Lemur Enrichment

I’m always looking for new and novel enrichment to give out to the animals which can sometimes be a challenge. One day I was looking for a sensory enrichment for the lemurs and I was tired of using scents or spices. I remembered that we had leftover streamers from Cynthia’s birthday celebration. I decided to wrap some of their perching in it and hang some off the perching. Below are a few pictures of what it looked like! The nextRead more

Where are the Red Ruffed Lemurs?

If you have been to the museum lately you may have noticed the Red Ruffed Lemurs are not on exhibit. While our new Ring Tailed Lemurs are on exhibit in indoor viewing our Red Ruffed Lemurs are on vacation. By “vacation” I mean that they don’t have to come upstairs and be on exhibit. Instead, the girls are hanging out in the downstairs holding areas. They also have access to some outdoor side cages as well.  They would normally onlyRead more

Lemur Training Update

  The red ruffed lemurs have been off exhibit since December. We have just a couple of weeks left until it is warm enough for the ring tailed lemurs to be outside during the day and the red ruffed lemurs to move upstairs, on exhibit. Here is where we were last time I updated about training- click here. While our focus was going to be crate training we also added the behavior of station. Station is a way to 1)Read more

Popsicles

  We are always on the look out for new and exciting enrichment.  Keeper Marilyn and I are both lemur trainers and work together in Explore the Wild on Wednesdays, so we came up with the idea to make some sort of popsicle for the lemurs. We wanted them to be able to hold the popsicle for the themselves while they ate it. So we froze juice and added green beans, celery, and carrots as the sticks. It didn’t workRead more

Match that Red Ruffed

Our Red Ruffed Lemurs are distinguishable by their tails. But can you tell them apart by their faces alone? Cynthia is our oldest lemur and our oldest mammal (not including humans) at the museum, 30 years old! Her tail is the shortest. Her two daughters Jethys and Iris are both 19 years old, Iris has the medium length tail and Jethys tail is the longest. But their faces are very similar! Can you guess correctly???  Read more

History of the Lemur

Often times while I’m training the Ring Tailed Lemurs I over hear visitor’s comments.  “Oh look- she’s feeding the…. Raccoons? Monkeys? What is that animal?” At the end of each session I ask, any guests that managed to stay interested long enough, if they have any questions. Typically by this point they have read all the exhibit signs and know that the cute little animals with looooong tails are Lemurs. But what is a Lemur?   The word Lemur-which meansRead more