(tamarins chirping) Cotton-top tamarins play an important role in their ecosystem by consuming large seeds and dispersing them throughout the forests.

- They are critically endangered that is one step from extinction due to two main reasons.

The first one is habitat loss.

We've been cutting forests for many decades for cattle ranching, agriculture, urban development, roads, mining.

And the other one is that cotton-top tamarins get hunted to be kept and sold and commercialized as pets, which is an illegal activity in Colombia.

- In response to these threats, Proyecto Titi is working in part with the Wildlife Conservation Network to protect cotton-top tamarins and their habitat.

- Fundacion Proyecto Titi's mission is to guarantee a long-term future for cotton-top tamarins and their forest home.

That's what we work for, to protect those cute, unique, and very charismatic little monkeys.

They can reproduce well, they can live well, but they need home.

So right now, there's about less than 8% of the forest there used to be within their distribution in Northern Colombia.

So we're working very hard to protect what's left.

That's the first goal that we have for the next five years.

And the second one is to just be so insistent about cotton-tops are not pets.

The Wildlife Conservation Network has been an amazing partner to Proyecto Titi since basically our beginnings, you know, over 20 years ago, and we hope these partnerships can last many, many more years.

- [Narrator] To learn more about protecting cotton-top tamarins, visit norcalpublicmedia.org/wildlife.