Limbe Wildlife Centre

Finally dry season has arrived. Rainy season has been a bit longer than usual and that has delayed our building plans at LWC, which have kept us pretty busy. We have built new climbing structures and platforms for the drills as the old ones were in bad shape. We also planted some new trees in their enclosure so they have some shade. They will have to wait for it, as it will take some years to the trees to grow enough.

The pool in the island chimp enclosure has been repaired as it had some leaks. The animals were very excited about it because they love to play and bathe in the water. We also built a new pool for the chimps in the nursery.

The climbing structures in the island enclosure were also repaired and upgraded.

Now some news about the animals:

Yabien and Lolo, our youngest chimp, have being introduced to the nursery group. Gah, has toatally adopted Yabien and Lolo she has become a great friend of Mayos’s.

Ngambe left the nursery and now lives in the island group. She is adapting fine and yesterday she went to the outdoors enclosure for the first time. She gets along very well with Ntui, Tika and Koto. TKC, the dominant male, likes her but is not very patient with her when she behaves like a baby.

The Grey-checked mangabey Y’de was sent to another sanctuary in Cameroon where they have two groups of his species. We will miss him, but we know he will be much happier with his new family.

Since our last post we have received two putty-nose, two baboons and one mandrill.

We also received a very special animal: a male preuss’s monkey. The preuss are a endangered species that only live in this area of Cameroon. We already had four females, and now we can start a breeding group for a future reintroduction. We have called him Warbay, and he’s going to be really busy with four wifes, poor Warbay!

Just a brief note for  the newest primate arrivals at LWC this past month of July.

The 4^th July 2011, a new Mona monkey (Cercophitecus mona) reached LWC totaling 2 this year. The first, Akak, from Mamfe area and this one from Wum Sud Division in the North West Region. She has been named  Wum after her area of origin.

Both areas, are boundary to the Nigerian border, well known for their exceptional high biodiversity and low protection. The Wum subdivision is located between the Takamanda-Okango and Gashaka-Manibilla National parks, it also is an area of distribution of this species. It would make it difficult to identify which rainforest exactly she comes from but for sure from an area that is supposed to be protected.

Wum, is a subadult female who is missing her left eye, probably due to trauma. She is scared of human pressence. She was brought in by MINFOF officials with a rope around her neck.

She  arrived with a poor body condition, high internal and external parasite load,  extremely underweight and anemic. She has already undergone her first quarantine health check and as soon as she passes her quarantine period, she will be introduced to the resident Mona group.

The second arrival of this month is a female infant chimp named after the village of origin, Yabien. She was brought from the Nkondjok sub division in the Litoral region of Cameroon. This subdivision is close to the Ebo Forest Reserve which is being transformed into a National park. It is very likely Yabien is from the Ebo forest, in which case she would be an extremely endangered chimpanzee subspecies, the Pan troglodytes eliotti. Her presence in LWC shows the urgent need of protection of these areas that hold such extremely endagered animals.

Yabien is estimated to be 3 years old. She was brought by an official of the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MINFOF). According to the official´s story, she was contacted on the 14^th July in relation to a young chimpanzee trapped in a snare by her right forefinger. She could not reach the place inmediately so, she asked the animal to be released and brought to her office as soon as possible. It took the villagers 4 days to arrive her MINFOF office with the chimp. Five days later, she contacted LWC to inform that she was on her way with the animal. Upon her arrival, Yabien had a very deep infected injury in her waist due to a rope that was tied too tight. This wound was stinking and full of maggots.

The rope and the maggots were removed under anesthesia. It looked like the rope  was put long time ago and Yabien had grown with it around her waist.  She was bloated, dehydrated with swellings of some parts of her body, especially the face, which could be due to  malnutrition. You could see her stare  blankly into the air in utterly hopeless and desperation.

Now, the wounds are healing slowly and she is starting to show her sweet personality. She seems to be habituated to human presence, which makes us doubt about the whole story.

The good news is that she is at LWC and we will take good care of her.

Hello everybody,

We have built a new water point in the chimp nursery just like the big chimps have. This water points imitate termite hills and, apart from the obvious drinking spot, they are a great enrichment for the animals as they have to work for the water by pressing a “hidden” button. Although Gah learned quite quickly how to use it, it took some time for our keeper Killi to teach the two small ones to drink from it. We hope this addition will help them when they go to the adult group.

We have also put pipes with water running all day in the guenons and mangabeys enclosures so they always have fresh water. They also use them as showers!

Until our next update.

The other night a big storm damaged the drills’ climbing structure and it collapsed as you  can see in the picture. Now we have to repair it. This is something that that happens often  during the rainy season as storms are very strong in this time of the year.

Climbing structures are a very important element of the enrichment programme for our  primates. They simulate the animals’ natural environment and allow them to climb and jump at their leisure. They also use them to sleep at night as drills go high in the trees at night in the wild looking for safety.

Due to the arrival of the rainy season we have built an african roof with traditional roofmats on both ends of the parrot flight cage we have in the Botanic Garden. This roof will allow them to protect themselves from the strong storms that happen in this months and will also help in them not getting sick.

Today’s is a post of welcomes.

The 5^th of May another young monkey arrived. This time a juvenile putty-nosed guenon, Cercopithecus nictitans, was handed to us by a MINFOF official from Idenau. He had found this young female tied to a boat on the beach in a small village called Bibunde. No persons were around, so he, as a MINFOF official, confiscated the guenon, and brought it to us. It is illegal to keep any monkey in captivity without permission in Cameroon.  We call her Bibunde. Bibunde is now in quarantine and will have to stay there for three months and go through three health checks before she can join our group of six other putty-nosed guenons.

Welcome Bibunde!!!

We want to welcome our new volunteer Jenn Draiss who arrived on Monday and is staying with us for three months. Jenn is a primatology student from New York. We are sure she will have a great experience and enjoy herself a lot. We are very happy she is here.

Welcome Jenn!!!

More info on our volunteer programs on limbewildlife.org.

Thanks to the Dutch organisation ‘Stichting Weesaapjes’ we now have the possibility again to receive donations via Paypal directly on this site. “Stichting Weesaapjes” collects the donations and sends them to us without any charges. Thank you so much Liesbeth! Please support the wonderful work that the Limbe Wildlife Centre does by making a donation. Press the donate button on the right. No donation is to small (or big!).

Thank you very much!

Within the last week, we received two new primates at Limbe Wildlife Centre!

Grey-cheeked mangabey

On the 20^th of April Onana Messofelix, a police commissioner living in Buea brought a beautiful male grey-cheeked mangabey infant Lophocebus albigena.  These fascinating monkeys are not native to the Cross-Sanaga region where we are located and so is likely to have come from southern or eastern Cameroon.

The Commissioner’s wife had acquired the animal in Yaoundé, 3 weeks earlier. She wanted to keep the mangabey as a pet, but the husband refused and brought the mangabey to the LWC.  We applaud his efforts to convince his wife that wild animals do not make good pets, and even more so that he brought the young mangabey to the wildlife center.  Thank you, Sir!

We estimate he is more than one year old. We call him Y’de, as he came to us from Yaoundé. He is a bit thin, but is now in our quarantine where the keepers are experts at restoring malnourished animals, and he is getting lots of good food and care.

We hope in future that one of the Cameroon PASA sanctuaries will have a group of this species for our young male to join.

Y'de

Female chimpanzee

On the 21^st April, barely 24 hours after receiving the mangabey, a LAGA official brought a tiny female chimpanzee to LWC. She had been confiscated from a hunter based in Lolodorf, a small town some kilometers away from Kribi, on the southern coast of the country.  This area is not part of the Cross-Sanaga faunal region so, as in the case of the grey-cheeked mangabey, this little chimpanzee probably does not belong to the endemic subspecies of our region but rather to the Central African supspecies Pan troglodytes troglodytes.

According to the story, the hunter who killed her mother, tried to sell her to a hotel in Kribi, which is a popular resort town.  The hotel owner contacted our government partner MINFOF (Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife) and they organized a joint operation with LAGA to recover the infant. The hunter and his companions were arrested and the chimpanzee was brought to LWC.

We have named her Lolodorf (or Lola), to remind us of her area of origin. On arrival she was dehydrated, tired and very hungry. Lola also had an infected wound on her right arm around the elbow, which was swollen and appeared painful to move.  It was probably inflicted by a shotgun pellet.  These pellets often self-expel, or can be removed surgically once a patient has been stabilized.  We are hoping to perform an x-ray soon to determine if the bone has been cracked. Lola had a high fever.

Lola was rehydrated and placed on antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medicines. Now she is much better, no fever or signs of infection, and she has a good appetite.

She spends her nights in our house, the normal procedure with very young infants, and so we can feed her during the night. During the day, Lola comes to the centre and is cared for by a keeper.  She enjoys hearing the other chimpanzees. Lola is an adorable small chimpanzee: she has only 4 teeth and we estimated her age to be around 6 months.

Lola

The whole Limbe team is very busy taking care of the parrots that we received in the beginning of December.

Last week we finished a 25x4x3 m flight cage for the parrots. The cage is placed in the Botanic Garden just opposite the wildlife centre on the edge of the Bota Hill Forest. The cage has perches in each end and is covered by palm ferns on the sides to make the parrots feel safe. During the night we have a security guard on the spot, to make sure that the parrots will not get stolen. “World Parrot Trust” has paid the construction of the flight-cage.

This Saturday we moved the first parrots to the cage. Before moving them we check their feather and the ones, who need to have their feathers plucked, stay in the cage in the wildlife centre. We pluck the feathers one the ones that have had their wing-feathers clipped off. In that way the feather will re-grow faster. The parrots are also treated for parasites. “World Parrots Trust” has sent us bands to put on all the birds. When the parrots are released back to the wild, it will be interesting to find out where they go, and see if they end up here again. The catching and moving of the parrots early in the morning, so the parrots will not overheat.

So far we have moved almost 300 parrots to the flight cage. From the new group we have many strong birds with intact feathers.

The parrots get a variety of food. We are trying many different fruits, leaves, seeds and vegetables to find out what they prefer.

We have changed the way of feeding, where we before always feed in feeders on the floor, we have now moved the feeders up on platforms, and the parrots seems to like that.

It takes a lot of time, people and money to take care of the parrots and we really appreciate all the organizations and people that have already given us support. I am sure that the parrots are happy too.I have just passed by the new flight cage and the parrots are eating, singing and making happy sounds!

If you want to support us, please go to our website: www.limbewildlife.org and choose the button: ‘make a donation’ under ‘Limbe Wildlife Centre’. Thank you very much! We need and appreciate every donation we get, and will make sure that the money goes directly to animal care.

Best wishes,

Sofie

Another consignment of Africa gray parrots arrived in Limbe Wildlife Centre Tuesday. The parrots were rescued on the way to Nigeria by a joint operation between the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MINFOF) and the LAGA, a non-governmental organization working with MINFOF.

The parrots came here in a terrible condition; they were packed very tight in 11 low crates without food or water. On arrival 48 birds were already dead.

We estimate that we received about 700-800 birds.

As soon as we received the birds we released them from the crates and gave them plenty of food and water. They were starving and were very thirsty! Our veterinary team brought the birds in the worst condition to our clinic for treatment and intensive care. We left the rest of the birds alone, to avoid stressing them further. The parrots are very sensitive to stress.

Yesterday 5 more birds died. Many of the parrots are very skinny and have wounds or broken wings after having been packed so tight in the crates.

Luckily it seems like many have intact feathers and will be ready to release back to the wild as soon as they have recovered.

Even though we have received several parrots like this before, it is always a sad experience each time they come in. The first days the parrots are very scared. They scream and cry and sudden movements make them frightened. Today I sit in my office and I can hear that they have started singing. Hopefully they feel a bit better already.

From our experience with parrots over the years, it is a huge investment in food, in drugs and human resources rehabilitating these parrots and releasing them back into the wild. If you want to help us effectively rehabilitate these unique creatures for release back to the wild please go to our website: www.limbewildlife.org and choose the button: ‘make a donation’ under ‘Limbe Wildlife Centre’. Your help will be greatly appreciated!

Best,

Sofie

Here a little update from LWC. The last month we didn’t receive any new animals, but we have been busy improving the conditions for the ones that are already here.

For our group of mandrills we have build new climbing structures and some platforms. The group consists of 12 mandrills in all sizes. In a month Bibindi, the small mandrill we received a few months ago will join the group. The mandrills are very happy for their new enrichment.

We have also started building a new climbing structure for the group two gorillas. We do the climbing structure bit by bit, as we don’t want to keep the gorillas in for many days in a row. On the picture you see the first part of the structure. We still need to add more, and then put up a lot of ropes and tires to make it more fun for the gorillas.

Our baby chimpanzees have also got a new climbing structure and a pool. To begin with they didn’t really dare to use the pool, so we had to go with them. On the picture you see Mayos (with a big smile) and our vet. volunteer Ann (also with a big smile) playing in the water.

As our big chimpanzee enclosure is next to the river, we have had a lot of problems with floods during the rainy season. Therefore we have now started building a 200-meter long embankment wall between the enclosure and the river. The chimpanzees follow the work with big interest!

All though we didn’t receive any new animals the last weeks, we did move some of the animals around. All our guenon babies stay together in a safe and warm cage with extra heating. Spot, the putty-nosed guenon that arrived last year in December has long been big enough to join our group of adult guenons, but since it was rainy season, where the animals are more fragile, we didn’t dare to move him. Now the dry season is here, and a few weeks ago we introduced him to the adult guenon group. The introduction went very well. In the group we have two female putty-nosed, Douala and Motumba. They loved Spot right away and are grooming him all the time. I am sure that Spot will have very nice life in that group!

Best,

Sofie