The Red Ruffed Lemur
Geographic Threats
Geographic Rarity:
Today Madagascar is home to nearly 60 "taxa" of lemurs (species, subspecies, and populations from 33 species across five families and 14 genera) ranging in size from the 25-gram pygmy mouse lemur to the 21-pound indri (WildMadagascar, 2012).
All these species are endemic to Madagascar, giving the country the second highest number of primate species after Brazil, which has 77 species due to there being only two endemic genera and no endemic families (Reuter, 2015). The incredible thing is that new species are still being discovered— primate researchers speculate that 10-20 new species of lemurs may be documented and described over the next generation (Reuter, 2015).
"Madagascar is so important for primates that primatologists divide the world into four major regions: the whole of South and Central America, all of southern and southeast Asia, mainland Africa, and Madagascar, which ranks as a full-fledged region all by itself."
Clearly, Madagascar is to lemurs as Papua New Guinea is to exotic tropical birds. The fact that most of the species on Madagascar, especially primates like the Red Ruffed Lemur, are found nowhere else on the planet, should merit serious efforts to conserve these unique endemic species.
According to Russell Mittermeier in The Eighth Continent, although Madagascar, "Is only one of 92 countries with wild primate populations, it is alone responsible for 21 percent (14 of 65) of all primate genera and 36 percent (five of 14) of all primate families, making it the single highest priority" for primate conservation.
Taboos:
The native people of Madagascar actually find it to be taboo to kill and eat lemurs. But, the increase of foreigners traveling to Madagascar in recent years has proven the fear that more and more people are moving away from abstaining from killing the lemurs. Instead, using them for bushmeat from their undernourished children (Braun, 2010).
This is a sad reality as many of the people in Madagascar live on less than $2 a day (Shukman, 2015). The bushmeat in Madagascar is often considerably cheaper than that of domestically raised meat, although the taste quality isn't as high. Therefore, many of the poorer households rely primarily on bushmeat as their meat source, promoting unsustainable and illegal hunting practices to continue (Shen, 2011).
