Giving Tuesday

Thanks to everyone who participated in #GivingTuesday yesterday to support our new collaboration with Lemur Love, LLC. to fight trafficking of endangered ring-tailed lemurs!

Here's a bit more about our project:

The practice of live-capturing ring-tailed lemurs is unsustainable, and captured animals suffer high mortality rates. Although lemurs are protected by Malagasy law, it is difficult to understand the illegal trade, because captures and sales are clandestine in nature. Generally, we don’t know where pet lemurs originated (i.e. the forest where they were captured) or how at-risk specific wild populations of ring-tailed lemurs are. Here’s the good news: Earlier this year, Marni La Fleur and Tara Clarke traveled to Madagascar and collected 75 fecal samples from both wild and captive confiscated pet lemurs. ​We can now use these fecal samples to analyze each animal’s unique genetic markers, and determine the location of capture for each lemur!

We need sponsors who are who are willing to virtually adopt lemur poop samples, so that we can fund molecular analyses and move forward with saving ring-tailed lemurs from extinction!​

Feeling generous? You can virtually adopt an entire lemur poop sample ($250)! Or, feeling social? You and 4 friends can each chip in $50 to virtually adopt a lemur poop sample as a group! Have another amount in mind? Everything helps! You can donate here.

Lemur Love will send you a small thank you gift in the mail. All contributions are tax deductible within the United States (Lemur Love, Inc. is a 501(c)(3)) and will support our laboratory analyses of ring-tailed lemur fecal samples, with the aim of understanding and dismantling the illegal wildlife trafficking in Madagascar.