No. 5: Nosy Ankao, Madagascar
A dispatch from this week's island hangout with crowned lemurs
My Morning with Lemurs
A piece of advice: If you enter into a staring contest with a crowned lemur, don’t expect to win. If you’re a sore loser I wouldn’t recommend even trying. There’s no hope of victory in this sort of matchup with the small, cuddly unblinking primates whose round caramel eyes are perhaps their most striking feature, with the exception of plush furry coats, brilliantly orange if they’re male, gray if they’re female.
I did try in vain to not blink after a tiger-orange guy and I locked eyes on Nosy Ankao this week, his gaze penetrating and alert. I wondered how long I could go, how long he could. But, of course, I failed. (Multiple times.) Over the course of an hour we spent together there were meaningful looks shared, I think. All the while I tiptoed around the dry leaf–strewn ground searching for the best angle to hoist my 400mm lens while contorting between shrubs, vines and fallen trees as he and his two-year-old lounged over my head on a throne made of sturdy parallel branches.
This year I’ve been on a bit of a primate kick, and now I’m on the 360-hectare (almost 900 acres) island of Nosy Ankao—you say nosy, which means island, like noosy—to hang out with a few translocated lemurs, one of the earliest primate species to grace this gorgeous Earth. (And here, off the northeastern coast of Madagascar, she’s particularly sensational. I wish Gauguin had made it here, he’d have a field day.) Fossils date them to about 60 million years ago, making lemurs—alongside bush babies, lorises and tarsiers—our earliest ancestors. For some context, gorillas separated from other hominids only about 10 million years ago.
Nosy Ankao is the home of these crowned lemurs not by happenstance, but as part of an active effort by Time + Tide Foundation to save them from extinction. The species, like all lemurs, are endangered—the most endangered mammal on the planet, in fact. And they’re endemic to and only exist in Madagascar, 100-plus species, with more being discovered all the time. Weirdly enough, no other primates—gorillas, monkeys, chimpanzees or any of their relatives—have ever existed on this massive island nation off Africa’s east coast. (And, another interesting fact, geologically speaking this land was more recently attached to India than to Africa!)
Time + Tide is here because of these charming creatures, and the diverse, awe-inspiring nature on and around the island. The operators of sustainably minded luxury safari properties in Zambia opened Time + Tide Miavana on Nosy Ankao in 2017, securing the fates of five lemurs that same year by carefully moving them from the high poaching area of Bekaraoka Forest. (Poaching isn’t the only danger facing lemurs, and the foundation has begun a reforestation program in the Amparihirano, planting 700 trees and educating the community about slash and burn activities). There have been three babies born on Nosy Ankao since, and they hope to bring over another eight individuals next year. Ideally these furry friends will thrive without the threats of hunting and deforestation, multiply, and eventually go back to their mainland forest.
In the meantime, though, Time + Tide Miavana is an ideal home for not only them but their distant relatives—us humans. I’m currently playing house in a villa so dreamy and design inspo-y that it seems I’ve stepped into an alternate universe. There’s lots to do on the island, but each time it’s hard to draw myself out of this colorful abode backdropped by the ocean.
The lemurs, though, are something I’ve been dying to observe for a long time, so when the time came I couldn’t wait. Johnson, my easygoing and knowledgeable Malagasy guide, and I started down a sandy path, him pointing out incredibly well camouflaged sleeping geckos that look like tree bark en route to meet the trackers, who use ATS antenna to find the two adult collared lemurs six mornings a week in order to check that they’re doing well.
Rather quickly we came upon two wide-eyed little lemurs. The female vanished, shy. The male, meanwhile, led me on a zig-zagging wild goose chase through the deciduous forest, a test, I think, of my perseverance in hanging out with him. With patience and persistence it felt like I earned his blessing.
His shining eyes really are expressive, conveying a rollercoaster of emotions—which, yes, I’m ascribing to him—that seemed to range from surprise to fear to hell-if-I-care to nervousness to boredom. He stretched out his legs on a branch, ankles crossed, sitting as if in a La-Z-Boy, looking like a little stuffed animal that suddenly came to life, startling himself as well as onlookers. Later he slumped over, bending at the waist, basically doing the yoga pose paschimottanasana, or seated forward fold. It takes a lot of flexibility, apparently not an issue for lemurs.
At other times his impossibly long tail curled around his neck like a feather boa (a ridiculously cute look). His juvenile son joined, and dad kept maniacal watch, perking up, eyes bulging, at every rustle of sound in the forest. Chin resting on a branch, he was every bit the protective parent. They groomed each other expediently, the juvenile hardly able to keep his eyes open through the activity. My adult lemur friend, however, was quite aware of me, something he made clear with his unwavering eye contact.
Back to that staring contest—there actually may be one way to win: stay quiet enough, still enough, that the lemur falls asleep. Oh, and will the cicadas not to build into one of their deafening crescendos. Descent into sleep is fast, I can confirm, especially in the hot late morning after they’ve eaten. I’m a lucky one who nods off quickly—my Whoop strap heart rate monitor tells me I usually fall asleep is less than one minute. But photos prove this lemur’s latency is a matter of seconds.
My buddy’s eyes would begin to droop into a half-open position, then one would start to close—quite literally sleeping with one eye open. Often before both were totally shut some sound would rouse him: a twig snapping, a bird cooing or the wind whispering. He’d spring to life, assess the situation, then adorably nuzzle his head back between his tail scarf and the tree.
Like people, each type of lemur has its own quirks and peculiar behaviors. Some hibernate, others dance, hopping sideways in what sounds like a hilariously entertaining show. Most are losing their habitats and sources of food. Watching these crowned lemurs was fun, but also felt important—the more people who understand what makes them special, the greater chance they have of survival. And you never know, maybe someday one will blink first.
Further reading:
Jason Statham’s Malibu beach house expresses his connection to nature