Serious Monkey(ish) business at Wellington Zoo

Okay, let’s get the puns out of the way. While it is nev­er inap­pro­pri­ate to spank your mon­key in pub­lic, and only Peter Gabriel can shock the mon­key, at Welling­ton Zoo you can, how­ev­er, touch some mon­keys. Sort of. Well, the touch­ing part is cor­rect, but tech­ni­cal­ly the Black-and-White Ruffed Lemurs aren’t actu­al­ly pri­mates, they’re a kind of pre-pri­mate. Okay, I should have writ­ten notes, but I WAS TOUCHING A LEMUR at the very kind invi­ta­tion of Welling­ton Zoo to try out their new Lemur Encounter. You try tak­ing notes while these guys are sit­ting on your lap. 

So, like oth­er encoun­ters we’ve done, you enter the enclo­sure with a keep­er or two, who will tell you where to sit and how to act, take pho­tos if you’d like them to, and answer your sil­ly ques­tions (in this case, Mada­gas­car-relat­ed, for which I blame Tom). The keep­er will also give you grapes to feed to the lemurs, which they’ll take in their hands, and then tip their heads back just like the red pan­das so as not to get any juice on their fur. Lemurs may look a lot like dogs in real­ly fluffy pants, but their fin­gers are very human-like.

Most lemurs come from Mada­gas­car, but 17-year-old Lucky and 3‑year-old son Ankari came  from Hamil­ton Zoo. This prob­a­bly explains why they occa­sion­al­ly feel the need to screech real­ly loud­ly — luck­i­ly we were warned about that, and that it’s not actu­al­ly a threat, oth­er­wise it might have been a lit­tle scary. Most­ly though, what stuck with me was just how incred­i­bly fluffy they were. We were told that the spe­cial claw they have for groom­ing makes the soft­est ani­mal in the zoo, and while I think I need to do some more hands-on research, I pret­ty much believe it. 

Of course, while it is absolute­ly love­ly to be able to go in and inter­act with the lemurs, there’s a seri­ous rea­son for Welling­ton Zoo to run the encoun­ters too.

“Hav­ing Lucky and Ankari here is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to talk to vis­i­tors about these beau­ti­ful and fas­ci­nat­ing ani­mals, which are crit­i­cal­ly endan­gered as a result of hunt­ing and defor­esta­tion”

“This year we began sup­port­ing the Mada­gas­car Fau­na and Flo­ra Group — azoo-based con­ser­va­tion organ­i­sa­tion that pro­tects Black-and-White Ruffed Lemurs, as well as oth­er threat­ened wildlife in Mada­gas­car.”

“10% from every Lemur Close Encounter goes direct­ly to con­ser­va­tion pro­grammes in the wild — like the Mada­gas­car Fau­na and Flo­ra Group — so vis­i­tors can feel empow­ered that by expe­ri­enc­ing a Close Encounter with our Lemurs, they’re help­ing to pro­tect their wild habi­tat.”

Thanks so much for hav­ing us! Lemur Close Encoun­ters run every day at 3.15pm. Each Close Encounter lasts for 30 min­utes and is $95 per per­son.

Min­i­mum age is 4 years old. Check avail­abil­i­ty and book online at wellingtonzoo.com.