Primates living in fragmented forest patches face chronic stress, malnutrition, and conflict with humans as their habitat shrinks around them.
Primates in fragmented forests face welfare challenges that intensify as their habitat shrinks. Food scarcity forces risk-taking that brings them into conflict with humans. Isolation from other groups reduces genetic diversity and eliminates cultural knowledge transmission between populations. The chronic stress of navigating an increasingly hostile landscape is measurable in cortisol levels and behavioral changes. For our closest evolutionary relatives — animals with rich social lives, long developmental periods, and complex emotional experience — this represents profound welfare harm at a population level.