Cuc Phuong National Park

Cuc Phuong National Park is near Ninh Binh, Vietnam. I visited the Endangered Primate Rescue Center at the park, as well as doing some hiking. The Center gets various primates (mainly lemurs, langurs, and gibbons) that have been rescued from hunters. Unfortunately the body parts of primates are worth a fortune in Vietnamese and Chinese pharmacies and herbal stores: I seem to recall a quote of a couple thousand dollars U.S. for a single monkey. Many of these creatures are seriously endangered.

The Center keeps them in bigger-than-average cages where they're treated and sometimes bred, and then allowed into a several hectare semi-wild area to test their preparedness for a release into the wild. The lemurs are nocturnal, so they don't show them to people who come visit. The langurs have incredibly long tails, while the gibbons have no tails and very long arms. Delacour's Langur is one of the funkier looking critters: they're mostly black, but they have white fur in the shape of a pair of shorts - strange looking, kinda cute. Unfortunately for photographers, they insist (quite sensibly, I think) on keeping visitors a fair distance away from the cages so good pictures are difficult but the animals don't get too used to having humans around. I did manage to make a low quality sound recording of the gibbons whooping with my camera microphone. You won't believe it's an animal - it sounds more like a video game. They're loud - the camera mike adjusted the volume down. I asked my guide (once he pulled his fingers out of his ears - I was just laughing) if they make this much noise in the wild. No. I said "They're bored!" and he agreed.

Gibbons whooping

P.S. I have a working card reader again, but no picture with this entry because I have none worth seeing. More of other subjects to follow.