Exclusive: Rare Ghost Monkeys Filmed in Colombia | National Geographic

from the best of my knowledge there’s no
one that has seen a bio spider monkeys
in the field it’s very beautiful but
it’s also telling a pretty sad story
about the species
I am a primatologist I have been working
with spider monkeys over 15 years and I
run this project in San Juan de Cali
about the conservation of brown spider
monkeys spider monkeys rely very
strongly on large mature forests that
have enough fruits that are their main
diet if these monkeys are very important
for the forests to dispersers but
they’re also very charismatic they’re
the largest primates we have in in
northern South America you can still
find some patches of forest in northern
Colombia but it’s very difficult that
you’ll be able to find a forest that has
a healthy population of brown spider
monkeys nowadays being able to study
these primates a long-term process so
every day brings small surprises you
never know what’s going to happen as I
had heard that there was a monkey that
was not quite I had the same as the rest
of the study group so we were going to
see what was going on and when we got to
the forest and actually saw them it was
a big surprise it looked much like if it
was another species
they’re right on top of us when we got
to the forest and saw them it was
completely white it was quite strange
because none of the spider monkeys alive
today are white what was more surprising
was the couple months later his brother
was born and he was also white he was
also on the vine at the beginning it was
just something intriguing why are these
monkeys white why are they all – but we
never felt very much beyond it – spider
monkeys are telling us that probably
these populations are genetically in
bred what we’re having is a story where
these monkeys that we’re seeing are
really destined to extinction because
they’re not going to have enough
variability to cope with the changing
processes of this whole insane
a main threat to brown spider monkeys is
the transformation of forests into
cattle ranching and agricultural fields
habitat is being lost at very fast rate
very few people have seen albino spider
monkeys these are the only albinos that
have been seen in the wild this is a
quite unique event to find not only one
but two of them in nature
it’s a beautiful primate telling a
pretty sad story about the probable fate
of this primate if we don’t do anything
to preserve them or save them
we’re right in one of the last moments
where I think we could do something to
preserve not only these primates through
their conservation we’re protecting a
lot of their habitat a lot of the
biodiversity of northern South America
we could do something that we need to
act now these populations are in in very
very high risk of extinction than your
future