Viet Nam News
HA NOI — An English book on primate expert Tilo Nadler was published on Sunday, featuring the German’s extensive career in Viet Nam.
Tilo’s Troops – Handiwork of a Primatologist in Vietnam, by Murali Pai features the efforts of Nadler, who has worked in the field for more than 20 years at the Endangered Primate Rescue Centre (EPRC) in Cuc Phuong National Park in the northern province of Ninh Binh.
The book narrates his efforts to launch the world-class rehabilitation centre for endangered primates.
Through Nadler’s story, the book features two main issues. First, endangered primates are given a new lease of life at the EPRC after their rescue from sordid conditions and meet other survivors in captivity before their final release into appropriate environment.
The other feature is the training of conservationists or troops groomed by Nadler in primate rehabilitation.
Pai is the founder of Revatji Horse Clinic Rajasthan, a veterinarian, environmental writer and the editor of African Conservation Telegraph – an e-newsletter of the Society for Conservation Biology Africa Section.
His conservation work took him to in India, the US, China, Ethiopia and Bhutan before he met Nadler in Cuc Phuong to write his first book, which is published on the occasion of Nadler leaving his job at the centre after 25 years.
Nadler, a German welder, air-conditioning engineer, photographer, filmmaker and biologist, arrived in Viet Nam to train foresters in Cuc Phuong National Park to secure the park from poachers, hunters and vandals.
Within two months, he was tasked with the care of two confiscated sub adult male Delacour langurs, a rare, endemic and critically endangered primate species.
He has also used his own money for a prize called Tilo Nadler Prize for Young Vietnamese Primates Conservators to encourage young people to join conservation efforts.
He has received various honours including a third-class Labour Medal from the Viet Nam State.
After he leaves the EPRC, Nadler and his wife, Nguyen Thi Thu Hien, who has come along with him in the conservation process, will work as consultants for Ninh Binh Province’s Forest Protection Department on protecting local nature and wild animals. — VNS