China: Black-Crested Gibbons Found

From a People's Daily report (excerpt):

"Chinese researchers announced on Tuesday that they had found 17 wild black crested gibbons, a highly endangered species that was once even declared extinct in the 1950s, in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

"After more than two months of tracking, the researchers spotted the gibbons in three groups in the Bangliang forest area of Jingxi County.

"'Sightings of the gibbons show that forest ecology has improved significantly in Guangxi and that local people have become more positive in protecting wild animals,' said Zhou Fang, an animal expert with Guangxi University, who participated in the investigations.

"Sightings of the animal in Guangxi brought the total number of black crested gibbons in the world to about 50. In 2002, about 30 black crested gibbons were found in Cao Bang of Vietnam."

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It appears that there are several recognized subspecies of this primate, Nomascus concolor, all of which are endangered or critically endangered. It isn't immediately obvious which subspecies this report involves.

[News filed at StrangeArk archive.]