Recently, Wildlife Madagascar’s Creative Director, Akane Hatai, traveled to Madagascar to see this remarkable place firsthand. During her whirlwind eight-day adventure in Madagascar’s lush La Mananara rainforest, she recorded her experiences for this first-person, behind-the-scenes look at life at the field station.
The First Lemur Spotting
With our guide Princi and research student Joany Tsiory Nambinina, my dear friend and Wildlife Madagascar Executive Director, Debra Erickson, and I set off walking through the rainforest for about 1.5 hours. The terrain was slippery, and I definitely fell in the mud a few times. As we moved through the dense forest, we heard excited noises coming from other guides and research students nearby so we knew we were close!
And then—there it was! My very first wild lemur sighting: a diademed sifaka (Propithecus diadema). These giant, fluffy creatures with long, bushy tails looked almost unreal, like something from a dream. I couldn’t believe my eyes. When I spotted two of them together in the trees, the emotions hit me all at once—I started crying with happiness and relief. It was such a powerful, overwhelming moment after the build-up and anticipation!
It turns out there were three sifakas, and we followed them through the forest as they moved up and down the mountain, hopping through the trees with incredible agility. They were very high up, and strong winds blew through the canopy while clouds shifted around us. The conditions weren’t ideal—the wind and glare made it hard to get good footage—but it was exhilarating to photograph lemurs in their natural habitat for the first time.
On our way back to camp, Debra and I got very excited spotting a large worm—it was surprisingly big, and seeing it felt like a rare treat. We also saw some Madagascar day geckos, their bright colors catching our attention. But THEN we encountered some invasive plants (silverleaf desmodium) that I had just recently created a poster about for awareness, so that was exciting! We made Princi pull some out for a photo, which seemed harder than it looks, which made the whole experience quite hilarious.
mort
There were three student researchers from the Goodman’s mouse lemur (Microcebus lehilahytsara) (AKA MORT FROM MADAGASCAR THE MOVIE) team, Hanitriniaina Raharinirina, Gaetan, and Tanjona, who had traps out in the field to monitor the mouse lemurs in La Mananara. They would bring them back in the morning and see what was in the traps. Because of this, I was so lucky to see a little Mort up close! They had the big eyes like Mort from the movie and were super cute! The guys would measure everything from the ears to the length of the tail, etc., and the lemurs have sharp teeth, so they needed thick gloves to hold onto them. Also in the traps were native Madagascar rats that live in the rainforest, so they’d measure those guys and record them as well. They also caught invasive black rats, which wasn’t as fun since they are a pest. It was cool seeing how gentle and precise the students were with their measuring of the little lemurs, and to think we would get to release them into the wild at night was so exciting!
So after dinner, I went with the students to release Mort back into the forest. He was oh-so-very cute! The students all started calling the mouse lemurs Mort, so it was good for me to know when they’d found more wild Mort in the dark. We went into the forest, and using head torches and spotlights, we found a good tree for our little Mort to be released. I was lucky I got a photo before he darted off so very quickly up the tree!
I also was not anticipating seeing all the reptiles! We had Princi with us again as our guide, and wow, I swear his eyes are actually binoculars. These guides are just so impressive, they know the forest so incredibly well, and I just couldn’t get over how knowledgeable they were. So with their help, I saw many chameleons and geckos, a few teeny frogs, spiders, and a weird caterpillar. We were determined to find the big nocturnal woolly lemurs, which paid off as we managed to find two in a tree on our way back to camp. They were huddled up high in a tree (what a surprise), so unfortunately, no photos to prove I saw them!
The Singing Lemur & a baby
The next day we were heading out to look for indri (Indri indri), the cute bear-looking lemurs that are known for their singing. It was me, Joany, and Princi together again, off into the forest. I was starting to get my bearings a bit more, now that I’d been into the forest twice already. We walked for about 1.5 hours, then we saw the indri! Two of them! They were jumping and leaping just like the sifaka yesterday, which I just love to watch. I was told that one of the students had seen that the indri had a baby only yesterday, so we were all very keen to catch a glimpse of the wee little one.
We ended up following the indri around, bush bashing for about five hours, while they leapt and bounced from tree to tree, nibbling, grooming, resting. I happened to be shooting video when they decided to groom each other! I was so excited to have captured that moment. The video is below!
We eventually saw the baby, THE FACE AND FOOT! I got a terrible photo of it, but after the hours of searching, I’m pretty happy I even got a photo, no matter how imperfect. To see that a Critically Endangered species like this one with a baby is so amazing.
It shows that we are making progress and helping with the wildlife here in Madagascar.
Look for Part 2 of Akane’s blog, coming soon!