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CARING >> BABY LEMUR NAMED JUNO
ANIMAL INSTINCT
A Miracle Named
Juno Abandoned Baby Lemur Beats the Odds W RIT TE N BY C A MERON COBB
A
s soon as little Juno was welcomed into the world, he began fighting for his life. Two red ruffed lemurs, Juno and his brother, were both immediately rejected by their mother after being born around midnight on June 1 at the Carson Springs Wildlife Conservation Foundation. The following morning, staff of this Gainesville animal rescue organization placed the mother and her two offspring in a small enclosure, hoping the close quarters would promote a bond to form. After doing everything they could to encourage her maternal instincts to kick in, she still refused to care for her young. Any additional time spent trying would only further compromise the newborns’ lives. “She just wouldn’t have anything to do with them, and every time they tried to come to her to nurse, she just shoved them away,” said Christine 88 |
OUR TOWN MAGAZINE
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017
Janks, president and cofounder of the foundation. “She just didn’t seem to understand [how to be a mother].” This rejection is rarely seen with primates, Janks said, but it does and did happen, giving these babies an extremely low chance of survival. After taking the responsibility of two not-even-a-day-old lemurs into their hands, staff and interns worked relentlessly. At birth, red ruffed lemurs typically weigh about 115 – 120 grams, Janks said, and should eat at least 50 percent of their body weight every day. Staff provided the baby lemurs with the only possible substitution: a one-milliliter syringe filled with infant formula. But without access to their mother’s nutrient-rich milk, Juno’s 105-gram brother passed away after 24 hours. With Juno’s birth weight of merely 100 grams now steadily declining, the odds were not in his favor. Juno’s beginning of life was a constant cycle of