundred square yards—just as they would in the wild. Devra and Ben felt, therefore, that it was unlikely any of them would leave the zoo grounds. To their great relief, they were proven right.

Ben told me that what interests him most about the release program in Brazil is that pre-release training (such as learning to poke food from crevices with their fingers or how to open fruits) does not make much difference to the golden lion tamarins’ survival in the wild. What is important is the soft-release method. This means that they are provided with food and shelter when they start their life in the forest, but as they begin to eat natural foods, field researchers progressively feed and observe them less: from daily visits they cut down to three days per week, to once a week, then once a month. If an individual is hurt or gets lost, it is captured and treated before being returned. All groups have become independent after five years. The key for success, Ben explained, is for the females to live long enough to reproduce. Young tamarins, born in the wild, will do fine. “Because then,” said Ben, “they are born with wild brains.”

More Stories from the Wild

I asked Ben for an anecdote he could share. He told me about Emily, who arrived with four of her family in 1988. They were taken into the forest and introduced to their nest box fixed up in a tree. On the second night, it was very cold and wet. Emily seemed confused. She climbed to the very end of a branch and there she sat, huddled in the rain. Ben and his colleague Andreia Martins also sat, huddled, watching her. Eventually, it began to get dark, and in the end they were forced to leave her, small and bedraggled on the end of her branch, with the rest of her family all cozy in the nest box.

It was a subdued group of humans that gathered for supper, cold and wet themselves. “None of us slept very much,” said Ben. They went out very early the next morning. When they reached the tree, Emily was lying on the ground but still alive, though extremely cold. Andreia put Emily under her shirt and took her back to camp. Gradually, Emily warmed up, and by day’s end she was dry and fluffed out. She not only survived but went on to have several babies. “She was a real sweetheart,” said Ben.

One day, Emily and her son disappeared. Unfortunately, some people steal the tamarins to sell them (illegally) as pets—over the years, at least twenty-two have been stolen. Amazingly, they got Emily back when a veterinarian noticed her tattoo and realized she had been stolen. Emily soon settled down and had another family. Almost unbelievably, she was stolen again, and again they were able to get her back!

A Name or a Number?

Ben told me that they no longer give the tamarins names in the field, just numbers. This business of identifying individuals by name or number has had an interesting history in the tamarin project. “I began by giving the tamarins numbers, which seemed more scientific at the time,” Devra recalled, “but to spite me, David Kessler [one of her colleagues] named a hand-reared tamarin Colonel Ezekiel Atlas Drummond—and it stuck. We have been using names ever since.”

Although the captive breeding program still uses names, they switched to numbers in the field. Not because it is more scientific, but because such a relatively large percentage of the tamarins don’t make it—about 80 percent are dead or have disappeared by the end of the second year in the wild. Those working with them find it less distressing if they are not known by name.

When the team finds an unmarked tamarin out in the forest, they know it marks a success story—an individual born in the wild who has sought out and established its own territory. Some have even made it across more than a mile of open agricultural land. The team no longer spends time observing the family units closely. Occasional monitoring of their health, reproduction, and survival rate is all that’s required.

Meanwhile, as the introduced tamarins thrived, there were still some highly endangered groups of wild golden lion tamarins. An exhaustive survey in the early 1990s had revealed that there were sixty individuals in twelve groups, living in nine very small fragmented patches of forest that were destined to be cut down to build beach condominiums. And so, between 1994 and 1997, six of the groups (forty-three individuals) were translocated to what is now the União Biological Reserve.

Key to Long-Term Success: Handing Over to the Brazilians

From the beginning, Devra knew that a key component for the success of the golden lion tamarin reintroduction program would be the attitude of local farmers—those with remnant forest into which the growing numbers of family groups could be reintroduced. And so from the earliest days, the Brazilian team worked on forging relationships with the local people. It was hard going at first, for many of the farmers were initially hostile, Devra told us. “But it was perhaps the most important aspect. I wanted to be able to retire and know that there was something in place that was lasting, and this could only be possible if it was in Brazilian hands.”

To a very large extent, this has now happened. In 1992, the Golden Lion Tamarin Association (or the Associação Mico-Leão Dourado—AMLD) was formed in Brazil to integrate all conservation work relating to the golden lion tamarins and to educate local communities about the conservation program. The association, headed by a dynamic young Brazilian, Denise Rambaldi, monitors the tamarin populations, helps impoverished farmers develop agro-forestry techniques, and trains young Brazilians in conservation. The association also works closely with Brazilian government agencies to foster conservation in the entire region.

In 2003, the golden lion tamarin was downlisted from critically endangered to endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the only primate species to have been downlisted as a result of a conservation effort. This is certainly a milestone for the countless people and organizations who have dedicated themselves to the species’ survival.

Of course, as with all conservation projects, those who care cannot sit back and relax. Habitat is still being destroyed, and the continuing fragmentation of existing forests remains the tamarins’ greatest threat to survival. Thus it is very encouraging to learn that the AMLD is building forest corridors to link tamarin habitats, which will help prevent inbreeding within small isolated groups. The first of those corridors, which will be approximately twelve miles in length, is nearly complete. And more and more private ranchers are agreeing to accept tamarin groups on their land.

At the time of writing, there are golden lion tamarins living on twenty-one private ranches adjacent to the Poço das Antas Biological Reserve. When their currency was redesigned, the Brazilian people voted to portray the golden lion tamarin on twenty-dollar banknotes—the species is now an icon of conservation in Brazil.

“When I started working with the zoo population in 1972, there were about seventy golden lion tamarins in zoos,” Devra said. By the late 1980s, that number had increased to almost five hundred, and it was decided to put some individuals on contraceptives and stabilize the captive population. Today there are about 470 in zoos and aquariums, and the groups are carefully managed. “In 1984, when I started reintroducing tamarins, there were fewer than five hundred in the wild,” Devra told me. Thanks to the reintroduction efforts, about sixteen to seventeen hundred tamarins now live in the wild.

As I write this, in my home in faraway Bournemouth, I think back to that April day when Devra introduced me to Eduardo and Laranja and their family. I remember how the adult male approached Devra, who had been handed a piece of banana by the keeper. Gently, the small creature reached out to take the fruit. It was, for me, a magical moment, symbolizing the trust of a very small primate for the woman who has worked so passionately to prevent this enchanting species from vanishing forever from Planet Earth.

Joe Wasilewski, who is helping to ensure the future of the American crocodile, with three wild hatchlings at Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant, 2007.(Joseph A. Wasilewski)