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Golden lion tamarins are listed as endangered by the IUCN Redlist and protected from trade by CITES Appendix I. They live in the heavily populated coastal region of Brazil, where less than 2% of the forest remains. Their habitat has been fragmented into small unconnected areas capable of supporting only a few groups. Over time, inbreeding within these groups could lead to extinction of the entire population.
Thanks to captive breeding within a Species Survival Plan, this species is a conservation success story. Zoos have cooperatively bred this species and successfully reintroduced captive bred animals to the wild to increase genetic diversity in the remaining wild population. Offspring of these reintroduced animals are now successfully breeding in the wild.
Thanks to these efforts, this species was downgraded from critically endangered to endangered by the IUCN in 2003. More protected land needs to be acquired for this species to continue its recovery as the available land is currently saturated with tamarin groups. Once more land is acquired, reintroduction efforts will resume and continue until this species population stabilizes at a sustainable level for the long-term.
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