HOO, HOO, HOO, HOO ... AND YOU TOO!

by Torben B. Larsen

‘Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo’ ... that was my greeting at 08.00 in the Lowacherra Forest near Srimangal on my first visit in March 2002. I went there ‘cold’, so to speak, having received much different advice: ‘Oh, it’s nothing but a commercial plantation gone a little wild’. ‘It’s tiny – won’t find much there’. ‘In the absence of anything better to do, might be worth a visit’. 'Considering that it was a monoculture plantation just 80 years ago, it is pretty good’. It was enough to go on, and as soon as I could after more than three months in Africa and Europe, I set off for Srimangal.

The ‘hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo’ as my first greeting came a great surprise, since I knew what was creating this cacophony. It was a troupe of Hoolock Gibbons (Hylobates hoolock), one of our closest relatives in nature. The Chimpanzee and the Bonobo (Dwarf Chimpanzee) are closest, of course, and the Gorilla is pretty close as well. Then we have the big ‘Man of the Forest’ in form of the Orangutan, followed by some six species of Gibbon. I had tried to get a glimpse of Gibbons in Thailand, Malaysia, and Sumatra, spending hours following their sounds in terrible terrain and never seeing a thing, the high canopy in which they live usually being obscured by lower vegetation. But here we were, on a beautiful, cool March morning, in a place criss-crossed by tracks made by Khasi villagers going about their mysterious business in the forest, so off we went in pursuit. And pretty soon we spotted them in the highest canopy of a tree with few leaves, blackish monkeys with arms and legs almost as long as the entire body, swinging on the branches, evidently gathering some particularly juicy fruits from the nearly naked tree. Females and juveniles may be much lighter than mature males. Adults weigh about six kg each. What a thrill!

Later that day we heard Hoolocks in other parts of the forest, and there seem to be five or more troupes in all (at least 30 individuals). I am happy to say that other friends and colleagues have also been able to see the Hoolocks on the basis of my advice – always at the top level of the canopy. Gibbons are among the most arboreal of animals and probably only voluntarily reach the ground during famines when fruit has fallen down. Just to emphasize the point, a female Gibbon has been seen giving birth while hanging from a tree by one leg and an arm (don’t try this at home).

I had never expected that Gibbons could be present in Bangladesh, except for the remotest parts of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and much less within about five km from a sizeable town like Srimangal. There are two main reasons: 1) parts of Lowacherra Forest, though originally plantation forest, has been allowed to go wild, and is beginning to approximate a real tropical forest, as witnessed also by the fact that it probably has at least 300 different species of butterfly; 2) the Gibbons are not hunted, since neither the Bangla nor the Khasi tribals seem to eat them. For someone having done research in the West African rainforests for the past ten years, this is truly amazing, for here any Hoolock that uttered a ‘hoo’ would immediately be someone’s dinner (and that goes for Chimpanzees and Gorillas as well). And they would be very easy to shoot. However, habitat degradation is taking its toll; the most recent estimate is that Bangladesh has some 200 Hoolocks, only ten percent of the 1980 figure, and the worldwide population is just 2,000 (Assam, Bangladesh, Myanmar, southwestern China (Yunnan), perhaps Laos).

So I shall end with a ‘hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo’, the traditional wish that Hoolocks may long survive in Bangladesh. And, hoo, hoo, hoo - you should go and see them too.

(Note: There is a lovely DFID Guest House between Srimangal and the forest)

Click to enlarge the photo above: Müller’s Gibbon (Hylobates muelleri) from Borneo hanging in the canopy by one arm. The species is close to the Hoolock, but males are lighter in colour.