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AnthrozoösA multidisciplinary journal of the interactions of people and animals

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Motivations for the Ownership of Captive Lemursin Madagascar

Kim E. Reuter & Melissa S. Schaefer

To cite this article: Kim E. Reuter & Melissa S. Schaefer (2017) Motivations for the Ownership ofCaptive Lemurs in Madagascar, Anthrozoös, 30:1, 33-46, DOI: 10.1080/08927936.2017.1270589

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08927936.2017.1270589

Published online: 09 Feb 2017.

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ANTHROZOÖS VOLUME 30, ISSUE 1 REPRINTS AVAILABLE PHOTOCOPYING © ISAZ 2017PP. 33–46 DIRECTLY FROM PERMITTED PRINTED IN THE UK

THE PUBLISHERS BY LICENSE ONLY

Address for correspondence:Kim Reuter,

Hardy Office Park, Africa Field Division,

Conservation International,Nairobi, 00502, Kenya.

E-mail:kimeleanorreuter@gmail.com

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Motivations for the Ownership of Captive Lemursin MadagascarKim E. Reuter* and Melissa S. Schaefer†

*Africa Field Division, Conservation International, Nairobi, Kenya†Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City,Utah, USA

ABSTRACT The live capture of primates is occurring throughout the tropicsand can be a threat to their conservation. Primates are owned as pets for avariety of reasons. Studies of the motivations for primate ownership havebeen conducted in several countries where they are endemic, but no studyhas examined this issue in Madagascar. Madagascar is home to the highestnumber of threatened primate taxa in any one country, and an estimated28,000 lemurs were kept in illegal captivity from 2010 to mid-2013. We aimedto expand knowledge about the motivations of lemur ownership in Mada-gascar. Data were collected via a web-based survey (n = 229 respondents)and from the websites and social media pages of 25 hotels. We found thatmany lemurs (45%) were seen on the premises of a business or in a privatehome (27%). Many lemurs were perceived to be kept as personal pets (37%)or for money-making or tourism purposes (20%). When lemurs were used formoney-making, owners could receive indirect (72% of the time) and directbenefits (28%). Hotels showing photographs of captive lemurs on their websites and social media sites charged USD 25.69 more per night for astandard room than hotels that did not show such photographs. We foundlittle evidence that captive lemurs are kept as a social status symbol, for cap-tive breeding, or as a fallback food. These findings provide evidence that themotivations for the ownership of, usually illegal, captive lemurs is typicallylinked with money-making or with the desire to have a lemur as a pet. Thesedata can help target new outreach programs.

Keywords: captivity, Madagascar, lemurs, pets, primate, trade

The live capture of primates is occurring throughout the tropics(Nijman, Nekaris, Donati, Bruford, & Fa, 2011) and can be athreat to their conservation (e.g., Schwitzer et al., 2014). Live

capture may affect up to 40,000 primates annually (Karesh, Cook, Bennett, & Newcomb, 2005) many of which are sourced from the wild(Bush, Baker, & Macdonald 2014; Harrington, 2015). These primates are

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extracted for both personal and commercial reasons (Bush et al., 2014; Harrington, 2015), including: 1) as indicators of wealth or social status (Duarte-Quiroga & Estrada, 2003; Malone,Fuentes, Purnama, & Putra, 2003; Shanee, 2012; Shepherd, Sukumaran, & Wich, 2005;Svensson & Friant, 2014); 2) when they are considered aesthetically pleasing, humorous, oramusing (Duarte-Quiroga & Estrada, 2003; Peterson, 2012); 3) as family pets for children(Duarte-Quiroga & Estrada, 2003; Svensson & Friant, 2014); 4) for religious reasons (Jones-Engel, Schillaci, Engel, Paputungan, & Froehlich, 2005); and 5) as tourist attractions (Shanee,2012; Svensson & Friant, 2014). Studies of the motivations for primate ownership have beenconducted in several countries where they are endemic (e.g., Mexico, Duarte-Quiroga &Estrada, 2003; Indonesia, Jones-Engel et al., 2005; Nigeria, Svensson & Friant, 2014), but nostudy has examined this issue in Madagascar.

Madagascar is home to the highest number of threatened primate taxa in any one countryand has primate endemism at family, genera, and species levels (Mittermeier et al., 2010; Myers,Mittermeier, Mittermeier, Fonesca, & Kent, 2000). Although it is illegal to own, capture, sell, andtrade lemurs (illegal captive lemurs can be confiscated and owners can be fined, Ordonnanceno 60-128 1962), an estimated 28,000 individuals were kept in illegal captivity from 2010 to mid-2013 (Reuter, Gilles, Wills, & Sewall, 2016). Only three studies have examined the issue ofcaptive lemurs in Madagascar. These studies found that lemur ownership was widespread andaffected a variety of taxa (Reuter et al., 2016a), though some species were disproportionatelyaffected (e.g., Lemur catta, (Reuter & Schaefer, 2016a)). In addition, the studies found that cap-tive lemurs were often fed foods inconsistent with their natural diets (e.g., rice), kept in restrictedconditions that do not meet the minimum best practices for primate captivity, and were oftendescribed as being in bad health (Reuter & Schaefer, 2016b).

Data regarding the motivations for lemur ownership in Madagascar are anecdotal. Thethree published studies did not explicitly examine the motivations for ownership, thoughReuter et al. (2016a) confirmed that lemurs are kept in captivity both by individuals as pets,as well as by hotels potentially to attract tourists. Lemurs in the Union of the Comoros havebeen used as photographic props for tourists in the past (Clark, 1997), and 15% of hotelwebsites or social media pages in Madagascar feature photos of captive lemurs on them(Reuter & Schaefer, 2016a). In addition, lemur owners interviewed in Reuter et al. (2016a)sometimes described captive lemurs in positive and/or sentimental terms (similar to ownersin Mexico) (Duarte-Quiroga & Estrada, 2003). There was no evidence that social status influ-ences lemur ownership as ownership was not limited to foreigners or to wealthier individuals(Reuter et al., 2016a), though this may have been the case in the Union of the Comoros inthe past (the only other country aside from Madagascar where lemurs can be found in thewild) (Tattersall, 1998). There may be other motivating factors for captive lemur ownership. Forexample, Zinner, Ostner, Dill, Razafimanatsoa, and Rasoloarison (2001) hypothesized thatlemurs might be kept alive as a fallback food for local communities in food insecure areas,though no evidence of this was found in any of the captive lemur studies (Reuter et al., 2016a;Reuter & Schaefer, 2016a, 2016b).

Understanding the motivations for lemur ownership in Madagascar is critical for outreachand management efforts for several reasons. First, it is interesting that some captive lemurshave been hypothesized to be kept as a fallback food source (Zinner et al., 2001); an in-creased understanding of whether this is true or not is important not just for conservation ef-forts but also for understanding the ownership of primates more broadly. Second, it is critical

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to understand the motivations of primate ownership in Madagascar, given the Endangeredstatus of lemurs, so that outreach campaigns can be appropriately targeted. In the Union ofthe Comoros, for example, outreach to expatriate communities was successful in decreas-ing the prevalence of illegal captive lemur ownership (Tattersall, 1998). More recently, manylemurs seem to be kept in illegal captivity by businesses as photo props for tourists, but atthe same time, businesses owning captive lemurs have also been identified as a potential avenue for improved conservation of lemurs in the country (Reuter et al., 2016a; Schwitzeret al., 2013).

We aimed to expand knowledge about the motivations of lemur ownership in Madagascar(Figure 1). Specifically, and based on prior anecdotal reports, we hypothesized that petlemurs would be found in both businesses and private residences and that the motivationsfor keeping lemurs are varied, but likely involve direct and indirect economic benefit such asattracting tourists.

MethodsData were collected from January to June 2015 from two sources: 1) the research and generalcommunity via a web-based survey; and 2) from the websites and social media profiles of hotels in Madagascar.

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Figure 1. Photos illustrating some of the different motivations for lemur ownership, including:(1A) Lemur catta at a beach-side hotel wearing a decorative necklace (indirect benefits werereceived by the hotel); (1B) Eulemur sp. owned for companionship purposes; (1C) L. catta (juvenile) being used as a tourist attraction on a beach (direct benefits received by owner).

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Ethical Research StatementInternational standards of research ethics were followed and research protocols were reviewedand approved by an ethics oversight committee (University of Utah Institutional Review Board,IRB 00079146). All researchers completed ethics training through the Collaborative Institu-tional Training Initiative. This research did not involve work on animals. All laws relevant to thesurvey of adult populations were followed.

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Table 1. Survey questions and possible responses. The survey was preceded by an explanation of the study and an informed consent statement.

Questions Possible Responses

Did you see a captive, pet, or domestic lemur(s) while in Madagascar? Yes/no.

How many individual lemurs did you see? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6–10, 11+.

In what type of environment did you see the lemur? No answer; Restaurant; Hotel/(Instructions: pick the location that best matches where you saw the lemur. Resort; In a business that was not aProvide additional details, if necessary, in the comment box (at the end of the restaurant, hotel, or resort; In some-survey). one’s house; On the street; Other;If you picked “Other,” please provide more details. I don’t know.

Did the pet lemur serve a purpose? No answer; No, it did not serve a purpose; I don’t know; Money- making/tourism; A personal pet; Keptalive before eating for food; Other.

If the lemur was used for money-making and tourism purposes, can you Free response.describe how much money was being charged for people to interact with the lemur or other ways in which the owner was benefiting monetarily from having a pet lemur?

What month and year did you see the lemur? Free response.

Where did you see the lemur? (e.g. town, province, national park, etc.) Free response.(Instructions: Provide as many details as you can! If you don’t remember the name of the city/town, you are welcome to provide other useful locational data. For example, if you remember that you saw the lemur while visiting the Ranomafana National Park, you can just list that park without listing the exact town/village.)

What was the lemur called and/or what species was the lemur? Scientific Free response.and common names are welcome!

Can you provide any pictures or video of the lemur? File upload.

What type of captive environment was the lemur kept in? Free response.(Instructions: Any details you can provide about the captive environment of the lemur would be appreciated. For example, was the lemur restrained? How? What sort of food was the lemur fed? Was it kept in a cage?)

Why were you in Madagascar? No answer; Tourism; Research; Business; School/Studies; I live in Madagascar; Other.

How long did you stay in Madagascar? No answer; Less than one month; 1–3 months; 3–12 months; more than one year; I am Malagasy and have spent most of my life in Madagascar.

Other comments Free response.

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Definition of a Captive LemurWe aimed to examine a range of domestic, captive, and pet ownership settings where lemurshad been removed from their natural habitats, relied almost exclusively on humans for food,or where it was apparent that a human “owned” the lemur (referred to as “captive lemurs”). Wedid not provide survey participants with a definition for a captive lemur so as to solicit a widerange of responses.

Web-based SurveyData were collected from the public via a web-based survey following methods detailed inReuter and Schaefer (2016a). The survey contained 14 questions (Table 1). Surveys were available in English and French and were designed to take less than 5 minutes to complete. Respondents were free to leave any question unanswered. Due to the sensitive nature of thequestionnaire, no socioeconomic information was collected from respondents.

Recruitment of survey participants is detailed in Reuter and Schaefer (2016a, 2016b). Directemail recruitment was used to recruit researchers and conservation managers into the project.In total, 1,142 researchers were emailed regarding the survey. Efforts were made to contactresearchers who had worked across Madagascar to decrease geographic bias. In addition,listservs (e.g., Ecolog Listserv; Peace Corps alumni forums) and social media outreach wereused to collect data from the public (Facebook Groups and Pages such as theGroupe de Recherche sur Madagascar and the Lemur Conservation Network; Twitter).

Websites and Social Media Profiles of Hotels and RestaurantsWe viewed the websites and social media profiles of 171 hotels (in 33 towns across 16 regions)across Madagascar (January–March 2015). Candidate hotels and restaurants were foundusing multiple search methods (Reuter & Schaefer, 2016a, 2016b) on social media sites (Facebook, Twitter) and hotel booking websites (Expedia and TripAdvisor). We also included11 hotels/resorts with websites or social media pages where respondents to the web-basedsurvey had seen captive lemurs. From these websites and social media profiles, we recordedwhether images of captive lemurs were shown and the published nightly cost of one standardroom (as published on the hotel website).

AnalysisIn analyses, individuals were treated as replicates unless otherwise noted. We used individu-als as replicates in most cases because: 1) survey respondents did not provide informationevenly across different regions or evenly across different species, limiting the use of regions orspecies as replicates; and 2) the sample size for the numbers of lemurs observed on the websites and social media sites of hotels was small (n = 55 lemurs). Means are presentedwith 95% confidence intervals.

Pearson chi-squared tests were used to test: 1) whether the proportion of respondentswho saw captive lemurs in a business, in someone’s home, and in other environments differedby region; 2) whether respondent type (respondents living in Madagascar, visiting Madagas-car as tourists, doing research in Madagascar, or visiting Madagascar for other reasons) af-fected the proportion of respondents who had seen lemurs in a hotel/resort or in a person’shome; 3) whether the proportion of respondents who perceived lemurs to be a personal petdiffered by the environments in which they were seen (e.g., in someone’s home, in a business,or in other environments); and 4) whether respondent type affected the proportion of

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respondents who felt that the purpose for keeping the lemur in captivity was for money- making/tourism or because the lemur was a personal pet. A Wilcoxon Test was used to testwhether the price of a hotel room differed depending on whether or not a hotel featured acaptive lemur on its website/social media sites or not. For analyses, prices of hotel roomswere converted to US Dollars (USD) (usually from Euros and Malagasy Ariary) based on exchange rates from January 2015 (United Nations Treasury, 2015).

As detailed in Reuter and Schaefer (2016a, 2016b), it is likely that some double-countingoccurred (i.e., more than one respondent reporting on the same captive lemur). However, of302 captive lemur sightings only three records involved reports of the same species of lemurat the same location (e.g., at the same hotel), but none of these three sightings occurred inthe same year. In all cases where double-counting could have occurred, there was notenough information to conclude with certainty that the same lemur was recorded twice in ourdataset. Therefore, we did not delete these records from our dataset and did not otherwisecompensate for double-counting.

ResultsParameters of the DatasetWeb-based Survey: Data were collected from 229 respondents (199 unique IP addressed, ~30submissions via e-mail) who provided information regarding 302 sightings of captive lemurs inMadagascar. Survey respondents were generally individuals who had seen other people owncaptive lemurs and not individuals who owned captive lemurs. Many (40%) surveys were completed by researchers (not typically residents of Madagascar), 28% were completed bypeople living in Madagascar, and the remaining were completed by tourists, business travelers,and foreign exchange students.

Hotels and Restaurants: The hotels (25 of 171) showed images of 55 captive lemurs on theirwebsites or social media pages. Lemurs at the same hotel were identified as being differentindividuals when they were of different species and/or when multiple individuals of the samespecies were featured in one photograph.

Types of OwnersOf the 302 records of captive lemurs submitted via the web-based survey, most (45%) re-ported lemurs on the premises of a business (32% were seen in hotels; 10% in restaurants;2% in businesses that were not restaurants or hotels) (Figure 2). The proportion of respondents

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Figure 2. Types of locations where captive lemurs were reported.

Hotel

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25%

20%

15%

10%

5%

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Types of Locations

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OtherBusinesses

PrivateHomes

OnStreet

NoResponse

Other (e.g.beach, airplane)

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who reported seeing captive lemurs in different types of environments differed by region (dataaggregated to: business, in someone’s home, and other; �2 = 51.359, df = 36, p = 0.0466,excluding regions with sample sizes of less than 5; Table 2). The proportion of individuals whoreported seeing captive lemurs in hotels/resorts or in a person’s home did not differ by respondent type (�2 = 3.887, df = 3, p = 0.2739; �2 = 5.035, df = 3, p = 0.1692, respectively).

Observed Reasons for CaptivityWeb-based survey respondents most commonly perceived lemurs to be kept in captivity asa personal pet (37 out of 302 records) or for money-making or tourism purposes (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Motivations for captive lemur ownership as reported by survey respondents.

Table 2. Types of owners by region.

Region Sample Size Hotel (%) Restaurant (%) Private Home (%) Other (%)

Alaotra-Mangoro 16 50 13 13 25

Amoron’I Mania 1 0 0 100 0

Analamanga 17 24 12 41 23

Analanjirofo 21 76 5 5 14

Anosy 21 29 19 48 5

Atsimo-Andrefana 55 53 7 18 22

Atsimo-Atsinanana 1 0 100 0 0

Atsinanana 15 20 20 13 47

Boeny 10 30 0 40 30

Diana 26 35 19 19 27

Haute Matsiatra 6 0 17 50 33

Ihorombe 1 0 0 0 100

Itasy 2 100 0 0 0

Melaky 3 0 33 67 0

Menabe 3 33 33 0 33

Sava 15 20 7 53 20

Sofia 7 57 14 29 0

Vakinankaratra 2 50 0 50 0

Vatovavy-Fitovinany 6 33 33 17 17

Other

40%

35%

30%

25%

20%

15%

10%

5%

0%Personal Pet Money Making/Tourism No Response/Unknown

Perceived Motivations

Per

cent

ages

of

Res

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Lemurs seen in someone’s house were more likely to be perceived by survey respondents asbeing a personal pet, compared with businesses or other environments (73% of respondentsout of 83; �2 = 50.839, df = 2, p < 0.0001). Likewise, lemurs seen in businesses were morelikely to be perceived as being kept for money-making purposes than lemurs seen in other situations (27% of the time in businesses compared with 13% in other scenarios such as inprivate homes, �2 = 10.585, df = 1, p = 0.0011). However, there were many business estab-lishments where respondents reported that lemurs were actually personal pets (37% of 30 respondents who saw lemurs in restaurants, 23% of 98 respondents who saw lemurs in hotels). There was no difference in the percentage of respondents who perceived lemurs as apersonal pet across the different regions (�2 = 12.764, n = 237, df = 13, p = 0.4662, regionswith less than 5 samples excluded). However, there was a difference in the percentage of respondents in different regions who perceived that lemurs were kept for money-making (�2 = 34.125, n = 235, df = 11 p = 0.0003). The three regions with the highest proportion oflemurs kept for money-making reasons were: Vatovavy-Fitovinany (67%, n = 6 records of captive lemurs), Alaotra-Mangoro (53%, n = 17), and Analanjirofo (43%, n = 21).

The proportion of individuals who reported the purpose of the captive lemur as being formoney-making or tourism differed by respondent type (�2 = 12.638, df = 3, p = 0.0055).Specifically, 50% of tourists (n = 24), 23% of individuals living in Madagascar (n = 78), 22% ofresearchers (n = 93), and 13% of all other respondents (n = 52) felt that the lemur observedwas being kept in captivity so that the owner could make money from it. Likewise, different respondent types differed in their perception of whether or not a captive lemur served as a per-sonal pet (�2 = 8.158, df = 3, p = 0.0428); 47% of researchers, 46% of all other respondents,38% of people living in Madagascar, and 17% of tourists thought that the captive lemur theyhad seen was a personal pet.

Monetary Benefits of OwnershipSome respondents (n = 67; 22% of 302 records) indicated that indirect or direct monetarybenefit was derived from the ownership of the captive lemur. When monetary benefits were re-ceived, 72% of the time (in 48 out of 67 records) the benefits from lemur ownership were in-direct. In 46 out of the 48 cases where indirect benefits were received, they involved the lemursserving as an “added value” attraction for the business; in other words, the lemurs served asan attraction for which no extra money was paid, but which helped elevate the business incomparison to its competitors. In the remaining two cases, the indirect monetary benefit involved the purchase of food items from the lemur owner that would then be fed to the lemursby the customer (cost of food was listed as USD 0.70 by both respondents). When ownersreceived direct monetary benefit (28% of the time when monetary benefits were received), in16 of the 19 cases, customers paid explicitly to interact with the captive lemurs (average costfor interaction was USD 9.12 ± 5.70; range USD 0.70–35.25).

Data from the hotels provided additional insight into how these businesses benefitted mon-etarily from lemur ownership. Many (40%) of the hotels with captive lemurs showed photoswhere lemur–human contact was taking place. While none of the hotels with captive lemurs(n = 25) indicated that interaction with lemurs cost money, hotels featuring captive lemurs ontheir websites or social media sites had higher nightly room rates (USD 75.88 ± 35.12, n = 20,hotels as replicates) than those that did not (USD 50.19 ± 8.11, n = 101; Wilcoxon Test: �2 = 4.0123, df = 1, p = 0.0452). Of the 27 hotels that survey respondents reported as owning

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captive lemurs (25 of which were not legally permitted to own the lemurs), 12 had websites orsocial media pages, but only one had photographs of the captive lemur online.

DiscussionMotivations for Keeping LemursLemurs were usually perceived to be in captivity as personal pets or for money-making purposes (though these motivations are not mutually exclusive, see below). Keeping primatesas personal pets is well-known in Indonesia, where men are more likely to value primate petsbecause they find them amusing, while women valued primates for their ability to provide consolation (Jones-Engel et al., 2005). Similarly, in Mexico City, the most commonly reportedmotivations for owning a primate as a pet are empathy or identification with the animal, pleasure in owning the primate, and companionship (Duarte-Quiroga & Estrada, 2003). It wasbeyond the scope of our study to understand the specific motivations for owning a lemur asa personal pet (e.g., for companionship).

Our study evidences that captive lemurs can be a source of income; this is especially rel-evant given that 81.3% of the Malagasy population lives on less than USD 1.25 per day (UNDP,2013). Hotels that featured captive lemurs on their websites or social media sites charged, onaverage, USD 25.69 more per night for their cheapest room than those that did not. In addi-tion, when customers (e.g., tourists) paid to interact with captive lemurs, they were chargedan average of USD 10.00, and when customers paid for food to feed lemurs, it cost USD0.70. One respondent reported that a hotel in Madagascar was aiming to build a multi-species“lemur park” (for tourists) specifically because of the income potential from having captivelemurs. The hotels and resorts surveyed in this study, many of which are targeting foreigntourists, are key targets for conservation and education programming. For example, the fewhotels that can legally own captive lemurs have already been called upon to publicly displaytheir permits so that tourists are aware of whether or not the lemurs are being legally or ille-gally held (Reuter & Schaefer, 2016a).

Confounding the apparent link between lemur ownership and tourism, the regions wherethe highest proportion of lemurs were kept for money-making purposes were actually lo-cated in provinces in which the tourist trade has been historically the least developed (Christie& Crompton, 2003), and the number of lemurs seen in captivity did not correlate with thenumber of hotel rooms or total number of hotels in that province (Reuter & Schaefer, 2016a).However, this may be because many of the survey respondents were researchers who may not be going to areas typically associated with tourism. As such, this link should be examined further.

In contrast to the perceived link between captive lemurs, tourism, and income generation,there is little evidence to suggest that breeding of captive lemurs is being used as a sourceof income. In other words, while captive lemurs appear to generate income from tourists(when lemurs are used as photographic props or when they are an added value attraction ina resort), there is little evidence that the sale of live lemurs to third-parties is a lucrative trade.Only two of 302 respondents mentioned that owners were breeding lemurs and, comparedwith other countries’ illegal primate markets, the sale price for live lemurs is relatively low. Forexample, live lemurs sell for USD 1.03–13.65 in Madagascar (Reuter et al., 2016a, 2016c),while primates in other countries often sell in domestic markets at higher prices (e.g., Margarita capuchin monkeys, Cebus apella margaritae, sell for USD 289.00 on Isla de

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Margarita in Venezuala, (Ceballos-Mago, Gonzalez, & Chivers, 2010); various platyrrhine mon-keys sell for USD 500.00–1,800.00 in Mexico City (Duarte-Quiroga & Estrada, 2003); chim-panzees, Pan sp., sell for USD 61.00 in Sierra Leone, (Kabasawa, 2009); gibbons, Hylobatessp., sell for up to USD 99.00 and orangutans, Pongo sp., sell for up to USD 454.00 in Indonesia (Nijman, 2005)). Additionally, wildlife markets, such as those common in Indonesia(see, e.g., Shepherd et al., 2005), appear to be rare in Madagascar. It should be noted thatthere is no evidence that lemurs are systematically exported out of, or imported into, Madagascar (Mittermeier et al., 2010). As such it is likely that most of the lemurs being keptin illegal captivity have been sourced from the wild.

There is little evidence that captive lemurs are being kept as a fallback food. Only two of302 respondents mentioned that owners were keeping lemurs alive prior to consumption.However, in Reuter et al. (2016a, 2016b, 2016c), where respondents were asked simultane-ously about their experience with captive lemurs and about their consumption of bushmeat,several individuals (n = 5 out of 367 respondents who had seen a captive lemur) described eat-ing lemurs that had formerly been in captivity or which were the same species as lemurs thatwere kept in captivity. This may indicate that, in Madagascar, animals that are kept as house-hold pets may be seen as “edible” (although animals that are viewed as pets are frequently con-sidered to be “inedible” and not suitable for consumption (Medina, 2007)). A study on theconsumption of domestic cats (Felis catus) in Madagascar also found that cat meat was usuallyobtained when owners consumed their own pet cat (54% of the time, Czaja, Wills, Hanitriniaina, Reuter, & Sewall, 2015). Regardless of whether or not pet lemurs are consideredto be edible, it is likely that the consumption of pet lemurs has a strong regional component,as patterns of meat consumption in Madagascar are strongly affected by ethnic and ancestraltaboos (Reuter et al., 2016b, 2016c).

Relatively few respondents (8% of n = 302 respondents) described or otherwise referencedthe social status or wealth of captive lemur owners, suggesting status may not be a motivatingfactor. Given that our survey did not explicitly ask respondents about this aspect of lemur owner-ship, it cannot be ruled out as a motivating factor in some cases. In Mexico, only 5% of ownerscite social status as the most important motivation for owning a primate (Duarte-Quiroga &Estrada, 2003). In contrast, keeping primates and other wild animals, especially endangered andprotected species, as status symbols is common in Indonesia (Shepherd et al., 2005).

In summary, we found that most people (72%) kept lemurs either as a personal pet or asa money-making/tourism attraction and that these two motivations were not mutually exclu-sive. There were several cases (11 out of 302) where respondents perceived hotels to bekeeping lemurs both as a personal pet and as an “added value” attraction to tourists. Likewise, two respondents also saw lemurs which they perceived were kept as personal petsin very rural villages (lacking a tourist trade), but which were still offered human–lemur interaction opportunities in exchange for a monetary fee.

Limitations of the StudyIt is important to acknowledge that the majority of survey respondents were not the actuallemur owners and therefore might have incorrectly inferred the purpose/motivation for theownership of the captive lemur that they observed. This is evidenced by our results which, forexample, show that respondents who had visited Madagascar for tourism (unlike the other respondent types) were the most likely to report captive lemurs as being kept for money- making purposes and the least likely to describe the captive lemurs seen as being personal

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pets. Nevertheless, survey respondents had the option to indicate that they did not know themotivations for ownership (12% did so), and the results agree with the anecdotal results foundin past studies (Reuter et al., 2016a).

Many of the web-based survey respondents in this study were non-Malagasy individu-als. For this reason, there might be a bias in the dataset towards captive lemurs that non-Malagasy individuals are likely to encounter (Reuter & Schaefer, 2016a). For example,non-Malagasy individuals may be more likely to visit businesses (rather than private homes)or areas that are popular with tourists. This may explain why in the regions that are home tothe most visited national parks (e.g., Atsimo-Andrefana, Alaotra-Mangoro (Diana; Christie &Crompton, 2003)), more lemurs were reported in businesses than in private homes (Table2, though the link between lemur ownership and tourism is still not clear, as discussedabove). Therefore, the number of lemurs kept in private homes might be under-reported inour dataset. In Venezuela, and unlike our study, most captive primates are kept in privatehomes (69%), with fewer kept in commercial establishments (23%) (Ceballos-Mago et al.,2010). Additional research on this subject would be beneficial.

Areas of Future ResearchMore data on the motivations of lemur ownership, especially from those owning lemurs, areneeded. Additionally, future research in Madagascar should examine the impact of social mediaon the ownership of captive lemurs by the general public and by enterprises catering to touristsin Madagascar, as social and public media have been used to both increase and decrease thedesire to own captive primates. Ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) may comprise a substantialproportion of the individuals kept in captivity (Reuter & Schaefer, 2016a), and it would be ben-eficial to understand whether this popularity is driven by their prominence in popular media(e.g., Disney’s Madagascar movie franchise). Of the hotels surveyed in this study, most usedFacebook to share images of their captive lemurs (88% of 25 hotels) while only a few postedpictures to their websites (20%) or to Twitter (8%). All of the photographs observed by thestudy authors were positively received by the public who, in some cases, commented on thephotos with positive memories of their past interactions with the lemurs at the business. Inother cases, the public would comment on photographs by expressing their interest in see-ing or interacting with the lemurs at the hotels. In only one case did a hotel provide context forthe photographs or clarification regarding the legal/illegal status of the lemurs (an injured lemurwas donated to a hotel by its owner which posted a photograph and described it as an illegalcaptive lemur).

Utility of the Study to Conservation ProgrammingOur study illustrates that captive lemurs can provide both direct and indirect monetary bene-fit to their owners. Programs providing alternate sources of income could be important stepstowards reducing the incidence of pet lemur ownership motivated by financial benefit. It shouldbe noted, however, that the perception of lemurs as a source of income is difficult to change.In the Union of the Comoros, one village had historically provided tourists from cruise ships withphoto opportunities with captive lemurs; several years after the cruise ships stopped visitingdue to political unrest, the villagers still saw lemurs as a source of revenue (Clark, 1997).

Programs targeting the primary market (i.e., lemur owners and tourists) could also be im-portant. As noted above, social and popular media may be a driving factor in the desire to owna pet primate. Nekaris, Campbell, Coggins, Rode, and Nijman (2013) studied the reaction to

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a viral You Tube video depicting a pet slow loris (Nycticebus sp.) being “tickled.” Respondingcomments were generally positive and many expressed a desire to own a slow loris. Thoughthese types of comments declined over time, they still accounted for 10% of the comments33 months after the initial posting of the video. In other studies, respondents were more likelyto consider having a primate as a pet when they saw an image of a primate and a human to-gether, compared with seeing an image of a primate in a natural setting (Leighty et al., 2015;Nekaris et al., 2013; Ross, Vreeland, & Longsdorf, 2011; Schroepfer, Rosati, Chartrand, &Hare, 2011). In addition to increasing the desirability of primates as pets, images and videossuch as these distort people’s perceptions of the conservation status of the primates (Nekariset al., 2013; Ross et al., 2011; Schroepfer et al., 2011).

Social media has also been used to target tourists traveling to Madagascar. As recently asJanuary 2016, Madagascar’s Office of National Tourism (private organization acknowledgedby the State) used their social media pages to promote photographs of human–lemur en-counters (some of which had been taken with illegal captive lemurs). In addition, unpublisheddata on the response to a viral video of a habituated ring-tailed lemur posted online in April2016 show an increase in the number of Twitter users stating a desire to own a lemur as a pet(Clarke et al., unpublished data).

Social/public media has also been successfully used to reduce the expressed desire forpet primates. Nekaris et al. (2013) noted significant drops in comments related to the wantingof a slow loris as pets following the creation of a Wikepedia page titled “Conservation of SlowLories” and the airing of a program titled “Jungle Gremlins of Java” (an Icon Films productionfor the BBC Natural World program). These results indicate that, just as social/public mediacan be a driver for pet primate ownership, it can also be used to reduce the desire to own petprimates. Similar creation of social/public media for lemurs is thus recommended to reduce thedemand by tourists to engage with illegal pet lemurs, to reduce the motivation to own petlemurs, and to keep lemurs wild.

Acknowledgements Many thanks go to Leanne T. Nash for providing constructive feedback on early data outputsand versions of the manuscript. Thanks to two anonymous reviewers for providing construc-tive feedback on the manuscript. Many thanks are given to the many people who voluntarilyprovided information for this data collection effort. We also thank Twyla Meding for English–French translation services, and Eden Rucker for lemur taxonomic expertise.

Conflicts of InterestThere were no outside funding sources for this research project. The authors state there areno conflicts of interest.

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