Gibbons are the world's most endangered apes, with their remarkable singing duets serving as both conservation monitoring tools and welfare indicators of pair bond strength.
Gibbon welfare is profoundly social and territorial. Pair-bonded gibbons that lose their partner show behavioral depression and reduced singing — a measurable welfare indicator of pair bond disruption. Gibbons kept as pets are invariably isolated, chained, and unable to brachiate — conditions that cause severe physical and psychological suffering for an animal adapted to life in the forest canopy. Wild gibbons face the chronic stress of shrinking, fragmented territories and increasing human disturbance. The singing duets that make gibbons so extraordinary in the wild are silenced in captivity and in isolated pet individuals. Protecting gibbon welfare requires protecting their forest homes and eliminating the pet trade that drives capture.