After two fruitless trips to Madagascar in search of the rapidly vanishing species of lemur, Primate Center director Ken Glander proved that the third time really is the charm.
Last Thursday, Glander returned from Madagascar empty-handed, but with news of promising things to come: Romeo, the only diademed sifaka in captivity, can meet his eventual mate Juliet in six months, when she makes the long trip from Africa to Durham. The lonely lemur has been waiting six years for a female companion.
Diademed sifakas are the largest living lemur, characterized by their lush yellow, orange, gray, white and black fur.
Glander and his team had hoped to use the 14-day, $6,000 mission to find three females and two males. Although they only obtained one of each, Glander was ecstatic.
"I'm exhausted," he said, "but the excitement of what I have just finished keeps me going."
The lemurs did not return with Glander. They will acclimate to captivity in Madagascar for at least six months before they are transported to the University. "They're doing fine so far, and eating the local food," Glander said. "Adjusting can potentially take quite a long time."
Once Juliet reaches sexual maturity at age 3 1/2, she will be bred with Romeo in hopes of eventually reintroducing their offspring back to Madagascar in 20-25 years, Glander said.
Judging from the wearing down of her teeth, Glander estimates that Juliet is only about two. After she reaches sexual maturity, however, she will be able to reproduce until she is about 40-based on a rate of one offspring every year-and-a-half at an 80 to 90 percent survival rate, that means she could have 10 or 20 offspring, he said.
"Without the threat of predators, and with lots of food and medical attention, these lemurs live much longer and in much better health than their wild counterparts," Glander said. "They have better health care than I do-and I'm on the Duke HMO plan."
Glander said the Primate Center is primarily interested in the lemur's basic biology. "The research will be mostly nutrition-based," he said.
He and other scientists hope that studying how lemurs handle the toxins in the plants they eat will lead to the discovery of potential natural medicines for humans.
The funding for the trip came from donations and Primate Center t-shirt sales, Glander said, adding that this year's team included the Primate Center's veterinarian, a Duke primatologist who lives in Madagascar and two self-funded volunteers.
The reason the two previous expeditions failed, Glander said, is that lemurs are regularly hunted for food by the local tribes-making them acutely aware of humans. Glander estimates that in the next 15 to 20 years the entire species will be extinct. Their decline is so rapid, in fact, that lemurs have disappeared from places where they thrived only six or seven years ago.
This expedition searched a different, less frequently hunted forest for the small, elusive diademed sifakas. Glander said the five-person team used a tranquilizer dart-a technique he developed 27 years ago. They would spot a lemur perched high in a tree, dart it and catch it in a net as it fell.
Glander said the expedition was more successful than he expected. "It's a feeling of euphoria," said the professor of biological anthropology and anatomy, who canceled his classes during the trip. "I'm excited about the possibilities we have now. We have rescued two valuable animals from almost certain death-literally, almost certain. We now have the potential to preserve the species for future generations."
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