Limbe Wildlife Centre

Category: Uncategorized | Date: May 03 2008 | By: admin

here are those pics I promised.

Regarding your question, Theresa, yes we have tried growing the aframomum and currently have an area of the project set aside for growing it. However it grows slowly and, as you can see from the amount we have harvested in the back of the pick up, we need far more than the space at the project can possibly grow. Consequently we have to send missions to the mountain to sustainably harvest it from areas of forest where it is growing in abundance.

You also asked about Ndok the drill with a broken arm: well her arm healed well and she is now out of her cast and happily living with Tiko, the young male, in quarantine. They are due to leave quarantine next week to begin their introduction to the main drill enclosure. So all is going well there.

You are correct the African grey parrots rehabilitation is coming to an end and their feather regrowing phase is due to be up at the end of May. Already we are seeing quite a few good fliers in the flight cage. Plus we have had a few escapes (parrots are very good at chewing through chain-link, especially the weak type we get here in Cameroon), most of which we have been able to return to the cage, however some of the escapees were able to fly and could not be caught. These 8 birds have since formed a release flock of their own and now live in the trees around the project. We still provision them with food and water and they can often be seen sitting on top of the flight cage chatting away with their captive friends. This accidental release has been so successful that, rather than taking parrots to the nearby forest to let them go, we are considering simply letting them out to join this flock when we see that they can fly well. As the parrots are now familiar with their surroundings and the flight cage they will probaly not fly off immediately, which means we can monitor their progress and provision them with food and as they fly around the project their fittness will slowly improve until the flock is ready to fly off to the forests surrounding Limbe. This is called a ’soft-release’ and is a much better way to release animals that have spent some time in captivity as it enables you to monitor the released animals’ progress, and recapture any that are looking like they wont make it.

Keep your questions coming and thanks for the support.

Felix Lankester