After opening the gate and moving past the waist-high electric fence, 
Sir Richard Branson walked a few steps into a clearing in a large wooded area on Necker Island on Sunday morning. Then he waited for his lemurs.
“Normally, it’d only take a minute, but I think because they’ve been fed, they’ll be lazy,” he said.
Sir Richard was wrong. Five seconds later, one of the cat-sized, black-nosed primates came bounding out of the bushes, its grey-and-black-striped tail waving behind it. The lemur’s dull orange eyes were focused on the Tupperware container that Vadam Ramlall held in his hand.
As Mr. Ramlall, a Necker Island employee responsible for caring for the island’s animals, opened the container and passed a small chunk of banana to Sir Richard, three other lemurs emerged from the bushes, including a 6-week-old named Kay. All of the animals started leaping into the air to get the food, even as Sir Richard tried to save the banana for the littlest lemur.
“Mum taking the food away,” the billionaire said. “Come on, you: Let the baby have it. You’re a selfish mum.”
Eventually, Sir Richard managed to feed the banana to the baby lemur, the first time it had ever been fed solid food, he said.
After Sir Richard, the founder of the Virgin Group of companies, announced plans last year to introduce ring-tailed lemurs to Necker and Mosquito Islands, some Virgin Islands residents and members of the international scientific community voiced concern about the plan. They feared that the animals could carry disease or even escape to Virgin Gorda.
Some scientists, wary of the disastrous consequences that introducing a foreign species can have on native habitats, decried Sir Richards’ plans to have them roam free on the islands.
Sir Richard has maintained that the programme is needed because the species’ future faces a grave threat from deforestation in its native Madagascar.
See the May 24, 2012 edition for full coverage.
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