Best gentle / bamboo lemur enclosures and holdings / collections in zoos

It was rosies mate at shaldon, I think he was called bandro.

 

The most recent list for Duke primate Centre, from last year. Older ones are available of you create an account I believe.

Eastern lesser bamboo lemurs currently held, elderly couple in there 20s.

 

Ah I see, I've heard of Bandro and seen videos of him but I don't think he was one of the original 10 gentle lemurs brought to Jersey from Madagascar by Durrell.

I think Bandro must have been the offspring of these founders though.

I'll have to look this up, interesting.

 

Thank you for that @Sausagefingers ! Very interesting and will certainly have a look.

 

One thing that clearly stands out on that list is that Duke lemur centre really have a terrible taste in naming their lemurs.

A fat tailed dwarf lemur called "domestic chicken" ?

What are they smoking at Duke ?

 

Tbh I may have the name wrong. I think bandro is what the Malagasy people called gentle lemurs and we called him fatty bandro as he was fairly chunky in comparison to Rosie. But he was definitely introduced to us as a founder animal tgat had never bred, however that of course could be wrong.

Shaldon had a good relationship with Jersey zoo, having had some species early on in the breeding programs started by Durrell.

 

Fatty bandro, lol

Yes, Bandro is the Malagasy name for this species but I have definitely seen reference of an individual lemur that had been called Bandro within zoos too.

He could have been a gentle lemur that arrived at some point after the original 10 some point in the 1990's I suppose.

I'll have to check this out.

 

I believe he was from a second expedition in the 90s.

Another file that may be of interest to you attached.

 

Oh I see, yes that would make sense, they did seem to increase the size of their populations of species by occasionally importing more at times so Bandro could well have been one of these.

Thank you for the file, very interesting !

 

Just to update this thread. The Madgascar walk-through at Cotswold W P finally reopened this summer, so the broad-nosed gentle lemur group is on-show again
Currently this comprises 'Gizmo' the old female, who is one of their original animals and has reached the record age of 24, breeding females 'Bijou' & 'Veloma', male 'Raphael', the 2 juveniles born in 2020 and 2 more youngsters born this year. They are housed in the large separate enclosure inside the walk-through.

Broad-nosed gentle lemur enclosure by gentle lemur posted 7 Sep 2021 at 7:13 PM

 

Additional information: the male 'Raphael' actually arrived at CWP in 2015. He is very important in the breeding programme as he is not related to any of the other animals in Europe, except his own offspring. In an exchange some years ago, he was sent from Madagascar to Besançon and a female went to a Malagasy zoo to pair up with a lone male. According to ZTL, the 2 young animals born last year are both males, which is good news as females outnumber males in Europe.

 

During my last visit to Paris Zoological Park (aug 2021), I saw 4 Northern bamboo lemurs and 4 Greater bamboo lemurs. However, according to ztl the number of Northern bamboo lemurs has since gone down to 3.