ENDANGERED: Fine Art & Photography Contest 2022 Submission - Photography Category

The image depicts a timid vervet monkey gazing back at me from the refuge of a mangrove forest. Nonhuman primates such as these vervets are humanities closest living relatives. This particular population of Vervets inhabits an island located in a marine protected area in the Lamu archipelago of Kenya. This population forages on multiple species of crabs and has been doing so for decades. This learned primate tradition is rare and the mangrove forests these vervets inhabit are threatened by development. Primate traditions such as these are rare fragile and endangered.