—Photo nate_kate/Flickr
Josh Bowman implores you to think of the lemurs! They are just like you and me! Only more lemur-y…
Oh no! Madagascar lemurs are endangered! From the BBC:
The assessment, conducted by the Primate Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), concludes
that 23 lemurs qualify as Critically Endangered – the highest class of threat.
Fifty-two are in the Endangered classification, and a further 19 Vulnerable to extinction.
“That means that 91% of of all lemurs are assessed as being in one of the Red List threatened categories, which is far and away the
largest proportion of any group of mammals,” said Russ Mittermeier, chairman of the specialist group and president of Conservation International.
Lots of species are endangered, but lemurs are particularly cute…so that makes them more important! Seriously though, this is another example where a population in poverty has drastic environmental and social impact. Most of Madagascar’s population lives on less than $2/day, and that leads to illegal poaching and logging.
Poor lemurs…here is a group that wants to Save the Lemurs: http://www.savethelemur.org/