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.
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.