This old world monkey endemic to the Western Ghats of South India was once on the world’s 25 most endangered primates list. Today, it is no more on this list and its numbers are slowly increasing to healthy numbers. And all thanks to simple, yet effective wildlife conservation efforts by the government, forest department, local authorities, wildlife enthusiasts, plantation owners, locals and others. I am talking about the lion tailed macaque, an arboreal rainforest dweller who prefers the upper canopy of moist evergreen forests. There was a time when their numbers thrived along with the rest of the forest species. Then their forest habitat started fragmenting as humans started timber harvesting and building exotic plantations like tea, coffee, rubber, etc and villages on the edges of the forests started burgeoning into large towns, cities and hill stations. This led to a drop in their numbers. Lion tailed macaques were killed while crossing the highways and humans were either killi