Friday, August 23, 2013

90% of all lemur species likely to be extinct in 20-25 years.

According to a news report in The Telegraph, the IUCN claims that 90% of all lemur species could be extinct in 20 to 25 years unless a 3-year, $7.6 million program to help local communities in Madagascar gets underway immediately.  (I'd donate if I had a job!)  I'm doing what I can on my end by trying to get this news blurb mentioned on the main page of Wikipedia.  Keep an eye out for it and pass the news along.

Friday, August 2, 2013

My Wikipedia work gets a noteable mention!

Okay, this really isn't about lemurs, but their cousins: slow lorises.  With that said...

I learned today from Dr. Anna Nekaris, the world's leading slow loris researcher and conservationist, that my work on Wikipedia got mentioned in a peer-reviewed journal article:
A while back, a group of dedicated Wikipedia editors and I collaborated with Nekaris to develop a series of slow loris Wikipedia articles, one of which was specifically about slow loris conservation--Conservation of slow lorises.  This was in response to a viral YouTube video that was inspiring many people to seek out these animal as pets... which is illegal and seriously hampering conservation efforts.  If you haven't heard about this, please read!
At least one (possibly 4) new species of dwarf lemur have been discovered in Madagascar:


The Lavasoa dwarf lemur (Cheirogaleus lavasoensis) is found in only 3 isolated forest fragments in southern Madagascar, and the genetic analysis suggests many new species of dwarf lemur exist on the island.  I wrote an article about it on Wikipedia, and it may get featured on the main page soon (under In the News): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavasoa_dwarf_lemur