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News for the month of June 2001

Unfortunately not all news is good news!

The Sanctuary lost our beloved female Black and White Ruffed Lemur Vanda. Vanda was the mate of Bonsi and the mother of three-month-old twin infants. She will be greatly missed by all who had the privilege to work with her.

It all started about a week ago when we noticed Vanda becoming lethargic with a diminished appetite. We ended up removing Vanda from the twins to be nurtured inside in the air-conditioning. She was behaving as if she just needed a rest from her twins. By this time her babies were eating on their own and only very infrequently nursing so there was no risk separating them. They were getting so big, so active that it appeared to David and myself that they were draining her. Constantly climbing and jumping all over her like she was some kind of jungle gym. It was to the point that Vanda could hardly walk around because she had two babies (each about a 3rd her size) hanging from her constantly.

Upon bringing Vanda inside, we started hand feeding her little bits of her favorite food items. Giving her a selection of drinks and food that would make a King envious. For the next two days we fed and nurtured her with 24 hour TLC. She appeared to be improving. Her appetite increased slightly and she started to drink. We truly felt like she was on her way to feeling better.

Very late on the 3rd night, Vanda took an unexpected turn for the worse. She became very lethargic and stopped eating. We rushed her to one of the Sanctuary's emergency veterinarians for an exam. With in an hour of arriving, Vanda took her last breath and passed away. This totally caught David and myself by surprise. Never had we thought this would have happened. We were crushed!

After a necropsy was performed on Vanda, it was discovered that her left breast tissue was very hard, almost calcified. The next morning we had a meeting with the Veterinarian to discuss his findings. It turns out that Vanda died from Mastitis. Mastitis is a breast infection caused by bacterial pathogens. The infection is often the result of nipple injuries caused by the teeth of suckling offspring.

Now we were left with the dilemma of what to do with Vanda's twins. Although the twins were pretty much totally weaned, they still needed to curl up with and hug a "Mother Figure" or surrogate. We decided to introduce them to Echo. Echo is a young well-mannered gentle female Black and White Ruffed Lemur. At three and a half years old, Echo was an idea choice.

We started out by separating Echo into a partitioned section of her large habitat. This created what we like to call a "Howdy Cage". By doing this we can effectively allow the introduced infants to interact visually and ollifactorily with Echo with out risk of injury. After hours of observing the three animals it was clear that there was no aggression between them. We released Echo and she greeted the twins with allot of sniffing. The twins however were so excited to greet Echo they immediately climbed all over her. Echo was extremely tolerant and allowed the twins full access with out much complaint.

They are all living harmoniously together now. Echo has demonstrated fantastic nurturing behaviors. I am sure this experience will benefit Echo in that it will improve her maternal instincts when she has her own offspring. If you pay close attention to the cameras in the Black and White Lemur habitat you will see for yourself how caring Echo is to the twins. By the way, we named the male infant Gizmo!


Remember, there are many ways to help the cause. Here are a few.

1) Tell everyone you know about the website. By increasing the number of visitors, we increase the awareness of the danger these wonderful creatures face.
2) If you have a website, link to us - http://www.tigerhomes.org/
3) Submit our site http://www.tigerhomes.org/ to any webcam sites you may visit.
4) Make a donation to the sanctuary. There is an area on the gift shop for those who want to contribute.
5) Purchase items from the gift shop. They make great gifts and are for a worthy cause.
6) Adopt a pet. It's a great way to virtually own one of the sanctuary animals.

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Remember, our main mission is to spread an interest in saving wild animals and wild places but we can't do it alone.

Story by: Jason and David