THE former head of mammals at Jersey Zoo is heading to the Amazon this weekend to train local conservationists as part of a programme to protect one of the world’s most endangered primates, the pied tamarin.
Dominic Wormell, who founded charity the Tamarin Trust in 2023 following his departure from Jersey Zoo after 34 years, has worked with pied tamarins since the 1990s and was responsible for establishing the captive assurance population for the critically endangered animals.
He is travelling to the Brazilian city of Manaus, where the tiny primate – over 40 of which are still housed at Jersey Zoo – is clinging to its last remaining habitat.
Many pied tamarins live in tiny fragments of forest surrounded by roads and buildings, and are frequently injured in traffic accidents or attacked by other animals. Others are trapped and sold as pets in the illegal animal trade.
Mr Wormell will be working with a rescue centre in the city where pied tamarins are brought to be treated or recover. He said that the number of tamarins being taken to the centre was increasing, with 213 brought in between 2007 and 2020.
In many cases, animals have suffered stress injuries, burns, or illness, while others need to be rescued from fragmented habitats or areas that are due to be felled as the city continues to expand.
“There is a desperate need to support efforts to conserve some of the last fragments of forest that are the only remaining homes for monkeys that are still clinging on to survival in the wild, and to build the capacity to deal with individuals and groups that have become homeless as the city, its associated infrastructure and agriculture expand around them,” Mr Wormell told the JEP.
“The ever-growing extremes in weather and the threat of fires are only making the need for action more urgent. We have to make a conservation stand at the heart of the Amazon for this wonderful primate.”
Extremely sensitive by nature, pied tamarins are a notoriously difficult species to work with and the captive assurance population has been designed to make sure that the animals are not made extinct.
They were a favourite of the late Gerald Durrell and his right-hand man, Jeremy Mallison, who died in 2021.
