Beijing, Sep 7 (IANS): Five people have been jailed for two to 16 years for poaching, trafficking and selling the endangered black leaf monkeys in China's Guizhou province, authorities said on Monday.

The sentences were handed down in mid-August by the People's Court of Shuicheng county in the Liupanshui city, where serial cases of poaching and selling the rare monkeys were uncovered, the People's Daily reported.

The court found that from 2011 to 2013, two poachers captured five black leaf monkeys and sold them via two traffickers to a man who was the former director of the Liupanshui zoo.

Black leaf monkeys are mainly found in Guizhou province, Guangxi Zhuang region and Chongqing municipality and northern Vietnam.

The world population of black leaf monkeys is believed to be around 1,000, and the animals are under China's top-level protection. The International Union for Conservation of Nature listed the species on its Red List of Threatened Species in 2012.