Bushbabies reclassified as 'near threatened.' Scientists share how to protect these adorable primates

Thick-tailed bushbaby (Credit: CC image via Wikimedia Commons)

Frank Cuozzo and Michelle Sauther first traveled to South Africa in 2012 to search for some of the most unusual primates on Earth—bushbabies.

These animals are nocturnal and small, often around the size of a housecat. Bushbabies have big ears, round eyes and get their names from the eerie, wailing noises they make at night.

Two species of bushbabies are native to South Africa: The thick-tailed bushbaby (Otolemur crassicaudatus) and the Moholbushbaby (Galago moholi). At the time, they had a reputation for being everywhere. They would sneak into towns to steal pet food from bowls and beg for handouts from tourists on safari.

But the more Cuozzo and Sauther looked, the more they realized that something didn’t seem right: They kept finding bushbabies killed on roads or mauled by dogs.

The dangers facing the animals, in fact, seemed to be mounting.

Thick-tailed bushbaby (Credit: Michelle Sauther)

Trail camera captures a bushbaby mysteriously grooming a bushbuck at night in South Africa. (Credit: Michelle Sauther)

Greater bushbaby seen crossing a canopy bridge at night. (Credit: Birthe Linden)

Now, after more than a decade of research by the primatologists and their colleagues, a major environmental organization in southern Africa has changed the conservation status of these cute animals. In January, the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) redesignated thick-tailed bushbabies from a species of “least concern” to “near threatened.” This category isn’t as severe as “endangered” but indicates that bushbaby numbers are likely dropping at a concerning rate.

“Human threats are everywhere, for all species,” said Cuozzo, a scientist at the Lajuma Research Centre in South Africa and research fellow at the University of Pretoria’s Mammal Research Institute. “But we’ve been able to document that the human threats facing bushbabies, including deforestation and habitat loss, are increasing.”

Sauther, a professor of anthropology at CU Boulder, sees the new conservation listing as a culmination of years of work—and, perhaps, a new beginning for bushbabies.

“We don't want this species to ever become endangered,” Sauther said. “Now that we know they're near threatened, we can do something about it.”

The researchers also hope their findings will call attention to the many other plants and animals that live in the same forests as bushbabies.

“There are so many plant species there that botanists can’t even identify, the same with some of the reptiles and amphibian,” said Birthe Linden, a primatologist at Aberystwyth University in Wales. “It is a biodiverse area, and there are so many gaps in what we know.”

Rising deforestation

Thick-tailed bushbabies spend most of their lives in trees where they mostly eat acacia gum. They range widely across Southern Africa, thriving in the lush, green forests that grow around rivers.

Sauther said the animals never cease to amaze her.

Once, she and her colleagues caught a bushbaby on a trail camera grooming an antelope known as a bushbuck—the bushbuck stood still while the primate plucked insects from its fur and ate them.

“They’re our cousins, and they even have these connections to other species,” Sauther said. “They’re a lovely animal to understand.”

In 2023, she, Cuozzo and Linden began working with the EWT to reassess the status of this species.

The researchers aren’t sure exactly how fast bushbaby numbers are falling in southern Africa. But they gathered a wide range of data showing that the threats are growing.

Using satellite images, the researchers calculated that the habitats where bushbabies live are shrinking by about 3.6% per decade—faster than the average loss for natural areas in the region. Humans cut down bushbaby forests to make room for agriculture and suburban housing.

In one alarming example, bushbabies once abounded in the Mokopane Biodiversity Centre roughly 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of Pretoria, South Africa. When a dam was installed upriver about 20 years ago, the primates’ favorite forests dried up and died.

“In 2015, we tried to look for bushbabies there, and there was nothing,” said Cuozzo, who earned his doctorate in biological anthropology from CU Boulder in 2000. “We didn’t hear anything. We didn’t find a single individual.”

In previous studies, the team also showed that the pet trade, road kill and dog attacks might be taking a much bigger toll on primates in South Africa than scientists realized.

Keeping bushbabies safe

Cuozzo, Linden and Sauther hope their findings will inspire more researchers to take a closer look not just at bushbabies, but other understudied plants and animals around the world.

The researchers said South Africans care about their wildlife, and there’s a lot they can do to protect bushbabies today.

They encourage people not to feed primates or leave pet food out at night. These morsels encourage bushbabies to venture into human settlements where they can get attacked by dogs.

To stop roadkill, the researchers advocate for “canopy bridges.” They allow animals to cross roads without risking being hit by cars and can be as simple as two ropes stretched over a highway.

“We can’t protect anything if we don’t know about it,” Linden said. “There’s so little money available for conservation. The more we learn about a creature, the more we can spend that money in a way that’s really effective.