S. F. Zoo’s abducted lemur found safe at Daly City playground
Maki, a 21yearold ringtailed lemur that vanished from the San Francisco Zoo on Tuesday, was found in a Daly City playground on Thursday and taken back to his enclosure by zoo officials, police said.
Daly City police officers responded to a report that Maki was in the Hope Lutheran Church playground at about 5 p. m. He was contained there until zoo officials scooped him up and returned him to his enclosure roughly five miles away at the zoo’s Lipman Family Lemur Forest habitat, police said.
Maki was “in good health” on Thursday, San Francisco police said. Officers from Animal Care and Control also responded to the scene, police said.
“We are grateful Maki is home safely!” Daly City police said.
In a photo posted to the Police Department’s Twitter, Daly City police Officer Haas squatted beside a safely caged Maki before zoo officials took him home.
San Francisco police believe Maki was taken from the zoo on Tuesday. Police had asked for the public’s help in locating the animal.
As of Thursday evening, San Francisco police said no arrests had been made in connection with this incident.
“Thank you all for your assistance in this investigation. Because of you, we were able to locate ‘ Maki,’ ” San Francisco police said on Twitter, sharing a photo of a seated Maki with the word “FOUND” in bold whiteandred lettering.
San Francisco police said Maki’s dayslong disappearance is being investigated as a burglary because investigators found evidence of “forced entry to the animal enclosure” where the endangered animal was housed.
“Investigators processed the scene for evidence and the burglary is under investigation,” San Francisco police said of the enclosure.
A Twitter user shared a photo saying the endangered animal was spotted at a day care facility in Daly City on Thursday.
In the tweet, the person who posted the photo wrote: “The lemur was found this afternoon at my kid’s day care, Hope Lutheran, in Daly City!”
It is illegal to own lemurs as pets in California, but there is a large international black market for rare and exotic animals and animal parts, said Ken White, president of the Peninsula Humane Society. The black market for endangered animals is extremely profitable, he said.
Crawford Allan, a wildlife crime expert at the World Wide Fund for Nature, said research shows a surge of online exotic pet trading likely due to popular social media posts that depict lemurs and other rare animals doing cute things. The lockdown period also may have contributed to the surge as more people bought pets online.
Lemurs are a “highly desirable” target for wildlife trafficking because they are easy to sell to people looking for a unique — albeit illegal — pet, Allan said. Lemurs from zoos can be very friendly and tame. A ringtailed lemur may fetch thousands of dollars, depending on its health and nature or whether it is a female capable of breeding.