WATCH ABOVE: The Edmonton Valley Zoo is now home to two golden lion tamarins.
EDMONTON — The Edmonton Valley Zoo showed off two of its newest creatures Thursday afternoon.
Two golden lion tamarins, Jack and Hayden, now call the zoo home. They’re squirrel-sized primates native to the coastal rain forest of Brazil. The Valley Zoo’s team leader for animal care says there are only about 500 to 1,000 left in the wild because of a loss of habitat.
“Most of their habitat has been transformed to plantations so they don’t have enough place for protection, to eat,” said Wade Krasnow.
Jack and Hayden are brothers. They arrived at the Valley Zoo in October. They will live indoors in the winter and outdoors in the summer.
Krasnow says the zoo acquired the primates as part of a breeding program. Once the zoo proves they are able to care for the animals, they will be given a breeding pair.
“Zoos have bred them and released about 140 back into the wild into protected areas. And from those, there’s about 30 that are living to this day,” said Krasnow. “The program started in 1984 and from those 30, some have bred with wild ones and they have produced 95 offspring.”
Krasnow says Jack and Hayden are an important learning tool to teach people about conservation.
“It’s important that people also learn that zoos are working together to help breed species in the hopes that we can save the genetic diversity and then in the future, if there’s habitat available, we can put them back into the wild.”
Krasnow says there are about 475 golden lion tamarins living in captivity worldwide, with about 15 of those living in Canadian facilities.