Sixteen hours of traveling is exhausting. My trip out to North Carolina for Science Writers 2012 was broken into three flights, none of which was long enough for any sustained sleep. There was only one thing that could bring me out of that near-comatose state: lemurs.
I have been to Raleigh thrice before, and each and every time I have tried desperately to go to the Duke Lemur Center. Each and every time, I have failed. Friends and colleagues would regale me with furry tales (we all know what you did, Ed Yong) while I jealously listened, trying and failing to imagine what they experienced. No photo or video was enough—I knew that, like with most good things in life, I simply had to be there. So when I hopped on the tour bus on a cold, wet Friday morning, it didn't matter that it had been more than 30 hours since I'd slept in a bed. I was ready for lemurs. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the Duke Lemur Center is the world's largest sanctuary for lemurs, rare and endangered primates endemic to the island of Madagascar. It covers a massive 85 acres of Duke Forest in Durham, NC, and is home to around 250 animals, including 15 species of lemurs and some of their prosimian relatives, the lorises and bushbabies. Many of the lemurs are "free range," as they are given access to acres of forest to call their own. As Education Specialist for the center and my tour guide of the day Chris Smith explained, it is the second most incredible place on Earth, falling just short of the lemur's native habitat.
