While these primates are Critically Endangered in the wild, they actually thrive in captivity. In fact, the astounding success of captive breeding led to an unsupportable spike in captive population, the Species Survival Plan coordinator determined that captive breeding needed better management—individual black-and-white ruffed lemurs that were genetically over-represented in captive populations were no longer bred and a fresh genetic stock was imported from Madagascar, which allowed new breeding pairs to be sent out to various zoos across the country in order to preserve genetic lines and keep the captive populations flourishing.

In the wild, black-and-white ruffed lemur populations are protected in various national parks, though they have disappeared entirely from areas like Analamazaotra Special Reserve and Andringitra National Park. Many other Madagascar rainforests urgently require more protections for this species if they are to survive in the wild. Unfortunately, even though captive breeding is successful, many of those individuals have difficulty adapting to life in the wild, so reintroduction efforts are limited in their success. That being said, there are records of successful integrations of individuals in the wild—one male named Sarph lived for over ten years. He was easily distinguished by his short tail (a result of an injury in his youth) and was documented with a variety of different females during his encouraging stint in the wild.

Of course, even if many other captive black-and-white ruffed lemurs adapted quickly in the wild, reintroduction would be entirely worthless if there are not protected habitats for them to be released into.