Tonkin snub-nosed monkey: Beauty and fragility on the grey limestone peaks

As dusk settled over Hanoi, we started the engine of our pickup truck and began a nearly 300-kilometre drive northwards to Ha Giang, on the borderlands of Tuyen Quang province. Through the window, streetlights receded behind us, swallowed by the quiet darkness draped across the northern mountains.

By six the next morning, as the first rays of sun broke over the ridgelines, we set off for the shadowy forests of Du Gia National Park, home to the rare Tonkin snub-nosed monkey, a species found nowhere else in the world but Vietnam.

As dusk settled over Hanoi, we started the engine of our pickup truck and began a nearly 300-kilometre drive northwards to Ha Giang, on the borderlands of Tuyen Quang province. Through the window, streetlights receded behind us, swallowed by the quiet darkness draped across the northern mountains.

By six the next morning, as the first rays of sun broke over the ridgelines, we set off for the shadowy forests of Du Gia National Park, home to the rare Tonkin snub-nosed monkey, a species found nowhere else in the world but Vietnam.

After winding along mountain passes from Ha Giang, we reached Tung Ba commune in Tuyen Quang, our launch point into the deep forest. Hidden among dramatic limestone karsts, this area remains one of northern Vietnam’s last primeval sanctuaries.

Du Gia National Park, established in 2015 through the merger of Khau Ca Tonkin Snub-Nosed Monkey Species and Habitat Conservation Area and Du Gia Nature Reserve, spans more than 15,000 hectares. Dubbed a “living bank” of limestone ecosystems, it harbors five main forest types, over 1,000 plant species, and more than 300 animal species, dozens of them globally threatened.

Among these, the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus avunculus) is the most celebrated and endangered. Once widespread across northern Vietnam, the species is now confined to Khau Ca, within Du Gia’s core forests. With fewer than 200 recorded individuals, it is ranked among the world’s 25 most endangered primates. For ordinary visitors, a glimpse of this animal in the wild is exceedingly rare.

Led by seasoned forest rangers and community patrol teams, we set off into Khau Ca. From the first steps, the forest tested our stamina. Just beyond the last houses of the village lay an icy, moss-slick stream. “This is nothing”, one porter muttered, gripping his pack straps. “During the rainy season, the moss makes it impossible to stand, let alone cross".

We clambered over a makeshift wooden “buffalo gate,” marking the invisible boundary between village life and wilderness. From here on, everyday traces vanished. Three gruelling hours later crossing streams, scrambling up slopes, dodging leeches, clutching tree roots, we reached a ranger hut tucked inside the forest.

The hut, weathered and sparse, relied on a small hydropower generator for dim light and radios. Phone signals flickered and vanished beyond its clearing. For the rangers and villagers stationed here, the forest was home. They knew every trail, every droppings mark, every flowering season that might draw the monkeys out. Yet even for them, encounters were never guaranteed.

In Khau Ca, there are no appointments with the snub-nosed monkey. Everything depends on the sky. Rangers tracked clouds, wind, and humidity, knowing that a stray storm or broken branch could erase all chances of an encounter.

Local patrol teams split into four directions, each communicating via radio from vantage points cryptically coded “H300” or “N100”, military-style call signs forged over two decades of conservation work. Even the faintest sound or rustle among flowering Bursera trees might signal the monkeys’ presence.

I followed one group along the “dinosaur’s spine”, a jagged limestone ridge where every step risked a fatal slip into the abyss. The sweet scent of Bursera blossoms drifted on the wind, raising our hopes.

Then, near noon, just as despair set in, a crackle came over the radio: “They’re feeding on the blossoms”.

We fanned out. Some rangers deliberately made noise to steer the monkeys toward our hidden vantage points. And then, at last, we saw them, ghostly figures moving in the canopy. Not clearly, not close, but as faint grey-white silhouettes drifting among the treetops like smoke in the forest wind.

“Snub-nosed monkeys…” someone whispered into the radio, as if speaking louder might break the spell.

From the ground, their faces remained invisible, no thick lips, no proud males, no mothers cradling infants. Only shadows among the blossoms, bright specks against the endless green.

The survival of this species owes much to more than 20 years of relentless conservation. Ironically, many of today’s forest protectors were once notorious poachers. When the project began, hundreds of homemade guns were confiscated, and offenders prosecuted.

Not long ago, Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys were documented in Na Hang, Lam Binh, and Quan Ba near the China border. Today, they are gone. For decades, no individual has been recorded in those forests. Only Khau Ca still shelters more than 200.

The threats remain stark: habitat loss, hunting, lapses in protection. A single oversight could erase the species forever.

As we trekked back, fatigue weighed less than the silent sorrow that clung like forest mist. What if, one day, these forests lose the playful leaps of the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey? Would Khau Ca still hold its soul?

Protecting this species is not just about saving an endemic primate. It is about safeguarding the lifeblood of Vietnam’s sacred forests, maintaining balance in an ecosystem upon which all life, including ours, depends.

As one conservationist reflected: what is needed now are stronger commitments from authorities, communities, tourists, and especially younger generations who will inherit these mountains. Go, see, and protect, he urged. Because while the forest endures, its life remains fragile and never more fragile than today.