"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Saturday, June 02, 2018

Antidote: Zoo Baby

Via Digby, there's a new baby crowned lemur at NaturZoo Reine in Germany on May 7.

Crowned Lemurs (Eulemur coronatus) are listed as “Endangered” by the IUCN. In Madagascar they are threatened by habitat destruction and hunting. European Zoos are cooperating within a coordinated breeding-programme (EEP) to maintain an “insurance population” of these lemurs, which in future might provide animals for re-stocking or release in their native range.

There are currently some 80 Crowned Lemurs in European zoos. The baby born at NaturZoo Rheine will contribute to this hopefully growing population.

Lincoln Park Zoo has, I believe, five crowned lemurs (they're hard to count -- they keep moving around when they're not all sleeping in a big clump) and had a birth last year.

Digby links to a site called "ZooBorns" which does have a somewhat spotty page for Lincoln Park Zoo. Just off the top of my head, what's missing from ZooBorn's LPZ pages are: four snowy owl chicks last year, four Japanese macaques born two (three females) and three (one male) years ago, a Grevy's Zebra born either last year or the year before, ditto for a Bactrian camel, and a litter of red wolves born two or three years ago. Oh, and there's a new black-and-white colobus born this year, a couple of white-cheeked gibbons born last year and a Hoffman's two-toed sloth born last year.

I should also mention that LPZ has the largest nesting colony of black-crowned night herons in Illinois; they are endangered in the state. They've pretty much taken over the Children's Zoo (although for some reason they avoid the bear habitat -- wrong kind of trees, I think). Zoo staff has blocked off parts of the path because guano.

There -- isn't that better than Trump?


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