My first blog!

Hi!

My name is Maddie and I am one of Durrell Wildlife Park’s 14 mammal keepers. In the next couple of weeks I’d like to tell you more about my work in general and especially about my favourite animal, the critically endangered Alaotran gentle lemur.

That's me with Bala, the reason I fell in love with lemurs!
Photo: Tiffany Lang/Durrell

To let you know how my passion for gentle lemurs started, I’ve copied in a section of something I wrote last year, because this is the best way to describe it:

“Funnily enough, during my studies I never had a particular interest in lemurs and even when I first started my job as mammal keeper I must admit that I wasn’t really passionate about them. But that suddenly changed one morning at work when I met one specific little lemur.

A few days earlier a new female Alaotran gentle lemur had arrived at our park to be paired with one of our males. Whoever gave them the name ‘gentle’ must have been drunk is my guess, because even though they look cute and cuddly, they can bite really hard and defend their territories aggressively. The new female was called ‘Bala’ and although my colleagues said that she was quite calm, I was initially a little bit nervous to go into the enclosure with her that morning.

When I arrived in the quarantine area, she was sitting on a branch and made little contact noises ‘pop! pop! pop!’ (Gerald Durrell described that specific vocalisation as ‘the sound of popping champagne corks’ and I think he was right!). I opened the door, entered the room and slowly sat down. Immediately she came down from the branch and approached me. Expecting the worst, I spoke softly to her ‘please don’t bite me!’, but she just seemed to be very curious. After sniffing my shoes, she put both her hands on my lap, looked up to me and said ‘pop!’. And that was it, since that moment I absolutely love lemurs.”

Now you know why I love lemurs! And actually, by writing these blogs I’m on a mission to turn every one of you into a lemur fan as well!

I'll try to post regular updates, but if you have any questions in the meantime, feel free to post them in the comments below.

See you next blog!

With Tionie (left) and Gutless (right), the black and white ruffed lemurs
Photo: Tiffany Lang/Durrell