BATON ROUGE - BREC’s Baton Rouge Zoo announced the arrival of a new baby golden lion tamarin monkey Friday.

The monkey was born at the zoo on Mar. 9, and is now on exhibit with its parents who are on loan to the zoo from the Brazilian government. The baby is the first golden lion tamarin born at the zoo since 2010.

The golden lion tamarin is listed as Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List due to the destruction of 90 percent of the Atlantic coast’s forests.

“Golden lion tamarins are one of the fifty or so species we have here at the Zoo that are managed under the Species Survival Plan (SSP), and so every birth counts in the overall effort to save the species,” Sam Winslow, the zoo’s general curator said.

The SSP is a program through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums dedicated to maintain a healthy population among endangered animals.