Technical and financial support for lemurs research

and the conservation center

Goal

Concretize scientific results on actual group

Find local partners

Better conditions for ex-situ conservation

Raise community conservation awareness

Actual group transfer to appropriate places

Project methodologyand planned actions:

Always follow the IUCN guidelines for the placement of confiscated animals

and guidelines for reintroduction.

At first, get the best as possible conditions for captivity (veterinary analysis,

healthcare room and quarantine in contagion cases or newcomers.

Set up of multi discipline team, straight with additional skills, able to manage this project

in medium and long term.

Local scientific partners research allowing a potential transfer with annual group monitoring.

Project outputs

Partnerships, agreements and licenses will be set up.

Malagasy students and scientific partnership team will publish some papers and workshops.

Each month, the project manager will report project evolutions and convincing outcomes.

Animal welfare

Several times Reniala has to fetch lemurs at owners’ places, and the transfers

with owners’ cars had been successfully done. Obviously, Reniala respects the animal welfare

during the transfer. On the opposite, often when authorities brought lemurs to our reserve,

they arrived in small cages and the transfer makes animals suffer. That’s why we would

rather do the next transfers, and to make it easier, Reniala has to have its own car.

Ethics

The reintroduction and animal transfer are very complexes approaches that must be managed

by a solid professional team (scientists, authority and community). The potential negative impact

could be resumed to the group’s survival: some individual could die during the transfer, during

adaptation time in the new place chosen or even after the release.

Capacity

Currently the conservation center has 8 small cages (2m/2m) and a big one (20m/6m) most

of the time used by the group. Almost all the lemurs (maki catta) have french microchips.

The animal keeper of Reniala is in charge of the animal welfare, keep the cage clean and

fed the group twice a day. Sometimes using a new technic of feeding: we hide some

fruits and vegetables in baobab fruits to increase the natural foraging.

But the conservation center needs more equipment like a treatment room for veterinary

and a quarantine cage for newcomers.

Conservation outcomes

This project is directly linked with lemurs (lemur catta) conservation. By rebuilding viable groups,

in natural conditions we increase lucks of survival during reintroduction. In a second time,

mixing different groups increased even better the long-term survival. It makes insurance

of a good and rich genetic mix.

Monitoring

Scientists and students will make the monitoring of this project. Scientific team will be

composed by the project manager of Reniala, the primatologist Jonah Ratsimbazafy

(training and conservation coordinator at Durell Wildlife Conservation Trust) and students.

Scientific team will follow the group all the year: at the center conservation, before and

during the transfer, and after the potential release.