Golden-crowned Sifaka - Human Interactions

Human Interactions

While the golden-crowned sifaka faces few biological threats, such as predation, it faces many significant human-caused (anthropogenic) threats. Its habitat has been highly fragmented, with forest patches isolated by severely degraded grasslands. By 1985 it was estimated that 34% of the entire eastern rainforest of the island had disappeared, and by extrapolation it is predicted that at this rate of deforestation there will be no eastern rainforest left by 2020. Illegal logging practices, slash-and-burn agriculture (known as tavy), uncontrolled grass fires, gold mining, poaching, and clearing land for agricultural use have all significantly contributed to the significant deforestation witnessed in Madagascar and the ongoing decline of suitable habitat for this species.

Malagasy farmers continue to use fire to clear out agricultural land and pasture for livestock, promoting grass growth while inhibiting forest regeneration. The fires sometimes burn out of control and destroy forest edges along with the natural flora, increasing the damage even further than intended. Due to the nature of Madagascar's geology and soil, tavy also depletes the fertility of the soil, accelerating the crop rotation rate and necessitating expansion into primary forests.

Although coal is the preferred cooking fuel of the Malagasy people, the most affordable and prominent source of energy is timber, known as kitay. Wood is also used as a primary building material, only adding further incentive to remove trees from the forest. With the depletion of dead wood from the forest patches, the people have begun to remove young, healthy trees. This is seen most commonly in areas closest to villages. Although the shapes and sizes of forest fragments around the Daraina region have been mostly stable for 50 years prior to a study in 2002, the six years preceding the study had seen 5% of the small- to medium-sized forest fragments disappear due to increased human encroachment.

A newly emergent threat facing the golden-crowned sifaka is hunting by the gold miners moving into the region's forests. Although mining operations are small scale, the practice of gold mining takes a toll on the forested regions because deep mining pits are often dug near or underneath large trees, disturbing the extensive root systems and ultimately killing the trees in the area. The influx of gold miners has also increased poaching pressure. Although the species is protected from hunting by local fady (taboo) around Daraina, due to their likeness to humans, and by Malagasy law, the gold miners who have immigrated to the area have begun to hunt the golden-crowned sifaka as a source of bushmeat. In 1993, David M. Meyers, a researcher who has studied the golden-crowned sifaka, speculated that if bushmeat hunting were to escalate, the species would go extinct in less than ten years since it is easy to find and not fearful of humans. Indeed, bushmeat hunting by people from nearby Ambilobe has already extirpated at least one isolated population.