BLACK LEMURS
Angelina grooming Brad in their leafy cage

The black lemur couple Brad and Angelina Pitt arrived at Monkeyland from a zoo in Canada that no longer had space for these adorable creatures. Unfortunately, it turned out after their arrival that Brad is almost blind; our vet suspects that both his eyes have advanced cataracts. This made it impossible for us to release him into the Monkeyland forest, since adapting to such a large space after life in captivity is difficult even for completely healthy primates. Brad’s survival chances would be slim in our 12ha forest, it would be almost impossible to monitor him and he certainly wouldn’t enjoy bumping into/falling off trees all day long.

Brad is now on his way to a specialist in Johannesburg for an eye-inspection and consultation, but an operation would be very difficult at this late stage and strong anaesthetics are particularly dangerous for such a small, elderly animal. We expect that the expert recommendation will be not to operate, so most probably he will eventually loose his sight completely. Therefore, we would like to allow him a chance to get used to the Special Monkey Home as soon as possible.

Angelina, on the other hand, is extremely active and healthy. She spends most of her time exploring and bouncing around in their leafy cage, whilst making the characteristic black lemur vocalisation that sounds almost like a deep, abruptly-ending cow “mooh”. She lets us know when we are feeding too slowly by gently pulling our hair, and she carefully chews on anything she can get a hold of to find out what it’s made of.

We would love to release Angelina into the Monkeyland forest, but have decided against it for now. Although she would certainly enjoy the space and trees, she has lived in cages all her life and is used to the spatial confinement. Primates are tree-dwelling, social animals… at present we can only give Angelina either trees or a friend of her own species. Brad’s company is probably more important for her a this stage than the freedom of climbing in trees. On one occasion, she was given the chance to escape from her cage when a gang of mischievous capuchins broke in and left the door wide open, but Angelina made no attempt to leave their familiar home.

Ideally, the black lemur couple will be able to move into the Special Monkey Home together, where we can monitor his health whilst offering her a much larger playground.