Over his half-century career, Peter Klopfer trained his zoologist’s eye on the busy lives of animals: how ducks raise a family, when goats say hello, and especially, why lemurs hibernate.
This fascination with primate sleep would lead the longtime Duke professor to co-found the campus Lemur Center, a cherished refuge for the endangered darlings of Madagascar.
But Klopfer, who died this month at 95, owns a larger legacy for his work to elevate the lives of human beings — a side project only slightly related to the daily habits of fish or tortoises…