Limbe Wildlife Centre

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Dec 30 2007 | By: admin

Thank you to Lisa H., Lenore S. and Christopher M. for their very kind donations. As you can see from the flurry of stories that I have written we really are up against it at the moment in terms of finding time in the day to do everything, finances, enclosure space etc. etc. and so your support really does help to give us a little breathing space. Many thanks.
Felix

4 responses so far

Category: endangered species | Date: Dec 30 2007 | By: admin

Finally, now that I seem to have mastered the art of posting images on the blog, I can post the long awaited photo of some of our drills.

2 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Dec 30 2007 | By: admin

Finally (I hope) I have mastered the art of uploading photos on to this blog. Here are some pictures of the 4 gorillas.

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So far all of the gorillas are doing really well and seem to be enjoying life in the warm humid climate of Cameroon. They are eating plenty of browse and other local jungle fruits and they are still very much local celebrities with many people visiting the project just to see ‘the famous gorillas’.

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Category: endangered species | Date: Dec 30 2007 | By: admin

On 24th November we received a call that approximately 500 African grey parrots had been seized by the Ministry of Forests and Wildlife in Douala International Airport. The parrots were being illegally shipped to Bahrain to enter the exotic pet trade. We were asked if we could take the parrots in as there was nowhere else for them to go.

We do typically receive African grey parrots from time to time but usually in pairs, never in groups of 500 birds! As you can imagine it was pandemonium here when they all arrived, squashed into tiny crates, the live birds standing on top of their dead cage mates. It was a terrible scene.

We had to move quickly to accommodate the birds, converting empty quarantine cages into temporary cages whilst we started work building new flight cages.

All of this occurred at the same time as we were busily preparing the LWC for the arrival of the Taiping Four gorillas, so you can imagine the stress. However this was nothing compared to what was just around the corner, for on the 5th December I received another call to say that a further illegal shipment of birds had been seized at the same airport and they were being sent to us. The same day a truck arrived, again loaded with its sickening cargo of dying parrots. The second shipment contained 727 birds, so in less than 2 weeks we had received 1220 birds.

The way the birds are caught is particularly horrible: hunters seek out fruiting trees in the forest and place sticky gum on the branches of the tree. They then simply have to sit and wait for a flock of parrots to spot the fruiting tree and land on it to feed. As you can imagine the birds, covered in glue, become stuck to the tree. In their desperation to free themselves some birds even chew their own feet off.

Two weeks after the second shipment arrived we managed to finish the construction of two flight cages. This achievement allowed us to move the birds out of their temporary cages in quarantine into their own flight cages.

Slowly, we are developing a system of how to care for such a large number of birds, with keeping staff becoming well practised at their new responsibilities. It is a testament to our staff how well they have coped with these unusual circumstances and how well they have managed to adapt from keeping apes to keeping birds.

We are pleased that the daily number of dead birds is dropping from the high numbers experienced in the first few days after their arrival, to nearly zero. All of the birds are on a long term course of doxycycline as a treatment for a disease called psittacosis which we think was the cause of many deaths in the first few days. As we can only buy this drug in 100mg capsules here our veterinary staff have to spend a few hours each day breaking apart hundreds of small capsules and pouring the antibiotic powder into a pile ready to be mixed into the drinking water. This is a daily treatment for the birds, and they will all be on it for 42 days, and so you can imagine how many hours of capsule breaking this is going to lead to! This is just one example of how all of our lives have changed since the arrival of the parrots.

The plan is to release as many birds as possible. So far several hundred parrots have been released in nearby forested sites. The remaining birds have all got glue on their feathers or cut wing feathers or are sick, and these birds will be with us for many months before they can be released. We are now trying to raise funds to help cover the care costs of their protracted rehabilitation process.

Typically when we recieve parrots with damaged feathers we anaesthatise them individually to pluck the damaged feathers which speeds up the recovery process. This usually results in healthy feathers re-growing in 3-5 months at which time, assuming the birds are otherwise fit, they can be released. However we have 417 birds needing feather plucking! Currently we do not have the quantities of the aneasthetic required for such a mammoth job, or the man power. If we had nothing else to do, it would take us at least 3 weeks of non stop (everyday) anesthatising and plucking birds to get through them

Once we can get some isoflourane then we can start plucking the birds’ feathers. Then we can release the final 400 odd birds between 3 and 9 months after the plucking begins.

This is a tragic story of wildlife being exploited for the international trade in exotic pets, one of the most lucrative illegal trades in the world. However, due to some diligent work by those responsible for implementing the wildlife laws of Cameroon, at least these birds have been saved. How many other shipments of birds make their way out of the country undetected we can only dread to imagine. The story these parrots, and that of Bolo the new infant gorilla, signal how the forests of Cameroon are being plundered by the unsustainable trade in wild animals. This can not continue.

We desperately need your help to get these injured parrots back into the wild. The following is a list of costs that we need to fund to help the bird’s rehabilitation. Any assistance will be most appreciated.

feeding costs: $2/bird/month = $6000
isoflourane for 417 birds (approx 50 birds per bottle = 9 bottles) = $100/bottle = $900
oxygen 7 tanks @ $90/tank
injectable antibiotics = $200
doxycycline oral for 42d course for 417 birds = $9/day x 42 days = $378
praziquantal (tape worm medicine) = $60
Ivermectine (round worm medicine) = $40
extra keeping staff x 8months = $1000
fuel for release vehicle = $100

3 responses so far

Category: Gorilla | Date: Dec 30 2007 | By: admin

On Thursday 20th December I received a telephone call to inform me of an infant gorilla that had been seized in the town of Batouri in the east of Cameroon by a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Agriculture, from a hunter who was trying to sell her.

Batouri is very far from Limbe, so I recruited the assistance of the army who sent a vehicle to collect the infant and bring her safely to the capital Yaoundé. Meanwhile I drove to Yaoundé from Limbe to meet the guard. On the 22nd December, after a frantic 2 days, I returned to Limbe with the little infant in hand. I can report that the little gorilla, which weighs 5kg and is approx 7 months old, is so far faring well. She is eating and drinking well and has bonded with one of our staff members.

Infant gorillas are a lot more sensitive than infant chimpanzees and require much more nursing and one to one care, and so the arrival of the new infant means that the staff member selected to become the infant’s surrogate mother will now be with the gorilla 24 hours a day for the foreseeable future. This, together with the food and medical costs that we will incur, places a huge drain on our resources and we would like to appeal for any help you can give us.

The weekly milk formula costs for the infant are approximately $10/week, and the medical costs in the first 6 months will probably be about $200. The cost of having a staff member looking after the gorilla for 24 hours a day is $50/week.

It is terrible to think that gorillas are still being killed and infants sold and it was a very sad Xmas present for us all. However the work of the civil servant was exemplary and I would like to thank him for his efforts to see that this infant was rescued as quickly as possible. Regarding the hunter, we are trying to find out more about who it was and what can be done about him, but according to the civil servant he was a ‘pygmy’ hunter who did not have any idea that it was illegal to kill and eat gorillas.

In recognition of the efforts of the government civil servant we have decided to name the infant after his family name ‘Adjibolo’ or ‘Bolo’ for short.

I shall try to keep you all informed of her progress in the coming months.

Having started the month will 11 gorillas, we end with 16 (plus over a thousand parrots)! Its been an interesting few weeks.

6 responses so far

Category: Felix Lankester | Date: Dec 16 2007 | By: admin

Thank you very much to George S. and Bruce D. for the generous donations that they made on this Wildlife Direct website. The LWC’s monthly running costs (feed, medicines, enclosure repair etc.) have been rising year in year out as we receive more animals and as the apes that we have hand reared over the years all get bigger. As such we are extremely grateful for this financial assistance. Thank you for your support.

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Category: Gorilla | Date: Dec 16 2007 | By: admin

Now that the dust has settled a little after the arrival of the ‘Taiping Four’ I can begin to introduce you all to these infamous gorillas. The three females are called Oyin, Abbey and Tinu, and the lone male is Izan.

• Oyin is the largest and the dominant gorilla in the group. She is very confident and is very protective over her group. New people who approach their enclosure are soon left with a clear understanding of whose area they have entered into. She thumps her chest and mock charges, throwing branches and leaves in her annoyance at the unsolicited visitor. Oyin has already developed a large crest on the back of her head, yet her tendency to pluck the hairs asymmetrically around her face gives her a slightly intimidating appearance.

• Abbey is the most sensitive gorilla in the group. During the long journey from South Africa to Limbe it was Abbey who need most attention during the journey and who gave me the most concern during our long lay over in Nairobi. Whilst the other gorillas sat quietly, Abbey was very stressed pacing around her crate, trying to break out all the time. Abbey is a typical western lowland gorilla with a beautiful cap of red hair on top of her head. In fact she looks very like one of our other gorillas here at the Limbe Wildlife Centre, Brighter. Who knows, perhaps they were taken from a similar area of forest?

• Tinu, the smallest female, is the neediest of attention. Sit by the enclosure for a few minutes a Tinu will soon come up to present her back for grooming, or stick her out her arm so that she can hold hands. Tinu, an unusual looking gorilla with short round features and a big fat belly with a cleft down the middle, is easily recognisable. On arrival she had a large circular ring worm lesion on her left shoulder that we are currently treating.

• The lone male of the group is Izan, who is an absolutely gorgeous looking young black-back gorilla. He is currently all legs and arms, but from the size of his hands it seems that in a few years he will have grown into an enormous silver back. Izan is just beginning to learn the postural behaviour of a male gorilla, side walking up to new comers, lips sucked in and eyes looking elsewhere. The drooping bottom lip, however, somehow ruins his tough guy stance.

The addition of these four gorillas to our program is a great responsibility and we are very proud to look after them. However, the cost of doing so is not small and we really need financial assistance, and we were hoping that the readers of Wildlife Direct may be able to help. The following is a brief guide to a few of the costs we are now incurring to look after these four young gorillas:

• The price of milk powder, from which we make yogurt, is costing us $60 per month just for these four gorillas.
• Fruit and vegetables for the gorillas that are purchased from local produce growers are costing us $200 per month.
• Finally, gorillas eat a lot of browse in the wild and it is important, for their health that we try to mimic this natural diet as much as possible. To do so, however, requires large quantities of browse, some of which are not grown in Limbe. So, three times a week we make the 3hr drive up onto the slopes of Mount Cameroon to collect a plant called afromomum, a species from the ginger family. The journey, which costs $45 in fuel every week, is a critical part of the gorillas rehabilitation as it enables them, for the first time since they were taken from the forest as infants, to have the pleasure of stripping the bark off of the very same plants that their parents would have eaten, in search for the juicy pith within.

These are just a few of the costs that we are struggling to cover in order to look after our new charges. Any help that the readers of Wildlife Direct can give will be most warmly welcomed and will, I can assure you, be used very carefully for the care of these noble creatures. Thank you.

3 responses so far

Category: Gorilla | Date: Dec 09 2007 | By: admin

Finally the ‘Taiping Four’ gorillas are home. Better late than never! The journey from South Africa to Cameroon was incredibly long and tiring for the gorillas and all involved in their care, but, when the four gorillas walked confidently out of their travel crates into their new quarantine enclosure, we all knew that it was worth it.

The journey had begun 29 hours earlier when the lightly anaesthetised gorillas were placed in their travel crates to begin the long journey home. We were particularly concerned that the gorillas would be stressed to wake up and find themselves alone and inside a strange crate. Therefore, to try to reduce their stress, the crates were placed facing inwards on the truck. In this way, on waking up, the gorillas would find themselves facing one another. This seemed to have the desired calming affect as, one hour after being placed in the crates, all of the gorillas were sitting up and inquisitively looking around.

At 20:00hrs we arrived at the cargo bay of Oliver Tambo Airport where the gorillas were weighed and the crates were tied down on to pallets ready for their flight to Nairobi. Carin Cloete, Curator of Mammals from Pretoria Zoo, and I remained with the gorillas, feeding them and offering them fluids until the latest possible moment before we were ushered away to join the 24 person delegation that was accompanying the gorillas from South Africa to Cameroon.

At 14:40 the following day the Kenyan Airways flight, that was carrying the gorillas free of charge, touched down at Douala International Airport. Carin and I had checked the gorillas during our long lay over in Nairobi, but it was still a very anxious time for us as we watched the pallets being offloaded on to the tarmac in Douala. Seeing their faces peeking out of the holes in the crates was a moment of great relief.

I was dreading the journey from Douala to Limbe, as the traffic can be awful and any delay would have added more stress to the already tired gorillas; however the much dreaded final leg of our journey turned out to be one of the most memorable moments of my professional life. With Mount Cameroon back-lit by the red sun setting over the sea we drove towards Limbe, a single police motorcyclist with siren blaring clearing the typically grid-locked traffic and leading a 40 strong convoy of four wheel drive vehicles, all with hazard lights flashing. The people of Douala all turned to look, expecting to see the Prime Minister’s vehicle, but instead found an old truck carrying four gorillas. News on the radio proclaimed the return of Cameroon’s gorillas and people nodded in appreciation at the sight. For a moment it seemed that times had changed in Cameroon, with gorillas being afforded the respect that they deserved in the national psyche.

At the Limbe Wildlife Centre hundreds of people had gathered in the darkness to welcome their gorillas home. The truck pulled into the quarantine area of the Limbe Wildlife Centre and in a much practised process the 4 crates were unloaded and, with the crowds cheering, the four gorillas trotted into their new enclosure that had been draped in browse and cut branches. Their long journey had come to an end.

The following day the official celebration for the return of the gorillas was held in the neighbouring Limbe Botanic Gardens. A speech proclaiming the importance of Cameroon’s wildlife was made by the Minister of Forests and Fauna, and five African grey parrots, recently seized from an illegal shipment at Douala Airport, were released as a symbolic gesture. The event, watched by hundreds of people and recorded by several news crews, was the answer to those who, quite rightly, have questioned the reasoning behind the decision to return the gorillas to Cameroon. Through this event the gorilla’s sorry saga, that started with the shooting of their mothers in the rainforests of Cameroon and their illegal shipment across the globe on an international airline, was brought to the attention of the Cameroonian people. Through their return the minds of Cameroonian politicians and public alike have, for the time being at least, been focussed on the plight of Cameroonian wildlife. This was not a simple story of four gorillas, rather it was a story that echoed the plight of all Cameroonian wildlife that finds itself being taken from its forest homes to satisfy a human demand. Wildlife was, for this moment, top of the agenda. How long the story, and the conservation issues that it represents, remain in people’s minds and whether any change is realised as a result we shall only be able to guess in the future; but for one moment there seemed to be hope. Long may that hope last.

The return of the Taiping Four gorillas was facilitated by the Government of Cameroon, the Pan African Sanctuaries Alliance, the Pandrillus Foundation, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the International Primate Protection League and the Last Great Ape Organisation.

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