Conservation Actions
This species is protected by the Act of the Republic of Indonesia No. 5 of 1990 Concerning Conservation of Living Resources and Their Ecosystems which prohibits to catch, injure, kill, store, possess, nurture, transport and trade protected animals in alive or dead condition. Exceptions from prohibition can only be made for purpose of research, science, salvage of the animal species or in case the animal endangers the human life. It is also included in Appendix I of CITES. Surveys to assess the status of this species are required. Long-term monitoring of populations, and increasing available data on the species ecology, behaviour and habitat requirements should be a top priority for this species (Nekaris and Starr 2015).
Establishing education across its range are also important in order to address issues with the illegal use of slow lorises in the illegal wildlife trade. There is a particular need for field guides for this and other nocturnal Indonesian primate species especially in local languages, as they are often confused in rescue centres and elsewhere.
Location Information
Nycticebus bancanus is only known from the island of Bangka, Indonesia. The Bangka population is allopatric to all other slow lorises. It is possible the species also occurs on Belitung, but no records are available. The species has not been reported from the wild since 1937 and field studies are required to confirm its presence on the ground.
Geographic Range
Extant
Indonesia
Population Information
If it is still extant, this species is highly likely to be declining due to loss of habitat from extreme deforestation largely due to oil palm plantations, leaving Bangka with less than 20% of its forest cover.Threats
This species was last reported from the wild in 1937; if it is still extant then burning of its habitat and conversion to agriculture (especially to palm oil plantations) is its greatest threat. The occurrence of Nycticebus menagensis in the illegal wildlife trade suggests that N. bancanus is likely also at risk of exploitation by the illegal wildlife trade. However, this risk will be less since Bangka is relatively isolated from other Indonesian islands. At the same time, slow lorises are often caught during forest conversion due to their tendency to cling to trees rather than flee (Nekaris and Starr, 2015), meaning that they may still occur in trade. Lack of law enforcement further threatens slow loris species across their range (Nijman et al. 2014).
