Archive for January, 2008
It is interesting how you can be so busy one minute, and then something else more urgent turns up and everything that you were doing is immediately sidelined as attention is focused on the incoming crisis. So it has been since the seizure of 1220 African grey parrots back in November and December 2007.
So a summary of the situation thus far is this:
This diary of events is quite remarkable and exhausts me just reading it. Unfortunately, despite the wonderful achievements thus far, we are still a long way from resolving this issue as we still have hundreds of parrots living in cramped conditions in two flight cages. We still have to divert large amounts of funding to purchase fruit and nuts and ingredients to make the mash; numerous staff have been reassigned to make the food and look after the birds; the vet team still spend many hours each day checking the birds and making medication feeds. The degree to which this issue has affected every aspect of life at the LWC can not be overstated. It has literally consumed us all. So the costs continue to mount up and the following is a price list of what we are facing on a daily basis, that it would be fantastic to receive help for: Extra keeping staff $125/month Many thanks for any assistance that can be given to help us deal with this ongoing extraordinary situation.
I received the telephone call at lunch time warning me that an infant drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus) had been seized, and by 3pm the little female infant was already with us. That’s the thing about this job, you just never know what is about to happen. The infant drill had been seized from a hunter’s house in the forests of the Littoral Province of Cameroon, several hours drive from Limbe, by our conservation colleagues working for the organisation Conservation Research for Endangered Species (CRES). The hunter had killed the mother and had kept her 2 month old infant as a pet to sell. In the past year or so CRES and the LWC have joined forces to try to teach hunter’s from the forest areas where CRES’s field project is based about the dangers of over-exploitation and the conservation issues affecting the species that they typically hunt; so it was disheartening to hear that a hunter from that region had killed another female drill. However on further investigation we realised that the hunter was actually from a neighbouring area that had not benefited from the CRES/LWC program which sees hunters from the forest being brought out to Limbe to spend 2 days being taught all about the species that they hunt, what the conservation issues are pertaining to those species, and what the legal implications of hunting these species are. So far the program has been very popular with the hunters, many of whom have never before had the chance to travel far from their forest homes, and have certainly not had the chance to learn about the animals that they hunt. Each workshop ends with a hunting debate in which the hunters are divided in to two opposing groups to debate the issue of whether the hunting of endangered species should be allowed. The debates are always lively and typically the ‘anti-hunting’ camp wins. The program will now be extended to include the hunter that shot this infant’s mother and all the other hunters in his area. We hope that through such programs the hunters will learn about the impact that their actions are having on the fragile forest ecosystem and the legal ramifications that will affect them should they continue to hunt. The infant drill meanwhile has been named Ndokbagengue, or Ndok for short, after the village in which she was rescued. On arrival at the LWC it was immediately obvious that she had an injured hand and a very swollen elbow. Arrangements were made to smuggle her into the local hospital for an x-ray the result of which illustrated that she had fractured her left elbow and 2 bones in her right hand; both injuries were probably caused by lead-shot from the cartridge that would have killed her mother.
Ndok has now got a splint stabilising her elbow and is being cared for by a volunteer. Ndok will spend a few weeks being looked after by her human carer before we will begin the process of introducing her to other young drills that we have in quarantine. Eventually she will join the LWC’s resident drill group, which is the second largest captive breeding group in the world, the largest being at the LWC’s sister project , the Pandrillus Foundation’s Drill Ranch (Afi Mountain) in Nigeria.
Drills are one of the most critically endangered primate species in the world, with current estimates placing the total population in the wild between 3,000 and 6,000 individuals. When one considers that the LWC and Drill Ranch have over 300 drills (5%-10% of the total wild population), it becomes clear how important for the conservation of this species our rescue efforts are. So few of these precious monkeys remain in the wild that each captive individual has become vital for the survival of the species as a whole, and that is why the rescue, rehabilitation and eventual integration into a breeding group of rescued infants like Ndok, is of such critical importance. It is hoped that in the near future our two projects can begin releasing groups of drills back into the wild to restock areas of forest from which the drill has been extirpated.
The most rewarding sound any carer could hope to hear when looking after a young gorilla (or child for that matter) is the sound of laughter and, considering the traumatic experience that little Bolo has been through in the past month, it is a testament to the loving care and attention that Sandy and JK have been giving her that she now frequently breaks into fits of laughter at the slightest provocation. As you can guess Bolo is doing really well and is putting on weight and is growing in confidence every day. We have built her a small climbing structure next to the resident gorilla fence, and she spends hours each day playing and climbing and venturing further and further from the safety of her surrogate mother Sandy.
Bolo will stay with Sandy for 24hrs a day for the coming months until such time as we decide that she is old enough to begin her introduction into the gorilla group, at which point we hope that Bolo will be fostered by one of our adult females. If we do succeed in fostering her onto an adult female, and if she does become the youngest integrated member of our existing gorilla group, then it will be a job well done. However, for now, such goals are a long way off and for the foreseeable future Bolo will require several milk feeds per day ($10/week), diapers at night ($20/month), medical care ($200 in 6 months) and plenty of towels and blankets and a carer for 24 hrs/day ($50/week). Any funds given by the readers of this blog towards these costs will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you to Rosemary L., Clizia P., Barbara M. and John S. who have all donated much needed funds to help with our ongoing costs with the African grey parrot saga and the new infant gorilla ‘Bolo’. With all that is going on we are really stretched at the moment financially (and for time!) and receiving your donations is a real shot in the arm to us all.
‘sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind’, that’s what I keep telling myself as we continue to pluck feathers from the African grey parrots. It is a rather nasty procedure, which involves each parrot being anaesthatised and then having each and every damaged wing feather literally pulled out. The feathers are very firmly attached to the wing and pulling a single feather out is not easy and a hard tug is required. When you first do it you think you are going to break the wing bones, but soon you get in to the swing of things and with a snap of the wrist the feather is plucked. The birds feel nothing as they are unconscious, and, on waking up, they immediately climb to their perches, seemingly unaffected.
We have approximately 300 birds all with cut primaries, secondaries and/or glue damaged feathers that require plucking however the task has been made much easier with the arrival of Dr. Gino Conzo, avian veterinary specialist from Napoli, Italy, and his associate Mario d’Angelo. They have flown here, funded by the World Parrot Trust, specifically to assist with the feather plucking procedure of the birds and they brought with them 6 bottles of the anaesthetic ‘isoflourane’ and lots of nutrient supplements to stimulate feather re-growth. Since their arrival they have spent 8 hours a day slowly working their way through the birds, aneasthatising each parrot, removing damaged feathers and treating wounds. We hope that by the time they leave on the 22nd January all of the parrots will have had all of their damaged feathers removed. Thus will begin a 3 month convalescence period during which the feathers will slowly re-grow and, by the beginning of May, we hope that we can begin releasing these final 300 birds.
Fortunately the earlier crisis of the Chlamydia infection seems to be waning. We changed the treatment to be given in-feed, and have been preparing a medicated mash with cassava flour, cracked corn, and oil which the parrots began eating almost immediately. Consequently the daily death rate, that was approximately 5 birds a day, has reduced to almost nil. However, the enormous challenge that the arrival of 1220 parrots presented to us is not over, as we still have at lest 3 more months of looking after 300 plus birds and the costs remain very high. Currently we are spending $200US per week on food alone, and the medicated food makes costs a lot higher still. Your donations have been wonderful and have enabled us to have the success that we have had so far, but we do unfortunately need to beg for more assistance to see us through the coming months of feather recovery. Only with your help can we get to the day when we can finally release all of the remaining 300 parrots. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the individuals and the organisations who have been so supportive of the Limbe Wildlife Centre and have rallied behind us to provide emergency funding, equipment and assistance in our hour of need: they are the World Parrot Trust, the Born Free Foundation, the Born Free Foundation – USA, the Humane Society, the Animals Divulgation Trust, and last but not least the individuals who have donated funds on the LWC’s Wildlife Direct website. Thank you to you all.
The situation with the African grey parrots is becoming critical. Having placed the two seized groups in two rapidly constructed flight cages and having released all those birds that were healthy and had undamaged feathers we felt that we had managed to stabilise the situation. However after a period of about a week when the death rate of birds fell to almost zero we began to find the death rate creeping up again with two or three birds dying each day. The post-mortem findings of all of these birds were consistent with the disease pisttacosis, suggesting that the doxycycline treatment that we had been painstakingly giving in the water was not reaching effective concentrations in the birds. In contrast, the acutely sick birds that we had been treating with our limited stock of injectable doxycycline were all recovering well. Clearly the in-water method is not working. So we have now started to make a mash that we can feed to the parrots and in which we can place the doxycycline. Currently we are trying to encourage the birds to eat the mash, which is not easy as wild parrots are pretty picky eaters, but we expect that after a few days they will begin to eat the mash and we can begin giving the doxycycline this way. Medicating in the feed will, it is hoped, enable sufficient concentrations of doxycycline to be reached in the blood. The situation is not all doom and gloom though as, on the 6th and 7th of January, we selected 59 birds, that were previously too thin to be released but who had since put on weight and were now strong flyers, for release.
During the pre-release clinical examination of each bird it was noted that all of the birds, including those with damaged feathers that could not be selected for release, had put on considerable weight since they had arrived at the LWC. This is a good indication that the quantity of food that we have been feeding is supporting the large numbers of parrots and is enabling them to gain weight steadily. Considering the emaciated state that many of these birds were in when they arrived it is encouraging to find that they are now looking much healthier and stronger.
Most of the remaining birds will not be candidates for release, despite having gained weight, until their feathers have recovered and so we are now planning to begin the laborious feather plucking process to speed up the feather recovery. Thank you all for your kind donations for this ongoing saga. Particular thanks to Theresa Siskind who has kindly made a monthly donation for the parrots. This is extremely kind of you. All of your funds have helped us to purchase medications and food and to construct the flight cages. We are currently spending $200US per week on food alone for the birds so please do continue to assist us with your kind support.
It has now been 18 days since the 7 month old female western-lowland gorilla, Bolo, arrived at the LWC. Since her arrival she has spent 24 hours a day with our very dedicated volunteer Sandy Jones, who is helped by our head keeper Jonathan Kang (JK). In the beginning Bolo was really timid and unresponsive but slowly as the days have passed she has become more relaxed and more trusting of Sandy. Now Bolo is a completely different gorilla from the frightened and unresponsive gorilla that we received. She is now playing and climbing and to hear her laugh as Sandy tickles her simply melts your heart.
We have asked Sandy and JK to spend time each day sitting with Bolo by the gorilla enclosure so that all of our resident gorillas can see her and can get used to her presence in the hope that the familiarity will make her eventual introduction in to the group easier. The only problem with this plan is that all the gorillas are so fascinated by Bolo that they come over and huddle together and stare at Bolo for as long as she is sitting there. This is great, but it means that the visitors who come to see the LWC can not get a good look at the gorillas since they are all sitting watching Bolo. But we don’t mind too much as it is great to see that the our gorilla group seem so interested in Bolo, with a few of the adult females making very positive sounding noises whenever Bolo creeps towards them. We hope that in the future, when Bolo is old enough, we will be able to foster her onto one of our females in the group. The indications so far are encouraging. Gorilla infants are extremely vulnerable to stress and, in our experience, are much more sensitive than orphaned infant chimpanzees. When we rear chimpanzees after about a month or so, depending on their age, we are usually able to place the infant with other young chimpanzees and thus begin the process of reducing the amount of human contact that they require each day. However with gorillas the hand-rearing process is much more complicated and they tend to require much more intense one-on-one care. Without this level of care they very quickly become stressed which predisposes them to all kinds of illnesses. It is frightening how rapidly infant gorillas can become fatally sick. Consequently we insist on placing orphaned infant gorillas with a particular human carer for 24 hours a day for as long as is necessary. In this way they can form a bond which gives them the comfort that they clearly need. Because Bolo is so young her hand-rearing period is going to be a very protracted and difficult process and we are only just starting out. Sandy, with the help of JK, will literally have to become Bolo’s mother for the foreseeable future, a challenge that is not easy but one that we are confident that she will be able to meet. Thank you all for your kind donations towards Bolo’s care. Every cent is used judiciously to buy her milk formula or fruit and veg or to pay for diapers that she must wear at night when she is sleeping with Sandy on her bed. Without your support we certainly could not provide Bolo with the care that she is getting. Please do keep the donations coming. |
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My name is Felix Lankester, the Project Director of the Limbe Wildlife Centre and also the head veterinarian. I have been at the project since April 2004.
