What will Britain’s wildlife look like in 2050? Experts share their predictions
The aye-aye’s appearance and nocturnal habits have contributed to it becoming entwined in Malagasy folklore. There are many superstitions with considerable regional variation, but the gist across much of the island is that the animal is associated with bad luck or evil, and considered taboo. This means aye-ayes suffer direct persecution. Beliefs seem to be most extreme in the far north: for example, their dead bodies or tails are hung on poles at crossroads outside villages in the Ambanja region to prevent deaths, because it is believed that passing travellers will carry any curse or ill-fortune away with them. In contrast, the aye-aye is held in high regard in some parts of the south-east: here the animal is believed to embody ancestral spirits, and accorded the same rites as a chieftain after death.
Chris Golden, a research associate at the Harvard School of Public Health and research director with the Wildlife Conservation Society, runs a public-health research programme in northeast Madagascar and has spent over 15 years in and around remote villages.
“The aye-aye is the source of fascinating and divergent cultural associations,” he says. “In some areas the animal is considered a bad omen and is killed to avoid bad luck or even death befalling children in villages. In others, the aye-aye is just a strange-looking lemur. In the Makira region, where I work, local people hunt the species for food. This involves cutting a circular patch of forest around a large fruit tree. The tree is then connected back to the forest by bridging poles on which snares are set. Aye-ayes and other lemurs jump across into the fruit tree. When they are full, they climb back using the bridges and are caught.” scientists to conclude that the species should instead be regarded as Critically Endangered.
I have been visiting Madagascar for more than 20 years, but have seen aye-ayes just seven times in the wild. My most recent encounter, in the dry forests near Daraina, was the most prolonged, though it only came about after a two-hour wait beneath a nest, followed by a long run to catch up with Amidou, a local guide and tracker. When he pointed the aye-aye out to me in the canopy, my pounding heart made it hard to focus. But eventually I saw the animal moving through the thinner branches then climb down a tree headfirst, its remarkable hands pulled into shapes resembling gnarled, contorted tarantulas. Stopping periodically, the aye-aye tapped the trunk with its middle finger, then listened for a grub concealed beneath. By the time it looked around for the next branch or trunk to jump to, the aye-aye was just 2m away, surely the closest you can get to a gremlin in this world.