Friday, July 13, 2012

Lemurs on the brink

Primates in trouble from habitat loss

Lemurs are fascinating, a clutch of primates that exists in only one place - Madagascar - and includes species the size of mice up to an (extinct, or almost certainly extinct) type the size of a black bear.  Additionally, we keep discovering new species, nearly every year.

The lemurs, though, are not doing well as a group.  Their habitats are shrinking, to the degree that experts say 90 of the known 103 species belong on the Red List of threatened species. Poaching is widespread: national park boundaries are being ignored by loggers. 

This belongs on any list of the world's top conservation priorities. Lemurs, due to an island home, can't flee destruction as some other animals can.  If we lose them in Madagascar, we lose them forever.

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