Limbe Wildlife Centre

Category: Anne Sofie Meilvang, Cameroon, Gorilla, education | Date: Jul 02 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

It has been a busy time for the education team in Limbe. Every year we have holiday workshops here at Limbe Wildlife Centre. Last week we had the first one this year, which were for secondary school students. This year’s theme is “Gorillas, research and conservation”. We decide to focus on gorillas, because 2009 is appointed as “Year of the gorilla”.  Our holiday workshops are sponsored by Buschgarden Zoo in Florida, and they came up with the idea of focusing on research. The holiday workshops are free of charge, and it lasts for three full days. They are very popular among the children and adults in Limbe, and every year we see a lot of well known faces from previous workshops. This year more than 50 children signed up for the first workshop. This year the program was very busy. Within the three days, the students had several lectures about gorillas and conservation. They learned how to recognize gorillas from each other, and they did behaviour studies on the gorillas here. They went to a nearby forest to investigate if it was a suitable habitat for a gorilla group. We also had a gorilla researcher, Albert, from WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) here to tell about his job. He is Cameroonian and do research on Cross River gorillas. The children loved to hear his stories about counting gorilla nests and analyzing gorilla faeces. Buschgarden Zoo has holiday workshops at the same time as us, and our children always have a chat session with Buschgardens children in Florida. It is a very important part of the workshop, and this year the students discussed everything, from the weight of a tiger and the status of lemurs, to how often people do shopping in Florida and how big a Cameroonian family is. On the last day the children prepared posters showing what they have learned doing the workshop. They all have to present their poster and the ones how had made the best poster, and who did the best presentation got awarded. At the end all the participants are given certificates.Everything went very well, and we are now looking forward for the next three workshops, one for primary school children, one for high school children and one for university students and other interested adults. We are very grateful that Buschgarden Zoo sponsors our holiday workshop, and that so many people are interested in learning about primates and conservation.   Best wishes Sofie

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jul 02 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

It may sound as a strange opening sentence of a blog that has been running for more than a year, but today we celebrate the first day of internet access in the Limbe Wildlife Centre. Until yesterday we could write a blog in our own office, but then we had to go to a cyber cafe to cut and paste and upload it. That is all very well when you are used to it, but it is a great luxury now to just write this and then push the publish button. We thank Brevard Zoo in Florida for sponsoring our connection and hope to do a lot more exciting things like webcams, students chats, etc. in the future. And we have a lot more thanks to give to all the people who have been donating money to us via this blog in the last months. It is really heart warming to see that so many people support the work we do. Most of all we need to thank Gwendy Reyes-Ills and her parents, because they have raised a lot of money that will be dedicated to staff education. We will report soon on the education program in this blog. Blog to you soon! Best wishes, Simone 

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Category: Chimpanzee, Simone de Vries, endangered species | Date: Jun 19 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

The famous Dutch football hero Johan Cruyff always says: ‘Elk nadeel heb z’n voordeel’, which could be translated as: ’Each set back have advantage’ (and don’t blame me for the pour grammar). This week we have started the rebuilding of the outside enclosure for the chimpanzees and the new fence is going to be much better then the old one.Between the gorillas and the chimpanzees we will now build a wall instead of an electric fence. And an important construction project like that cannot start unless a libation ceremony is performed. This ceremony has to be performed by a son of the soil, a member of the Bakweri tribe. So yesterday we got together with all the construction workers and Stephen, who is born and bred on the Cameroon Mountain, talked to the forefathers to bless the work and the wall. A small offer is necessary, so during the ceremony some whiskey was poured on the fundaments of the wall. I had the honour to apply the first bit of cement. With the help of the forefathers we are confident that the wall will be very strong and no animal will ever escape over it.  Best wishes,Simone 

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Category: Cameroon, Chimpanzee, Simone de Vries | Date: Jun 14 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

Two weeks ago Limbe was taken by surprise when an extremely violent storm hit the coastline. The Limbe Wildlife Centre suffers from a great deal of damage to trees and enclosures. Especially the chimpanzees are badly affected, because there outside enclosure was completely destroyed. It will take a long time and a lot of money to repair all the damage. We really need all the help we can get, so we appreciate all donations. When there is a storm in Europe or America you watch the weather news at night and you get a complete explanation. Here we have no weather (wo)man to confirm that it has been really bad and to give a name to our bad luck. We don’t know if it was a tornado or something like that, but it is clear that it was really bad. The storm did not last very long, 30 minutes at most, but it was very strong. Many people saw there houses destroyed and, while the chimpanzees were inside, their outside enclosure was completely leveled. The fence went down and their favorite shadow tree was uprooted. This is the old chimpanzee enclosure, luckily the new Born Free chimpanzee enclosure suffered only minor damage and has already been fixed.  But with our ever-growing group of chimpanzees, there are 53 now, we still need the old enclosure, so it will have to be completely rebuilt. Storms are normal at the beginning of the raining season, but everybody agrees that something like this is exceptional.Best wishes,Simone

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Category: Anne Sofie Meilvang, Cameroon, Chimpanzee, Uncategorized | Date: Jun 03 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

I want to give a little update on the three baby chimps that we received three weeks ago. All the chimps seem to be doing fine, and it seems like they have adapted to their new home at Limbe Wildlife Centre. We are now slowly getting to know them and their personalities. 

Tikar is the biggest of the three chimps, and he seems to be the dominant animal in the group. He is full of character and very confident. He is not scared of anything. Like the two other chimps he eats everything we give him. Tikar loves to be groomed and when he sees anybody near the cages he runs to the fence to get their attention. We have to be careful though, as he bites if he gets the chance. 

Ngambe, the female, is not as confident as Tikar, but she is not scared of humans. The babies have apparently not been feed from a baby bottle before they came here, but Ngambe quickly learned to drink from the bottle. We use the baby bottles to feed them milk and yoghurt. Ngambe is very good friends with Tikar.  

Ntui is the smallest chimp and also the most submissive. He seems to have a good character, but is a bit shy. We try to let him come to us, instead of going to him, so that he does not get scared. He is a little underweight but has a very good appetite. He actually eats all day so hopefully soon he will have a normal weight.  We will keep you updated on the chimps. 

Best wishes,Sofie

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Category: Anne Sofie Meilvang, Cameroon | Date: May 20 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

In nature many wild animals spend most of their day searching for food which keeps them busy. When you keep wild animals in captivity and bring them food regularly, there is always a risk that they will get bored and evolve abnormal and stereotypical behaviours. This is a particular risk when you keep intelligent animals as e.g. primates. Enrichment is therefore an essential part of the daily routines here at Limbe Wildlife Centre. Enrichment should encourage the animal to display natural skills and species-appropriate behaviours.  Everyday we have to come up with new ideas for enrichment of the animals. Enrichment can be many things. An easy way to stimulate and enrich the animals is to make them work a bit for their food. This can be done by using food containers with small holes, by freezing their food or by simply hiding the food in their enclosures. It is important not to do the same kind of enrichment everyday as it will just become apart of their daily routine, loosing the novelty and significance of enrichment.

 Enrichment is especially important for animals that we need to keep alone e.g. during their quarantine period. At the moment we have one single female drill in the quarantine. We put a lot of effort into stimulating her. Drills love to dig in the soil for small animals, so we have put a big pile of soil in to her cages which she really enjoys.  

Our volunteers at the moment, Annabelle Squires and Michelle Stevens love to do enrichment and the animals love them for it!

In the pictures you see our baby chimp Mayos enjoying a lollipop made out of frozen fruit, juice and honey.  It was a special treat for our chimps made by Annabelle on a hot day. Like us humans, chimps love cold things on sunny days.

  An old t-shirt can be great enrichment too, as you can see on this picture. Our young chimpanzee Mbam spent a whole afternoon playing with this t-shirt, tearing it apart.  

Here you see Michelle preparing enrichment for the gorillas, while they are waiting and watching excitedly. The enrichment here is honey and peanuts hidden in big leaves.  

As you can see enrichment can be very simple, but still be a joy for our animals.  If you want to support our enrichment program and help to make our animals happy we always welcome donations.  

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Category: Cameroon, Chimpanzee, Simone de Vries | Date: May 16 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

Thursday morning 14^th May three two-year-old chimpanzees were confiscated from an logging camp in Cameroon. The Italian owner of the chimpanzees was arrested. The three are in quarantine in the LWC and are doing well. Ngambe Tikar, where the logging camp is, is not close to Limbe. Veterinarian Dr. John and Head Keeper Jonathan had travelled the day before from 5 in the morning until 9 in the evening to get near the logging camp. The confiscation and arrest was done by an official arrest team from Yaounde, while our guys were there to take care of the animals. While the confiscation and arrest went smoothly, the way back to Limbe was full of obstructions. First of all there were administrational matters needed to be solved, but when that was done and the journey had started a much bigger problem arose. On one of the rivers that needed to be crossed with a ferry, a truck loaded with wood had fallen in between the ferry and the land. For three hours John and Jonathan were sitting and waiting, while trying to keep the stressed chimpanzees out of sight of the public. Then the problem was solved and the journey continued. On Friday 1.30 am our team arrived with the chimpanzees and the chimps were put in a nice big cage in the quarantine. The chimpanzees, two males and one female, are about 2 years old. One of the males was a bit dehydrated, but they are all doing well. Here you see pictures of Tikar, Ntui and Ngambe.

Best wishes,

Simone

Tags: chimpanzee confiscation cameroon

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Category: Cameroon, Simone de Vries, education | Date: May 13 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

The Limbe Wildlife Centre has run a conservation education program for more than 10 years, but in the last months something has changed. It seems like Limbe has woken up, things are moving and people are organizing themselves. It is very exciting to be in the middle of all this. It is LWC’s ambition to be a conservation resource centre for other organisations and more and more we live up to our own expectations.

In February the LWC organized a meeting for all the people who are involved in Conservation Education is this region. The big organisations were there (WWF and WCS), but also small and new initiatives. It was very interesting to hear from each other what we are all doing and it was decided to collaborate more. While often promises like this are merely words, this time it seems to have a real impact.

Last Saturday the African Alliance for Development Action and LWC jointly organized the first workshop for church leaders and pastors. Religion is very important in the South West Region of Cameroon, so church leaders and pastors can play an important role in educating the community in conservation matters. The workshop was very successful and all participants would like to continue organizing more workshops in order to reach more churches and also traditional leaders.

While I am writing this, yet another workshop is in progress in our education building. This time the members of ASPTUG-CAM TRESAT, a new eco-tourism initiative in Limbe, are trained by LWC staff. Spread out over three days, several topics will be discussed, with the aim to provide the eco-guides the skills to communicate a strong conservation message.

We are funding these activities out of a small budget that Givskud Zoo has provided us, on top of the funding for the salary of our full time Education Officer, Glenn Motumba. But when we want to keep up with the current developments we will need more funding. We are grateful for any gift to support this important work.

Best wishes, Simone de Vries

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Category: Cameroon, Gorilla, Simone de Vries | Date: May 08 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

In an earlier blog I wrote about Western lowland gorilla Akiba and her new born baby. Now I can show a unique little film about the birth and the first days of Atinbi. Akiba and Atinbi are doing great. If you would like to help take care of the baby, please send your donation through the paypall option on this page. Your support is much appreciated.

All the gorillas in the Limbe Wildlife Centre are on contraceptives, because it is not necessary to breed Western lowland gorillas in captivity. Atinbi’s birth was not planned, but for the group of gorillas this event is a great enrichment.

Best wishes,

Simone de Vries

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Category: Anne Sofie Meilvang, education | Date: Apr 27 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

Every month we try to make a “field trip” with the Nature Club members, which is always exciting for the children.

On Saturday the 25^th of April our nature club members went to Down Beach in Limbe to do beach cleaning. The beach cleaning is a yearly event, which in addition to cleaning the beach, also gives us a good opportunity to discuss garbage and its impact on nature with the children. The week before this event we discussed this subject in class to prepare and encourage the children.

This year more than 30 motivated Nature Club children showed up to help with the beach cleaning. In addition, 20 teenagers from a church group joined our efforts, so we had a big group. We divided the children into small groups, each with a wheelbarrow and rakes, and then worked our way from one end of the beach to the other. The children collected a big pile of rubbish, and even though the beach may look dirty again today, I believe that they learned a lot from the cleaning, and that it also made a good impression on all the people who watched us clean the beach.

Best wishes,

Sofie

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