Slow Loris - Conservation

Conservation

The two greatest threats to slow lorises are deforestation and the wildlife trade. Slow lorises have lost a significant amount of habitat, with habitat fragmentation isolating small populations and obstructing biological dispersal. However, despite the lost habitat, their decline is most closely associated with unsustainable trade, either as exotic pets or for traditional medicine. All species are listed either as "Vulnerable" or "Endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). When all five species were considered a single species, imprecise population data and their regular occurrence in Southeast Asian animal markets erroneously suggested that slow lorises were common, resulting in a previous IUCN Red List assessment of "Least Concern" as recently as 2000. Since 2007, all slow loris species are protected from commercial international trade under Appendix I of CITES. Furthermore, local trade is illegal because every nation in which they occur naturally has laws protecting them.

Despite their CITES Appendix I status and local legal protection, slow lorises are still threatened by both local and international trade due to problems with enforcement. Surveys are needed to determine existing population densities and habitat viability for all species of slow loris. Connectivity between protected areas is important for slow lorises because they are not adapted to dispersing across the ground over large distances.

Populations of Bengal and Sunda slow lorises are not faring well in zoos. Of the 29 captive specimens in North American zoos in 2008, several are hybrids that cannot breed while most are past their reproductive years. The last captive birth for these species in North America was in 2001 in San Diego. Pygmy slow lorises are doing better in North American zoos; from the late 1980s (when they were imported) to 2008, the population grew to 74 animals, with most of them born at the San Diego Zoo.