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Charlie’s Travelogue: Madagascar, 02-22-2018

By Charlie Welch, DLC Conservation Coordinator February 22, 2018 Click here for the second installment of Charlie’s Travelogue I arrived in Sambava on Thursday of last week and after settling in to my SAVA home away from home, the Orchidea Beach Hotel, spent the first days meeting with DLC-SAVA project manager Lanto Andrianandrasana. Project coordinator […]

Some lemurs are loners, others crave connection

By Robin Smith. DURHAM, N.C. — If lemurs were on Facebook, Fern would have oodles of friends, liking and commenting on their posts. Captain Lee, on the other hand, would rarely send a friend request. Best buddies Fern and Alena at the Duke Lemur Center in Durham, North Carolina. Photo by Ipek Kulahci. These are […]

What lemur guts can tell us about human bowel disease

Why is lemur research important? A newly published study by Dr. Erin McKenney, one of our Director’s (Anne Yoder’s) recent graduates, highlights just TWO reasons: “McKenney and her fellow researchers recently discovered that the gut microbiomes of two of the lemur species share surprising similarities with those of humans who suffer from inflammatory bowel diseases, like Crohn’s […]

Rosewood surpasses ivory in black-market value

Rosewood, which grows in the rainforests of Madagascar, has surpassed ivory in terms of illegally harvested and traded plant/animal products worldwide and their black-market value. Sadly, much of Madagascar’s remaining rosewood is in protected areas, such as national parks and reserves, and illegal logging destroys not just the rosewood trees but also the other trees […]

Update & photos from the SAVA

More stoves in use means fewer trees cut for fuel  By Charlie Welch, DLC Conservation Coordinator   DLC-SAVA Conservation is fortunate to have third-year Peace Corps volunteer Libby Davis working with us in a collaborative role! Libby did her first two years with the Peace Corps in the SAVA region, then chose to stay on […]

Baby Agatha grows up

By David Haring, DLC registrar and photographer Under the ever watchful eye of her mom, Medusa, five-month-old Agatha is daily becoming more and more proficient in the art of being an aye-aye! Here she is practicing the finger-tapping skills necessary for any aye-aye who might want to locate insects buried deep in trees, to feed […]

A Tale of Two Feces: Field Work in Marojejy

By Lydia Greene, DLC researcher and Duke Ph.D. student Feces is seldom the most palatable topic to discuss around the dinner table, but for lemur researchers, it’s often unavoidable. Take, for example, a recent mission to Marojejy National Park conducted by myself and DLC/SAVA project coordinator, Marina Blanco. We went to Marojejy together to collect […]

“My Mommy Told Me So”: My research with Agatha and Medusa

What do aye-ayes and prison-grade cameras have in common? Both feature prominently in David Watts’s research on the DLC’s most-watched mother-daughter duo. David Watts studies aye-aye communication, including how mother aye-ayes communicate with their offspring. In addition to helping the vet staff monitor Agatha’s health during the first weeks of life, David’s cameras hidden in […]