Oberon arrived at the center in poor physical shape and subsequently died of an infection. Titania also died later from what the Primate Center scientists believe was too much calcium in her diet, an unexpected and atypical reaction for a lemur.
Romeo, on the other hand, survived and prospered, because as an infant his body required more calcium, and he did not suffer from hypercalcemia. Calcium-rich foods are now excluded from Romeo's diet, and the Duke primatologists believe that they have developed enough information about the sifaka's low-calcium diet of leaves to bring more animals into captivity.
"We know now to be extremely careful of the amount of calcium in their diet," Glander said. "We will carefully monitor their blood values and only feed them vegetation and other materials that we know are low in calcium."
Romeo has now reached a weight of 14 pounds, well on his way to his adult weight of 18 to 20 pounds.
Captive breeding programs such as the Duke Primate Center's can rapidly replenish populations of animals, Glander said. Because captured animals are well fed, and protected from disease and natural enemies, they can produce from five to 10 times more offspring that survive to adulthood than wild animals normally can, he said.
After the expedition to rescue the diademed sifakas, Glander will go to
the Madagascar forest reserve at Betampona, where the Madagascar Fauna Group is
operating a program to release into the wild black-and-white ruffed lemurs. So
far, nine lemurs have been released to augment the dwindling wild population,
and of those, five are still living in the forest. Two have disappeared and may
either be dead or out of radio range, and the other two were kil
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Contact: Dennis Meredith
Dennis.meredith@duke.edu
919-681-8054
Duke University
5-Oct-1999