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.