 Currently, there are species being held in captivity that are consistently being observed, with breeding programs designed to learn more about the animals and increasing the population size.Long-term research studies are also ongoing with hopes of finding out more about the mammal's ecology, habitat, distribution, social organization and competition in order to protect the species.Conservationists want to expand protected parks to areas where the lemurs were located in the eastern highland rain forests and are currently unprotected, increasing the risk of extinction for the species.