Limbe Wildlife Centre

Today we received a two-year-old orphan drill monkey. After his mother was killed for bush meat, this little boy was sold in the market of Bajo, near Mamfe. A military man on his way to Limbe took an interest in the monkey and bought it for 30,000 CFA (€ 45). He even went to the Chief of Post, the local officer for the ministery of forestry and wildlife (MINFOF), who prepared a certificate of origin. It stated that it was a colobus monkey and that the owner was free to travel with it. The chief of post also said that the owner should report to the MINFOF in Limbe, as soon as he arrived there.

The owner kept the drill for more than a month, but then reported to MINFOF. The senior divisional officer told him that it was forbidden to keep a monkey as a pet and that he should donate the animal to the Limbe Wildlife Centre. Together they came to the LWC and 10 minutes later we went to the owners home to pick up the drill.

The drill is now called Bajo and he is very sweet. The owner was a bit sad to let him go, but he received a free entrance ticket to come and see his animal later on. It is always best when people willingly give up their animals, in stead of animals being confiscated. It gives us the opportunity to discuss with the people why it is much better for the animal to be in a large enclosure with other monkeys of its kind.

Bajo will spend 3 months in quarantine and will then join the group.

Best wishes, Simone

The guenon monkeys have a new home! Where it used to be a marsh, we now have a very spacious enclosure for 5 different species of guenons. In the last week we moved all the monkeys and new groups were formed. The Preuss’ monkeys and the Red-eared monkeys form one group. These species are both rather calm and do well together. On the other side we have a group of Putty-nosed monkeys, Moustached monkeys and one Crowned guenon. These three species have much more temperament and also form a good team. All monkeys have much more space than before so they are enjoying themselves a lot. One side of the enclosure has a mango tree inside and the other a big stump of a tree that fell down last year in the big storm, so there are some natural climbing structures.

Many donations made it possible to build this enclosure. ProWildlife from Germany was our biggest sponsor, but the pipes and part of the mesh came in a container from San Diego Zoo. On top of that we used money that we raised with this blog. We would like to thank all our readers that have donated us through this blog. Our monkeys truely appreciate your support.

Best wishes, Simone

The Limbe Wildlife Centre is releasing the Grey parrots that were confiscated on Douala Airport. We are experimenting with a soft release method because we want to make sure that the survival of the birds is as high as possible. The idea is to keep a small group of parrots for a short while in a cage on the release site. After a few days the parrots are completely relaxed and they eat well. When the cage is opened the feeding will continue, so the parrots can choose either to go or to come back for some more food.

The first 24 parrots have been release with this method. All of them flew off immediately and did not come back. The food we leave on top of the cage has been untouched for 3 days. Well, release successful, but maybe we could have released them right away as well…

Best wishes, Simone

After almost 16 years of being alone, Bazou met this morning with another male chimpanzee. With his eight years of age, Bankim is much younger than Bazou, but he is much more robust. His head is bigger, his arms are stronger and his fur looks healthier. Next to Bankim, Bazou looks like a concentration camp survivor and that is not far from the truth.

The introduction went very well. Almost immediately the two started playing. Bazou was a bit nervous, but he was laughing at the same time. Bankim initiated play wrestle and touched Bazou everywhere. That must be strange for Bazou, because his body has not been touched  for so many years. He just kept on laughing. When Bankim became a bit bored it was Bazou who initiated the play, pulling Benkim’s foot.

We are very happy with this first introduction. It gives us hope for the future of Bazou. We will keep you informed about the progress.

Best wishes, Simone

I am sure that many of you will remember Bazou, the chimpanzee we received a few months ago? He was confiscated after having spent 16 years alone in a small cage.

Yesterday his quarantine period was over, and we moved him to our chimpanzee section. I think all of us were very excited to see how Bazou would react when he finally met other chimpanzees. We were also a bit worried, as he has some very abnormal behaviors and is very unpredictable.

Most of the chimpanzees were outside when we moved Bazou to his new home, but in the evening they all came inside. Bazou ran up to the fence between the cages and screamed at all of them. This was Bazou’s first lesson in chimpanzee behavior; when you scream at other chimpanzees, they scream back to you… And they all did. That made Bazou very scared, so he ran back to the other end of the cage and tried to hide in the corner. It will take some time before he is ready to join the group. He has probably not seen other chimpanzee since he was taken out of the forest as a baby and has no social skills.

This morning I went to see him, and he was very stressed and was doing a lot of strange movements. I am afraid it will take a long time before he is living happily in our big chimpanzee group…

Have a nice weekend,

Sofie

Yesterday more then 1000 African grey parrots were confiscated at Douala Airport and brought to the Limbe Wildlife Centre in Cameroon. Again! We have not even released all the birds from the last seized parrot shipment, but the illegal trade continues.

parrots in transport box

This is the largest group of parrots ever confiscated in Cameroon. Unfortunately, also the amount of dead birds was incredibly high. Upon arrival we found 47 dead parrots on the bottoms of the crates. Another 30 parrots did not survive the first day, as a result of thirst and stress. It makes you sick to see how the parrots are packed in the boxes, the weaker ones trampeled by the strongest.

dead parrots in box

The ones that are alive are now in the quarantine and in a week time we will select the ones that can be released. It seems like a fair amount of them have their feather intact, but that is really the only thing possitive I can think of.

It is remarkable that there are airlines who take these shipments on board. I will make sure I will never share a plane with illegally traded animals!

destination Kuwait and Bahrein

Dear readers, you have been very generous last time we received parrots. We need you now more then ever. Thanks so much!

Best wishes, Simone

Due to the changes that have taken place in Wildlife Direct, we were silent for more then a week. We are still struggling a bit with the new program and I did not manage to put up a picture in this blog, but at least we are back! And in a week time a lot of things happen in the Limbe Wildlife Centre. There is one thing I want to tell you about, because it makes me so happy. I think we can finally say that Mona monkey Unity is doing well.

In an earlier blog I told you about Unity, the companion of putty-nosed monkey Spot, and the problem with her tail. What started as a small wound on her tail, turned into a big infection. Part of the tail had to be amputated, but the wound did not heal because Unity kept picking it. We tried to cover the wound with a tube, but this caused another infection. Another piece of her tail was taken off and we tried to keep it open this time. But again the wound did not heal and the bone was visible at the tip of the tale. Another operation was necessary and it was done last Friday.

And now she is doing well. The first critical 48 hours have passed and the stitches are holding! It seems like Unity is not interested in pulling the stitches out, so we are very pleased. Would it be the company of Spot that did the trick? Unity was with other Mona monkeys before, but maybe the combination with Spot is better. We don’t know, but we just hope that Unity will completely heal. I am sorry I cannot show you a picture of her with her too short tail. She looks kind of funny, but she can still jump around without loozing her balance.

Best wishes, Simone

The history of Limbe Wildlife Centre starts in the early sixties of the last century, when the Victoria Zoo was founded.

Unfortunately the zoo was a terrible place for animals. The enclosures were very bad and often the zoo didn’t have enough money to buy food for the animals.

This picture shows two cages from that time; the biggest was the cage for the chimpanzee, and in the smallest cage a big mandrill spent at least four years – he couldn’t even turn around!

Today these cages are only used as an exhibition here. But until now, we have still had some of the old enclosures in use for our rescued animals. Two dwarf crocodiles have been in a small round cage for a very long time, since we didn’t have anywhere else to put them. Yesterday we could finally move them to another and much better enclosure. The enclosure was until recently occupied by two Nile crocodiles, but they have now have been released back to the wild.

The dwarf crocodiles are small, but they are adults and very strong. It toke four keepers to carry them from one cage to another. They now have much more space and a much bigger pool, which they jumped into right away. I don’t know how to tell if a crocodile is happy, but I am sure that they feel happier in their new home.

Right after the move, Simon and Killi, two of our keepers, started demolishing the old round cage. We want no more animals in that small cage.

It feels so good when you do something that is improving the animals’ lives. If you want to help us improve the animals’ lives, please make a donation through this website, and we will make sure to use it on something good for the animals.

Have a nice weekend,

Sofie

Yesterday we buried Mbam and, as we always do when an animal dies, we did a tradional ceremony for him. Stephen,  a son of the soil, offered some whiskey to the fore-fathers and asked them to take good care of Mbam on his way to the other world.

It feels good to do a ceremony like this with the keepers. Just as it feels really good to know that you are all there and thinking about us. It is great to have friends like you. As we say in Cameroon: we are together!

Best wishes, Simone

Thank you so much everybody for your encouraging words after yesterday’s sad news. It means a lot for us. Today we have some good news to tell you; maybe you remember Jake, the mandrill who came here in September after having spent 7 years alone in a garden, being somebody’s “guard-dog”? Today he has finally been introduced to a friend of his own kind.

After spending 3 months in our quarantine he was moved to a cage next to the mandrill-enclosure a few weeks ago. We suspected that it would be a bit difficult to introduce him to the group as he probably hasn’t seen another mandrill since he was a baby, and as we already have one adult male in the group. Probably Jake has forgotten, or never learned to “speak” mandrill language or to behave like a mandrill. It can make his life in the group rather difficult. Therefore we are going to do the introduction very slowly.

Today, we let another mandrill into Jake’s cage for the first time. It was Kribi, a young male, that normally is very friendly. We were all very excited about what was going to happen when Kribi and Jake would meet each other, but the answer is: Nothing! The whole day they have been sitting each in one side of the cage, pretending not to look at each other. They have just been eating a lot. Well, I guess it is a good start. At least Jake doesn’t seem scared of Kribi or want to fight with him. We will keep you updated on how it goes when Jake meets the rest of the mandrill group!

Best wishes, Sofie