A community conservation team saw not one but two baby Cao-vit gibbons, one of the world’s rarest apes, in the remote forests of northern Vietnam in 2024, the NGO Fauna & Flora announced this month. The first infant sighting was in February 2024 and the second in November, in two separate troops. “It is very rare that we observe baby gibbons,” Tho Duc Nguyen, Fauna & Flora Vietnam program project manager, told Mongabay by email. Nguyen added that female gibbons give birth to only one baby every four years or so. Across the four gibbon troops that the NGO has been continuously monitoring from 2020-2025 in Vietnam, it has only recorded one to three infants per year. The addition of the baby spotted in November brings the total number of gibbons in that particular group to nine. “This is a sign that the number of gibbons can increase in the troop and expand the living area. Bringing a better future for the Cao Vit gibbon,” Nguyen said. The Cao-vit or eastern black-crested gibbon (Nomascus nasutus) was believed to be possibly extinct until researchers observed a few groups in Vietnam and China in the 2000s. It’s now considered critically endangered, surviving only in a fragmented forest bordering the two countries. Nguyen said the latest sighting of the baby was made by a Dinh Ha Duong, a member of the Cao Vit Gibbon Community Conservation Team, which includes local government staff and people from local communities who regularly monitor the gibbons. On…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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