Event preview
“Island of Lemurs: Madagascar”
The IMAX film runs daily from April 4 to Aug. 14. $13 adults; $12 for students and seniors; $11 for children 12 and younger; $8 for museum members.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday: 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m.
Friday: 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m., 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.
Saturday: 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.
Sunday: 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m.
Fernbank Museum of Natural History, 767 Clifton Road N.E., Atlanta. 404-929-6300, www.fernbankmuseum.org.
To view the trailer, go to http://islandoflemurs.imax.com.
Sarah Zohdy had never even heard of Madagascar back in 2006 when she meandered to a booth about studying abroad in the island country off the eastern coast of Africa.
As she read about the vast, remote country in the Indian Ocean, her interest piqued. She became fascinated by lemurs — creatures that live in the wild only in Madagascar. Zohdy zeroed in on itsy-bitsy mouse lemurs, the tiniest primates, weighing only between 1 and 4 ounces, and small enough to fit into the palm of your hand.
“They have fascinating features like those tiny humanlike hands, those enormous endearing eyes,” Zohdy gushed in a recent interview. “I love them so much.”
While Zohdy never made it on that study-abroad trip to Madagascar (she couldn’t come up with the $30,000 for the study program), the determined young woman obtained a special fellowship to attend the University of Helsinki to study mouse lemurs and live in Madagascar just one year later. For the past eight years, Zohdy, now a post-doctorate fellow at Emory University, spends up to six months a year in Madagascar studying lemurs, ancient primates that floated to Madagascar on vegetationlike rafts 60 million years ago. They’ve evolved into more than 100 diverse species.
Beginning Friday, metro Atlantans have an opportunity to journey into the world of these playful creatures in a new IMAX film, “Island of Lemurs: Madagascar,” at the Fernbank Museum.
Viewers will watch spunky lemurs with the most strikingly beautiful and bold-colored eyes jump, dance and sing in a veritable paradise.
But the film also puts a spotlight on the threats lemurs face in one of the poorest countries in the world. Lemurs’ habitat is being threatened by the loss of their forest homes to logging, mining and “slash-and-burn” farming.
Earlier this year, a team of scientists sounded the alarm and drafted an emergency three-year protection plan for lemurs after declaring that 94 percent of lemur species are considered vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered.
The documentary follows trailblazing scientist Patricia Wright on her decades-long mission to save lemurs by creating safe living environments. Wright was the driving force behind the creation of Ranomafana National Park, a 106,000-acre site and home to many endangered species, including at least 12 lemur species
Zohdy first reached out to Wright after her study-abroad plans fell through. Zohdy wanted to study aging in mouse lemurs. While mouse lemurs in captivity turn gray and suffer from Alzheimer’s-like diseases, Zohdy wanted to find out whether the same thing happens in the wild. Wright was supportive of the idea. And Wright became her mentor.
Zohdy still remembers vividly her very first day in Madagascar back in 2007, venturing in the forest.
“There was a chance we wouldn’t see any lemurs, and we got off the bus at the research station and the researcher guided me up this walk near a waterfall and I saw this enormous lemur slide through the trees. They really fly through the forest. It was a sifaka because of this “shif-auk” call they make. … They smell like maple syrup, and it was like the smell of waffles in the forest. Lemurs are often high up in the trees, but this lemur was just about 10 feet away from me, hanging there and staring into the forest.”
Zohdy, 29, currently doing research on disease transmission among humans and lemurs and livestock, said when she flies into the country, the land is not bright with city lights but instead lit up by land-clearing fires.
“One time I went into the pristine forest and stayed there for about two weeks, and when I hiked out, I walked out on ash — most of the forest was gone,” said Zohdy, whose project has expanded to include the study of hormones and parasites in mouse lemurs.
Zohdy, who has tracked over 550 mouse lemurs, said all indications suggest mouse lemurs age very differently in the wild — and don’t suffer age-related diseases as they do in captivity. In the wild, mouse lemurs face predators including boas and owls. But they are savvy at fighting off predators. When scared, they drop their metabolic rate and roll into a ball. And when their temperature drops, snakes can’t detect them. They also hibernate for half of the year.
Zohdy, who has not yet seen the film (but plans to soon), said she tears up every time she sees the trailer.
“My main hope is to inform the general public about these incredible, incredible creatures in dire need of global attention,” she said. “I am hoping this can help put Madagascar on the map and make people aware of the situation so we can help.”
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