Assam News

Northeast States Unite To Save India’s Only Ape From The Brink Of Extinction

Assam, Tripura, and Meghalaya deploy canopy bridges and community guards as the Western Hoolock Gibbon hits the global most endangered list.
Assam, Tripura, and Meghalaya deploy canopy bridges and community guards as the Western Hoolock Gibbon hits the global most endangered list.
Northeast States Unite To Save India’s Only Ape From The Brink Of Extinction
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Guwahati: In a major trans-boundary wildlife initiative, Assam, Tripura, and Meghalaya have joined hands to shield the Western Hoolock Gibbon—India's only ape species—from the imminent threat of extinction.

The coordinated regional push follows an alarming global declaration by the International Primatological Society (IPS), which officially designated the species among the "World's 25 Most Endangered Primates" for the 2025–2027 cycle.

The unique canopy-dwellers, renowned for their resonant morning duets and agile brachiating movement, have faced a devastating 90% population crash over the last three decades. Driven into isolated forest pockets by linear infrastructure, expanding tea estates, and logging, fewer than 10,000 gibbons are estimated to survive in India's northeastern rainforests.

"The Western Hoolock Gibbon is on the absolute brink," warned Dr. Dilip Chetry, Vice-Chair of the IUCN SSC Primate Specialist Group (South Asia). "Local disappearances are already occurring due to severe canopy fragmentation. We urgently need a dedicated national 'Project Gibbon'—modeled after Project Tiger—to secure targeted central funding, restore broken forest corridors, and implement intensive monitoring across state borders."

The alliance is already yielding physical conservation milestones. In Assam's Hoollongapar Gibbon Sanctuary, state authorities and the Wildlife Institute of India recorded a massive win when a gibbon successfully used an artificial rope canopy bridge to cross a hazardous railway track for the first time.

Meanwhile, the Tripura government has activated a comprehensive state action plan focused on curbing human-wildlife conflict and deploying grassroots communities to guard local village groves. Officials from the three states stress that reconnecting fragmented forest canopies is the single most vital component to preventing the permanent silence of India's singing apes.

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