On Christmas Eve we had a ship holiday and visited the local lemur zoo with some friends - Tracy, Stacie, Davi and Roses. We were also blessed to have a local crew member - Charlie from the dental team - who works as a guide at the lemur zoo escort us. The boys loved him, especially Harry and Mark.
Some of the lemurs are in cages, some are wild but live in the park. There were all different varieties and the boys got to hand feed a couple of the wild ones.
There were also many radiated tortoises and spider tortoises. These are not native to the east coast of Madagascar and are animals that have been intercepted whilst being illegally exported. And of course there were chameleons which we got to let walk all over us.
After checking out all the animals we went for a walk to the small waterfall and had an impromptu swim which was very refreshing and great fun.
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| Lake at lemur zoo |
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| Jack feeding a wild lemur |
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| Stacie with chameleon |
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| Charlie showing the boys the tortoises |
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| Mark with a chameleon |
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| Mark checking out a tortoise |
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| Mick with the chameleon |
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| Jack with the chameleon on his head |
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| Mark |
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| Charlie helping Harry into the waterhole |
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| Charlie, Harry and Mark |
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| Charlie, Harry and Mark |
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| Mark and Harry showing off their balancing skills |
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| Mark with a six pack |
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| Mick cooling off |
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| I can fly |
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| Mick rode there and back |
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| What you missed this morning... |
While some animals were born in the forest, most of the animals at Parc Ivoloina were donated, exchanged with other zoos, born outside the wild, or seized by the Malagasy government from illegal operations. Parc Ivoloina has never been involved in animal sales or trafficking.
