Students Mark the Passing of Titus, the last Golden-crowned sifaka in captivity

Mr. Michael Jeffreys, Ms. Bekah O'Connor and and the second grade class at Snipes Academy of Arts and Design in Wilmington, NC turned the passing of Titus, the final golden-crowned sifaka in captivity into an opportunity to learn about lemurs, Madagascar, endangered species, and about kindness and compassion.
Every morning, Mr. Jeffreys gets up and reads the News and Observer online for articles to share with his students. When he saw the article about Titus dying of cancer at age 25 (quite elderly for a lemur,) he decided to project the article for his class to view. Mr. Jeffreys said, "They were all quite interested. We turned the passing of Titus into a learning experience. They will forever put Madagascar and Titus together. - - - We are all more educated now because of Titus."
The second grade class at Snipes Academy learned that lemurs only natural habitat is Madagascar, an island off the coast of Africa. They learned that golden-crowned sifaka's habitat is even smaller, and that the tiny habitat and the precious lemurs that live there are in grave danger.

They also learned that there are lots of people who care - people in Madagascar and people at the Duke Lemur Center and people like them - second graders in Wilmington, NC, who care about each species and each individual animal.

They learned an equally important lesson: what they do matters. They recognized that the people, who cared for Titus for 15 of his 25 years, were deeply saddened by his passing. They recognized that the staff at the Duke Lemur Center was sad because the last golden-crowned sifaka in captivity was gone, but also because an animal they knew well and had cared for daily had passed away. So these seven and eight year olds took action. They designed beautiful hand-made cards for the staff and sent them to comfort the people who had cared for Titus. The students' thoughtfulness brightened the day for the Duke Lemur Center staff.

Here is a sampling of quotes from the second graders at Snipes Academy:
Dear Lemur Center Staff, Sorry Titus passed away, but you can keep taking care of the other animals. We know you tried to take care of him. We will pray for him. - - -
Takya


I am so sorry that your lemur passed away. It was really cute, and you did a good job trying to help him. He was a nice little lemur. I would have cried too. - -
Tynisna

I know you loved him for 15 years. We went to the website and read it, and it was sad. We know they live in Madagascar. I know he didn't eat all his food because he was sick. I hope the other lemurs are healthy. And I know Titus loved getting his arm scratched.
No signature

I am so sorry about Titus. I will pray. I might adopt one. Please write us.
Jaylyn
(We did write and the Red-ruffed lemurs sent an original work of art!)

Sazoria summed up all our feelings with these words:
I love you, Titus. I miss you, Titus. I am so sorry that you passed away.

The staff at the Duke Lemur Center was deeply moved by the caring and compassion of the students in Mr. Jeffreys' class. Thank you, Mr. Jeffreys, Ms. O'Connor, and all you wise and wonderful students in the second grade at Snipes Academy!

Duke Lemur Center Remembers: How Titus Came to the Lemur Center

Duke Lemur Center's Charlie Welch and some of his co-workers and friends in Madagascar

In 1987 my wife, Andrea, and I first went to Madagascar together to do a month long feasibility study to explore the potential of the Forestry Station site of Ivoloina as a conservation and captive breeding center. Before we left Madagascar that year, we accompanied Dr. Elwyn Simons on the first capture mission of the golden-crowned sifaka. The passing of Titus, hence the passing of that species as a whole in captivity, has brought to memory some of the details of that capture mission.

We first flew to Diego Saurez at the northern tip of Madagascar, as it was virtually impossible to get there over land in those days. After several days of mission preparations in Diego, we started southward with a four-wheel-drive vehicle and driver which we had rented (negotiated.) At Ambilobe, we left the paved road and went eastward on a dirt road - the main road to the coast. As we hurtled along at manic speed, the rust-colored road dust rooster-tailed over the back of the pick-up truck and settled onto our guide and me. We traveled for hours nestled in amongst our gear with heads tucked in and cloth over our faces. Andrea and Elwyn were squeezed into the cab with the driver.

Finally, after dark we arrived at the village of Daraina, which was near forests where the golden-crowned sifaka had been sighted. The appropriate village authorities were apprised of our mission, and as is the custom in rural Madagascar, we were kindly given a hut (which even has foam mattresses!)to sleep in. The next morning after arranging for a local guide, who turned out to be the village president, we were off on foot across the hills of knee high grass and eventually arrived at broken patches of forest. The forest in this part of Madagascar is deciduous dry, such that when we were there the leaves were off most of the trees. That fact, combined with the low canopy and gently hilly terrain made for ideal lemur capture conditions. The golden-crowned sifaka were easy to spot as per Andrea's description that from a distance they appeared as large white flowers scattered among the branches of the leafless trees. As our additional good luck would have it, they were quite tame, as the locals did not hunt, trap, or bother them at all. We had soon captured the two pair that we were hoping for.

As the previous blog entry mentioned, we originally thought that the lemurs which we were seeking were of the species Propithecus diadema candidus. We were surprised at how different they looked fro the photos that we had seen of P.d.candidus, and from the beginning Elwyn suspected that they were indeed a new and different species.

Our fortune was not all good as the rains came early starting that day of capture and fell steadily for that entire day. The poor village president, who had accompanied us, was shivering violently after hours of being soaked but insisted on staying with us till the end. As we walked back to the village with the lemurs in crates lashed to poles and carried on our shoulders, we suddenly realized that the tiny streams that we had stepped over on the way out had turned into raging torrents that at times came up to our waists, as we carefully crossed! The walk back to the village took hours longer than getting in.

Our next concern was getting back over what had been dusty road but was now knee deep mud in places. We could see other trucks stuck up and down the road near the village. As we waited a day for the road to dry, Elwyn spent much of the time surrounding the bizarrely calm wild-caught lemurs with every sort of food choice available. The lemurs picked and ate at selected items. We were able to leave the following day, and though the roads were very bad in places and often required maneuvering around mired vehicles, we eventually made it back to Ambilobe and Diego. From Diego, we flew back with the lemurs to Tana and a day later back to the US and the (then ) Duke Primate Center (now called the Duke Lemur Center.)

We had high hopes that the two pair would form that start-up nucleus of a future reproducing population of golden-crowned sifaka in captivity, as has been the beginning of many of the other lemur species at the Duke Lemur Center. Unfortunately, despite massive efforts on the part of the Lemur Center staff over the years, it was not meant to be. They simply proved to be a very delicate and difficult species in captivity.

The good news is that the discovery that the golden-crowned sifaka was indeed a new and separate species of Propithecus immediately focused the attention of conservation organizations on the species and its plight in the Daraina area. As it turned out, the range of the species is extremely small, making it one of the most endangered on the island. The result of the focus has been the creation of a protected area, with the conservation NGO Fanamby working at the site. This development has probably been critical to the survival of the golden-crowns, as the region of Daraina has in recent years drawn more people and activity due to gold deposits in the area. And of course, when as area is designated as protected, that benefits the full array of flora and fauna that exists there - not just one lemur species. In this case, the golden-crowned sifaka can be considered a true flagship species.

Conservation can work in circuitous ways, and I think that the golden-crowned sifaka is a classic example. In the end, it is important to keep the large picture in our field of view. The golden-crowns may not have worked out as a species suitable to captivity, but we can rest assured now that the species will continue to exist in its native forests. That is important. Thanks, Titus.

Post by Charlie Welch, Duke Lemur Center's Conservation Manager
If you would like to support the work done at the Duke Lemur Center, click here.

Titus - His Story

Photo and post by David Haring, DLC Registrar and Photographer

The Duke Lemur Center is saddened to announce the death of Titus, an approximately 25-year-old, wild-caught male golden-crowned sifaka (Propithecus tattersalli) from cancer. At the time of his death, Titus was the only reported golden-crowned sifaka in captivity anywhere in the world, and he was the last of the ten golden-crowned sifakas imported from Madagascar by the Lemur Center in the 1980s and 90s (two pairs were imported in November 1987, two pairs were imported in July, 1988, and one pair (including Titus) was imported in July 1993.

The golden-crowned sifaka was first discovered by western scientists in 1974 when Ian Tattersall photographed and described it in Northern Madagascar, thinking at the time that it was a subspecies of Propithecus diadema. When the Lemur Center first imported two pairs in 1987, they were still thought to be a subspecies of P. diadema, but Duke Lemur Center Director Elwyn Simons made the astonishing discovery that the golden-crowned sifaka was an entirely new species, and he named it after Ian Tattersal in a paper introducing it to the scientific world in 1988.

Of the ten wild-caughts imported, six died after less than one year in captivity. The four animals which survived longer than one year lived for five, six, fifteen (Titus) and eighteen (Agrippa) years. One of the wild-caught females was pregnant when imported and her infant, who had to be hand-raised, lived for three years. Three infants were born from the captive conceptions, two of these survived less than a year, but one (Valens) survived for nine years.

At one point, the golden-crowned sifaka was classified as one of the top twenty five most endangered primates in the world and considered to be one of the most endangered of all the lemurs, due to the animals' very small home range and the fact that this range was totally unprotected and highly vulnerable to slash and burn by local villagers and gold miners. The current conservation status of the golden-crowned sifaka is much more secure thanks to the establishment of a 20,000 ha reserve through the efforts of Conservation International and a Malagasy non-governmental organization, Association Fanamby. Ten percent of this area is protected.

In a sad twist of fate, it was thought that the female that Titus had been imported into the country with, Mesillina, might be closely related to him, so she (the only female in captivity) was taken from Titus and paired with another male, Agrippa. Poor Titus was left to live by himself. Although we originally had permits to import two more pairs of golden-crowned sifakas from Madagascar, this never happened, so Titus never had a prayer of being paired with a female golden-crowned sifaka.

However, he did have a few blissful months living with a Coquerel's sifaka female, Drusilla and a Diademed sifaka male, Romeo. He was successfully introduced to this odd couple in January 1995, and this spectacular mixed species group (representing all three of the recognized species of sifaka) lived together until August 1996, when Drusilla became unexpectedly aggressive towards Romeo. After Drusilla was removed, Romeo and Titus continued to live as a mixed species bachelor pair until January 2002, when they started squabbling. Fearing escalating aggression between the two males, they were separated, and Titus (and Romeo) lived the rest of their days alone.

There were several more attempts to introduce Titus to other species of lemurs so he would not have to live a solitary life, including an attempt in March 2004 to introduce him to a neighboring pair of mongoose lemurs, an attempt in December 2005 to introduce him to a male red-fronted lemur, and an attempt in January 2006 to introduce him to another golden-crowned sifaka male (Valens.) Alas, all these introductions ended in failure.

However, through all his years of living alone, Titus had many human admirers. Single animals get a lot of attention here, especially if they are as needy, as friendly, and as charming toward human attention as Titus was. Technicians would drop by his cage continually during the day to offer him a head scratch or a small treat. He never lacked for company!

In January 2008, a mass was discovered in Titus's abdomen; he went into surgery 31 January, 2008 and a large mass the size of a racquetball was removed from his abdomen. He recovered nicely and lived peacefully for almost a year in a large outdoor cage visited daily by a constant stream of friends, admirers, and well wishers.

If you would like to support the work done at the Duke Lemur Center, click here.

To read about Titus in the News and Observer, click here.