Welcome to a new baby lemur
Fairbairn Private Bank is delighted to
announce the birth of a healthy ring-tailed lemur at Durrell
Wildlife Conservation Trust on Sunday 21st March. This is the first
infant for the four year old mother Muriel, one of Durrell’s two
female ring-tailed lemurs, and is also the first ring-tailed lemur
to be born at Durrell for 17 years.
The bank originally sponsored the bachelor
group of ring-tailed lemurs who have lived at the Trust for many
years. Last year, however, they made a generous donation which
enabled Durrell to introduce two female ring-tailed lemurs and
start a new breeding programme.
David Stearn, head of business development at
Fairbairn Private Bank, commented: "Congratulations to Muriel on
her new arrival. We are delighted to support the new lemur breeding
programme and it is good to see it off to such a successful start.
We hope this will be the first of many ring-tailed lemurs to be
born at the Trust."
This species first came to Jersey in 1964 and
thirty five infants were bred between 1974 and 1993, after which
the Trust maintained a male bachelor group. The two new females
arrived at Durrell last May to form part of a new breeding group
within the recently opened ‘Kirindy Forest’ exhibit.
Senior keeper Tim Wright commented “We are
delighted with the birth of this new infant, and the first-time mum
is doing a great job of looking after it. This is a brilliant start
for our new Kirindy Forest enclosure, and we hope more lemur births
will follow shortly.”
Although relatively numerous in zoos,
ring-tailed lemurs are declining in the wild and are currently
officially classified as ‘near threatened’.
