Spring has seen a baby boom at Woburn Safari Park and the keepers are asking for the public’s help to come up with a name for their new lemur arrival.
Woburn’s loveable new faces include little red-necked wallabies, two addax antelope babies, two eland antelope calves and two adorable ring-tailed lemur babies.
Members of the public are invited to suggest a name for a new male lemur, via an online competition.
Participants have until May 7 to enter, by clicking here
The winner will receive a VIP Experience for up to four people to go behind-the-scenes with a keeper to meet the lemurs up-close in their enclosure.
Born to 10-year old mother, Kirindy, and 7-year old father, Berenti, in March, the little one weighed the equivalent of a golf ball (approximately 30 grams) at birth, and now resides with his family in the walk-through Land of the Lemurs enclosure.
His half-sister was born to 9-year old mother Sambava just a few days later. The park’s lemurs all have Malagasy names, which is the national language of the species’ native Madagascar.
Animal Keeper, Louise Moody, said: “It‘s great to see so many new arrivals at Woburn this spring and I cannot wait to see the names that the public come up with for our new baby lemur. You can see how proud Kirindy is, and she loves to show him off to visitors coming through their walk-through enclosure each day. Ring-tailed lemurs are really sociable, so we’ll see the whole troop play a role in bringing up the babies.”
Keepers have also welcomed two beautiful female addax calves within days of each other. 3-year old addax female, Amelie, gave birth to a male on a March afternoon and keepers were overjoyed when they arrived at work to discover that 4-year old female, Forest, had also given birth to a female calf just a couple of days later.
Native to the Sahara Desert, addax are a critically endangered species and there are thought to be less than 300 individuals left in the wild.
Two female elands have been blessed with babies too, as 5-year old mother Nickie gave birth to a female calf just over a week before 4-year old mother Nacky delivered a healthy boy in April in the African Savannah drive-through reserve.
There have also been lots of new babies in the Foot Safari’s Australian Walkabout enclosure, home to red-necked wallabies and greater rhea. Some of the new 'Joeys' are still very small and hairless and families can often spot them with their little faces peeking out of their mother's pouches.
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