ANOTHER special baby has been born at Linton Zoo – this time the exciting birth is a critically endangered white-collared lemur.

Saffron Walden Reporter: The little White-collared lemur with mum HarrietThe little White-collared lemur with mum Harriet (Image: Archant)

The cute little bundle was born on March 12 to mum Harriet and dad Jeepster, also born at Linton Zoo.

Zoo owner Kim Simmons said: “The mischievous baby is now nearly five weeks old and from his colouring it’s clear he’s a boy, so now help is needed to find him a Malagasy name. It would be great if the name could reflect the significance of his very special birth, given how critically endangered this species is.”

She added that suggestions for names can be posted on Linton Zoo’s Facebook page.

“With only 14 of this critically endangered species in Europe, every single birth is incredibly important to help safeguard the future of this very special lemur. Critically endangered is a classification given to a species whose next step in the wild is extinction,” said Ms Simmons.

“Linton Zoo run the breeding programme EEP for this species and with 10 of the 14 living there, the zoo is currently the only place in the UK where you can see them. The zoo has been particularly successful with the white-collared lemur and now have enough home bred animals to be able to set up more potential breeding pairs at other reputable zoos.”

Lemurs are all native to Madagascar.

Funds are currently being raised at the zoo to provide weather stations and camera traps which will assist researchers in Madagascar to collect important environmental data. The information collected from this equipment will be fed back to the European zoos breeding lemurs to help them manage their lemur environments and captive programmes more effectively.

There are many easy ways to support this, and many other conservation projects for wildlife - visit the Linton Zoo website, lintonzoo.com for details.