Cute and cuddly they may be, but pygmy slow lorises (Nycticebus pygmaeus) are classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN Redlist and are at threat from the pet and traditional medicine trade in the Far East.

Illegally kept monkeys in South Vietnam are rehabilitated and healthy candidates released into the wild and monitored by the Endangered Asian Species Trust (EAST). Rare black-shanked douc langur, pygmy loris and golden-cheeked gibbons have all been successfully rehabilitated and set free. Staff needed training in key veterinary procedures and WVI needed project familiarisation to better advise EAST, assess potential for further capacity building in wildlife training and support - either remotely or on site – and advise how to stopping breeding whilst primates were in the centre. WVI were invited for some key veterinary procedures but mainly to make themselves familiar with the project and project staff. The aim was to be in a better position to advise EAST over the next few years. assess the potential for further capacity building in wildlife training and support, either remotely or on site. In particular, stopping the primates breeding whilst they were in the centre has become a necessity and difficult. Cute and cuddly they may be, but pygmy slow lorises (Nycticebus pygmaeus) are classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN Redlist and are at threat from the pet and traditional medicine trade in the Far East. A charity called the Endangered Asian Species Trust, EAST, aims to work with the Vietnamese government to rescue primates from the trade in Vietnam, rehabilitate them at their facilities in Dao Tien Endangered Primate Species Centre; a 57 hectare island in Cat Tien National Park, South Vietnam. EAST invited WVI vet John Lewis to help them with a few procedures whilst getting familiar with the project and project staff. John Lewis is better known to WVI for his leopard and tiger skills but he is actually is a very experienced primate vet too. in 2008 John visited the Endangered Primate Rescue Centre based at Cuc Phuong National Park, Vietnam. WVI presented a field gas/air anaesthesia machine (invented by John Lewis) and supplies to the Centre.