Green Options

A female Cotton-top Tamarin newborn needs your help - she needs a name!   The Chattanooga Zoo is asking for input from the public in selecting that perfect name for the critically endangered primate.  Entry forms are available at the Chattanooga Zoo’s gift shop.  Entries will be accepted until November 4, 2009. 

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Of the great apes–a group that includes chimps, gorillas, and bonobos–the orangutan (found only in the tropical rain forests of Sumatra and Borneo islands) is the most endangered, currently. Recent wild fires, tribal conflicts and on-going deforestation has seriously dwindled their total habitat. Some primatologists believe that the orangutan is the closest primate relative to humans–more than even the chimpanzee.

A report released Wednesday from the World Conservation Union (IUCN) predicts an 80% population decline of the most common type of gorilla, the Western Gorilla, from 1980 levels by 2046. The 2007 Red List of Threatened Species finds "commercial hunting and outbreaks of the Ebola virus have virtually extirpated gorillas from a great deal of otherwise intact forest" where they were previously thought to thrive.

"What’s immediately needed if we are to halt the

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