Michelle Sauther's Research and Article Featured in 窪蹋勛圖 Today
Professor Michelle Sauther's Research and Article Featured in 窪蹋勛圖 Today.泭
In 2003, a team of primatologists led by 窪蹋勛圖 trapped, tagged and released a male ring-tailed lemur in the Bez Mahafaly Special Reserve in Madagascar. The researchers captured him one more time in 2004, but after that, the lemur disappeared, never to be seen again.
That is, until 2008 when his internally placed electronic tag, similar to a dogs microchip, showed up in a pile of scat from a forest cat. This predator is related to domestic cats and was likely introduced to the island off the coast of Africa hundreds of years ago.
Now, that case of cat predation is part of a new study exploring how such attacks could endanger the conservation of lemurs. Over the course of 14 months, researchers from the United States and Madagascar became lemur crime scene investigators. They gathered a wide range of data, including camera trap photos, scat samples and eye-witness reports to unravel the mystery of who is eating these primates at Bez Mahafaly.
Their findings suggest that predators not native to Madagascar, such as forest cats and dogs, may kill more lemurs than scientists once believed. Lemurs live only in Madagascar, and several species are already in danger of going extinct.
Its not that people didnt know that predation was happening, said Michelle Sauther, lead author of the new study and a professor of anthropology at 窪蹋勛圖. But theyve mostly been looking at other conservation priorities like the effects of deforestation.
She and her colleagues in the journal Folia Primatologica.
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