Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Fans who’ve followed actor John Cleese since his Monty Python days know all about Betampona Natural Reserve. Cleese made a documentary in which he sludged up and down steep, muddy slopes, his long grasshopper legs bending at awkward angles, to look for its lemurs. He was publicizing the Madagascar Fauna Group’s lemur restocking program, which would send 13 captive-bred black-and-white ruffed lemurs into the wild between 1997 and 2001.
More than two dozen zoos supported the lemur restocking program, as did the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund. The Saint Louis Zoo, a founding member of MFG, had been successful breeding lemurs in captivity, and its primate curator, Ingrid Porton, just happened to be the keeper of the black-and-white ruffed lemur’s international studbook. She became the program coordinator, selecting candidates for release.
The first draftees were dubbed the Carolina Five, because they came from Duke University’s primate center. They went through a sort of boot camp, to learn how to live in the wild. Then, in late October 1997, Letitia and Praesepe (females) and Janus, Zuben’ubi, and Sarph (males) were flown to Betampona. For the first three weeks, they lived safely in a big cage, acclimating to the rainforest’s noises and smells. Next came a “soft release,” with forest fruits, tender leaves, flowers, and Purina monkey chow suspended in wire baskets in the forest canopy. One MFG advisor thought this too cushy, like parents sending care packages to the dorm every week. But Porton pushed hard: “This is stressful enough for them. They have to learn a lot. Why on earth would we not provision them while they are learning?”
On December 5, Boot, a member of a wild lemur group, approached the newcomers, his eyes fixed on Praesepe. He whined a little, smitten, and came closer, chattering to her. When he got too close, she cuffed him—typical female behavior. With an expression it would’ve been hard to read as anything but wounded pride, he moved away. Praesepe followed him—for the rest of the day.
The team members held their breath: The main goal of restocking, after all, was to put new genes into the population. Alas, the flirtation led nowhere. Sarph and Zuben’ubi got a little territorial toward the wild lemur, and their vocalizations may have killed the mood. Praesepe eventually wound up mating with Zuben’ubi (which happened to be her brother, lemurs not being terribly concerned about taboos). They had triplets in October 1999. Two disappeared a year later, but the third, Fara, could still be alive in the rainforest. He’s the lemur Porton’s most eager to find.
Letitia and Janus, meanwhile, both met with tragedy: Letitia was eaten by a fossa, and Janus couldn’t forage for himself when the provisions stopped. Malnourished and dizzy, he fell out of a high tree and broke his neck.
Ah, but Sarph. Sarph disappeared in 1998—the signals from his radio collar went dead, and Porton feared he, too, was gone. Then he was sighted in 1999, integrated into a wild group. He was still wearing his radio collar; it had simply stopped working. In 2001, he was seen with a wild female and a baby he’d probably sired. In 2007, he was seen with another wild female and her year-old offspring, perhaps also his. He was last seen in 2008, well outside his territory, with a third wild female. So there could be quite a few of his progeny swinging in the trees.
The program’s other goal was to find out whether captive-bred lemurs could survive in the wild, and for how long. Sarph lived, and rather happily from the look of it, for at least 11 years. But the second release—Dawn, Jupiter, Tricia, and Barney—“was a failure,” in Porton’s blunt words. “They’d come from traditional zoo cages, and had not spent long enough in boot camp to become proficient in foraging.” Nor did they learn to be wary: Three of the four were killed by predators. The team scooped up the fourth and brought her to Parc Ivoloina, where she lived 12 years in safety in a little zoo, walled off from the wilderness that had overwhelmed her.
The third and final release, in November 2001, was of a female, Hale, and her three sons, Kintana, Tany, and Masoandro. Hale bred with a wild male and raised a son and a daughter. Their half-brothers, Tany and Masoandro, have also been seen with offspring. They’re on Porton’s wish list, too—she’s dying to know how well Tany and Masoandro integrated into the wild, and how their babies are faring.
Given all those deaths by predator, though, how does she feel now about restocking?
“I think it’s viable,” she says slowly. “Releasing captive animals is always going to be more difficult. You’re going to have more losses and more expenses. But we’ve shown that it’s possible. We need to make sure they have more time in boot camp, more time acclimating and learning about predators. Another lesson: The best thing a ruffed lemur can do is join up with a wild group.”
