Lemurs are charismatic primates known for their large, soulful eyes and long, fluffy tails. They are beloved by children, who are entertained by lemur characters in cartoons and picture books.
But in their native Madagascar, the endangered animals are facing a growing threat: City-dwellers with cash to spare love to eat them. They say that the meat from fruit-eating lemur species tastes sweet and that consuming these primates promotes strength and good health. The meat from these tree-dwellers is valued for its cleanliness and “purity.” The startling revelation comes from the first-ever assessment of Madagascar’s urban lemur trade. Conducted over the past four years, it concludes that more than 10,000 lemurs were sold for pricey dishes across 17 cities in the country.
“It’s shocking,” said Liliana Cortés Ortiz, the president of the International Primatological Society and a professor at the University of Michigan. This previously unrecognized issue requires international and governmental attention, she said.
Though dining on wild species from African forests often evokes people trying to survive hunger in desperate situations, this new work suggests that people from a wealthier rung of society in Madagascar, those making perhaps thousands of U.S. dollars a year, are a distinct threat to these endangered primates. The findings were published Saturday in the journal Conservation Letters.
“I knew there was hunting going on for subsistence and occasionally for restaurants, but the scale of this is just disgusting,” said Russell Mittermeier, the chief conservation officer of the international conservation group Re:wild, which helped fund the survey.
Cortni Borgerson, a primatologist at Montclair State University in New Jersey, and her co-authors conducted interviews with more than 2,600 lemur sellers, buyers or hunters. This urban consumption problem, she says, is “urgent and growing.” Lemur suppliers and buyers told her team that demand for the animals seemed to be increasing.
Madagascar is the only place in the world where lemurs are found in the wild. In addition to being a major tourism draw, lemurs are essential seed dispersers and pollinators in the country’s forests.
The country outlawed lemur hunting more than 60 years ago, but subsistence hunting endures. The animals face additional threats from deforestation, climate change and trafficking for the pet trade.
And, it turns out, humans are feasting on them in unexpected ways.
They’re showing up on dinner plates, served with rice and a side, in cities as much as 120 miles from their home forests. Almost 95 percent of the lemurs in the study were sold directly to clients. The rest were sold to restaurants or to middlemen who sold them to restaurants.
“They would be consumed as a special treat at home or for a special occasion out at a restaurant, depending on lemur availability,” Dr. Borgerson said. They’re a status symbol that costs more than three times as much as beef, she says, and they are sometimes eaten for unproven medicinal benefits.
“We are really surprised,” said Max Andonirina Fontaine, who served as Madagascar’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development until the country’s government dissolved in September. “It’s not an issue raised before.” In an interview days before the government collapsed, he said that the authorities intended to investigate the practice.
Madagascar didn’t prosecute any cases specifically related to the consumption or hunting of lemurs in all of 2024 and 2025, according to Mr. Fontaine. A newly appointed minister in the current Madagascar government did not reply to emailed requests for comment.
The researchers found that brown and ruffed lemurs were being eaten the most. They’re relatively large, are considered to be tasty, and they’re not too difficult to catch.
Brown lemurs are a diverse group and found all over the country. Most are caramel colored, with long, fluffy tails and bright orange eyes. They typically weigh around four to six pounds.
Ruffed lemurs, which include two species, are slightly larger and are found in the eastern part of the country. They are known for being particularly loud.
“All these lemurs have been disappearing from many protected areas, and they’re declining rapidly where they’re left,” Dr. Borgerson said.
Madagascar, a large island about 250 miles off the coast of East Africa, is one of the top regions in the world for biodiversity. It is also one of the most impoverished countries in the world, with United Nations figures suggesting that almost half the country’s children suffer from chronic malnutrition.
While some people kill lemurs and other wild animals when other food sources are scarce, the new study shows dining on lemurs is not merely a problem of poverty.
All buyers and sellers included in the survey reported they were aware of the illegality of the trade and feared being caught, jailed or fined. But the economic benefits motivated their actions. They were also aware of how rare the animals were becoming. More than half of the interviewees said they expected to have fewer lemurs to trade in the future because of declining populations.
Combating the lemur trade requires a consistent law enforcement focus on the people eating the meat, not the hunters, Dr. Borgerson said. Better regulation of shotguns and ammunition, and alternative economic opportunity development, would also help.
The researchers also want to reshape the perception of lemur meat with public campaigns focusing on disease risk from interacting with wild animals.
“I agree, we need to work more on the demand than the supply side,” said Mr. Fontaine, the former government official. “You can catch the people catching lemurs in the forest, but if you arrest them, tomorrow they will be replaced.”
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