A group of Brazilian monkeys will now be able to safely cross a busy road and access more forest after a bridge was specially built for them.
Conservationists in Rio de Janeiro were becomingly increasingly concerned about the survival of the golden lion tamarins.
The state’s Atlantic Forest is the only wild place in the world where the threatened species still exists.
There were fears that the animals had become isolated in too small an area – but it is now hoped that the bridge will help the monkeys circulate over a wider forested area.
It comes after a yellow fever outbreak in 2018 wiped out 32% of the population in 2018 – leaving just 2,500 of the monkeys in the wild.
That devastated wildlife experts, who had been making progress in increasing their population over the previous few decades.
Luis Paulo Marques Ferraz, executive director of the metapopulation project working to protect the numbers of golden lion tamarins, said: ‘Scientists have shown that the population living there would be completely isolated from the other side of the road and that would create a real problem in terms of conservation.
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‘Genetically that population would be isolated and that is really bad.
‘We need a large forest protected and connected.’
Conservation groups estimate that the monkeys have lost 95% of their original habitat in Brazil.
Mr Ferraz said: ‘That’s why this bridge here was so strategic and important for the conservation program.’
He added that a population of 2,000 golden lion tamarins should have at least 25,000 hectares of forest.
The current forest is cut up by pastures and roads and towns.
The bridge, built last year, has now been planted with trees, shrubs and plants in the hope of making a natural corridor attractive to the primates.
But the vegetation is still young and will take time to grow to a size the monkeys can.
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