Slow lorises are threatened by the black animal market, where they are sold mainly as pets. In addition, they are also threatened by trade for medical and ritual purposes, the loss of their habitat, and in addition they are hunted and offered to tourists as photo props for money. For these reasons, the numbers of slow lorises in the wild are declining dramatically. Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a situation where populations of slow lorises are also declining in human care in modern zoos, and this threatens their breeding and the maintenance of backup populations. That is why we have come up with one of the possible solutions in the form of construction of breeding centres for Pygmy slow lorises (Nycticebus pygmaeus) within modern zoological gardens gathered in the European Association of Zoological Gardens and Aquaria (EAZA). We are working on this with a group of experts on prosimians, called “Prosimian TAG”, and Katarzyna Byczyk, the coordinator for the breeding of Pygmy slow lorises from the Poznań Zoo. We are thus trying to create a sustainable backup population of slow lorises in human care, i.e. ex situ. The goal is for this population to eventually be a source of slow lorises for their release back into the wild in case the current threats disappear.
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