Recycle, Donate and Participate in our
Lemur Enrichment Program and Green Initiative!
Feeding the lemurs out of cardboard boxes and tubes of varying shapes and sizes enriches the lemurs' daily activities and also eliminates continually washing and sterilizing food bowls. After the lemurs have discovered and eaten their food, the box is thrown into our recycling bin and thus recycled twice!
If you wish to participate, send us clean cardboard boxes or cardboard tubes with all loose paper, glue or plastic removed. Nothing too big (larger than large cereal box) or too small (tooth paste tube box). Nothing that contained chemicals or detergents.
Examples of what we're looking for: cereal boxes, pasta boxes, cookie or cracker boxes, toilet paper tubes, paper towel tubes
Enrichment is a term used when keepers are trying to increase stimulation of captive animals. Enrichment takes many forms, including altering objects in their habitats (moving branches, adding ladders,etc.), providing novel objects (non-toxic and non-swallowable, of course), using spices and oils to add scents to objects, and altering the presentation of food. The lemurs find it challenging to open the boxes and pull out the food inside. They have to manipulate the box and do a bit of problem solving - so it takes a bit longer to eat but provides a more fulfilling eating experience. Lemurs in captivity don't have to forage, so keepers try to make up for this lack of natural behavior by having the lemurs "forage" in the boxes.
Games:
Track the Fossa. The Fossa (pronounced "FOOsa") is a carnivore, and a lemur predator: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/madagascar/expedition/fossa2.htmlLemur Lane:
http://pslc.ws/macrog/paul/lemurs.htm
Global Warming Games from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):
http://epa.gov/climatechange/kids/games/index.html
Conservation games from the World Wildlife Fund:
http://www.panda.org/news_facts/multimedia/fun_games/index.cfm
Early Primate Evolution Crossword Puzzle:
http://anthro.palomar.edu/earlyprimates/crossword/earlyprimates_crossword.html