The Red Ruffed Lemur
Why is the Red Ruffed Lemur Endangered?
It’s hard to imagine how such an adorable little mammal could be so critically endangered. By all means Varecia rubra is not some scary creature. It’s a small, cute lemur, whose only teeth protruding from its gums are used in grooming or the consumption of fruit (Lemur world, 2015).
Yet still the fact remains, the Red Ruffed Lemur, like most of its relatives, are critically endangered. But in this case, there is no one else to blame but humans. Red Ruffed Lemurs need large and uninterrupted habitat, with a single group maintaining a territory of 25-60 hectares (Lemur world, 2015).
An impossible feat to accomplish with the amount of both legal and illegal logging of hardwood tree species on Madagascar. In addition to this, Red Ruffed Lemurs are shot both as a source of bushmeat for indigenous hunters, and as pests when they roam too close to farms or fruit tree plantations.
This situation is bad as it stands, but the addition of the exotic pet trade tipped the scales far out of favor for the Red Ruffed Lemur. With their relatively long gestation period and time taken to reach sexual maturity, Varecia rubra cannot hope to survive on its own without a little help.
