Skip to content

Open your eyes for Loris awareness week

By on September 19, 2012 in EDGE Updates, Mammals, Slender loris

You may not be aware that we are currently in the midst of loris awareness week (Https://www.nocturama.org/its-loris-awareness-week/), an event that is being promoted by the Little Fireface Project to protect all eight slow loris and the two slender loris species. This is the first international week dedicated to the conservation of the Asian lorises and increasing awareness about this rare and amazing group of primates.

The Nocturnal Primate Research Group of Oxford Brookes University has been undertaking some pioneering research and conservation work on slow lorises (www.nprg.org) and through the Little Fireface Project they are now harnessing the power of social media to magnify public knowledge about the lorises. Visit their project to learn more about slow lorises, their venom, conservation and the illegal pet trade!

Meantime, ZSL (and our Sri Lanka partners) have been promoting the conservation of slender lorises. The team is currently busy with tree planting and public awareness events in the montane regions, aimed at reconnecting fragmented montane forest areas, to improve the survival prospects of the Horton Plains slender loris, a sub-species unique to this area of Sri Lanka.

Whilst there are many parallels in the conservation challenges for both slow and slender lorises, they equally have their own needs, when you consider their unique geographic, political and economic environments. In order to begin to address these challenges (at least for one of the species), ZSL and partners will soon be publishing a Species Conservation Strategy for the red slender loris in Sri Lanka. Watch this space for further details…