Congrats are in order!

A couple of new additions have been settling in to their home at Fota Wildlife Park. Two baby black and white lemur babies were born to 18 year old mother Cloud and eight year old dad, Paraic, at the park in June.

The baby lemurs were born after a gestation period of 102 days and also share their island habitat on the main lake at Fota with their older twin brothers, Nimbus and Cumulus, who were born in May 2019.

The species is native to Eastern Madagascar and has been classified as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature due to hunting and habitat loss and fragmentation. There are less than 250 black and white ruffed lemurs remaining in the wild today.

Lead Ranger Teresa Power said : “We are delighted to announce two new black and white ruffed lemur babies, and they seem to get on great with their twin brothers who love playing with them. At first Cloud was very protective of the new babies, moving them from one nesting area to another as she would do in the wild but in recent weeks they are getting much more active and are beginning to climb trees and jump about by themselves. In fact when the rangers go across the lake to their island to feed them twice a day, the babies are sometimes discovered sitting in their food dishes which is really cute.

“We have also noticed that dad Paraic has been helping Cloud with babysitting duties, standing guard over the twins while she gets something to eat giving her a well-earned break. We won’t know for a while yet whether the babies are male or female.”

Fota Wildlife Park is now operating a pre-booking o-line system to help comply with social distancing requirements and is open daily from 9am with last entry at 5pm. See fotawildlife.ie for more information.