Limbe Wildlife Centre

Category: Cameroon, african grey parrot, illegal trade | Date: Nov 28 2008 | By: limbewildlifecentre

With ‘only’ around fifty African grey parrots remaining from the confiscations of November 2007, we thought that we were almost through with our parrot adventure. But the government of Cameroon takes the parrot trade seriously and last week another 39 parrots were seized from trappers in Mundemba and brought to the Limbe Wildlife Centre. It is incredible how much these birds eat, so we are looking for more funds for food and veterinary care. Each donation is very welcome.

Workers of DED (German Development Organisation) delivered the parrots to the LWC. We would like to thank them, because this was the quickest possible way to get the birds out of their miserable situation. They were packed in three small baskets, all on top of each other.

They must have been without food and water for several days, because their condition was very bad and they were covered with faeces. As all the wings were clipped, they will have to stay in the LWC for a long time in order to regrow their feathers. In the first few days two of the parrots died.

The parrots are now housed in the quarantine. We will try to get some more meat on their bones soon, because they are very weak now. The sound of them has already changed from a nervous screaming to a nice variable song. Even if you know nothing about this species of birds, you just hear that they are doing better now then a few days ago. As soon as possible we will join them with the parrots that are living in our mango tree enclosure.

Best wishes,

Simone de Vries

Assistant Project Manager

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Category: Bush meat, Cameroon, Guenon, endangered species | Date: Nov 27 2008 | By: limbewildlifecentre

The most common monkey in the Mount Cameroon area is the mona monkey. Of all the guenons it is the most adaptable species, so even in degradated forests and close to humans it still survives. This makes them vulnerable for hunting, because they are more visible then the species that live high up in the closed canopy. As a result, many mona monkeys are killed for bushmeat or captured as pets. Takway and Bakassi are two mona monkeys that were lucky enough to end up in the Limbe Wildlife Centre and yesterday they were transferred from the quarantine to the guenon enclosure.

As I have spend much time with Takway, who needed 24 hour care when she just arrived, I could just hold her and take her to the other side of the centre. Bakassi was carried in a box. Inside the enclosure the older monkeys came to have a look, sniffing through the holes in the box and reaching out for Takway, who was holding on to my hair. Motumba, a putty nosed monkey who likes to mother over youngsters, also came to sit on my shoulder, which made Takway scream. I could not see what was going on on my head, but the screaming slowly changed into a soft oooweeeh, oooweeeh, which is a sign that it is okay. Then Motumba grabbed Takway and pulled her away from my hair. Right away Takway was fine with this arrangement and she held on to this strange big monkey.

When I opened the box Bakassi ran out, sniffed some of the other monkeys and decided that it was a nice new place to live. The rest of the days she has been climbing and running and even bathing in the water basin. After a while Takway separated herself from Motumba and joined Bakassi in her play. It was a very easy and successful introduction.

Best wishes,

Simone de Vries

Assistant Project Manager

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Category: Bush meat, Cameroon, Felix Lankester, Gorilla, endangered species, illegal trade | Date: Nov 24 2008 | By: limbewildlifecentre

 The famous western lowland gorillas, known as the ‘Taiping gorillas’, who were returned to Cameroon from South Africa a year ago continue to keep everyone at the Limbe Wildlife Centre extremely busy.   The integration with the resident gorillas at the LWC did not go as well as was hoped and in recent months, whilst the resident gorillas have remained healthy, they have suffered repeated bouts of sickness.  It was apparent that stress was a probable factor in their ill health and in order to relieve this stress it became clear that the gorillas needed their own space in which to live.  However this posed us with a conundrum: with no land available in the grounds of the LWC to build on how were we going to create a new enclosure in which they could peacefully live?  Additionally time was of the essence yet the building of a new enclosure is typically measured in years, not weeks, and with their deteriorating health we felt that we needed to make a change and soon.   Fortunately we were just coming to the end of a three year construction project to build a new chimpanzee enclosure and so the decision was taken to move one whole group of chimpanzees into this new enclosure ahead of schedule.  The plan being that the vacating chimpanzees would leave behind an old enclosure space which, with some rapid renovations, could be transformed into a dedicated gorilla enclosure.   

The big day arrived, the rope had been placed, Jonathan had done his show and all that remained was to selectively let out from the night house only those gorillas that were to be transferred.  The sliding doors were opened and as soon as the gorillas were let out they all tentatively approached the mystery rope.  Like a bunch of school boys daring each other to see who was the bravest they tested the rope, climbing a few metres and then jumping back down.  After a few attempts, however, the young male Arno finally reached the top.

Now sitting on the dividing wall he could see how the rope led into an interesting looking place filled with Aframomum melegueta plants strewn about enticingly.  Gorillas love to eat this plant and so, perhaps buoyed by his success so far, Arno carried on down the rope and in to his new home.  Encouraged by Arno the females, watching below, soon followed him over the wall.  The plan had worked. 

Tags: bushmeat, Cameroon, conservation, Felix Lankester, Gorilla, great ape, Limbe Wildlife Centre, Taiping

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Category: Gorilla, education | Date: Nov 15 2008 | By: limbewildlifecentre

Yesterday LWC presented the book ‘Gorilla Stories’, which is going to be used in conservation education in all the schools in and around Limbe. The Cross river gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli), that lives in the South West Province of Cameroon, is critically endangered, with only around 250 gorillas left in the wild. It is therefore very important to educate the people of this province about these gems in their forests. The book is a tool to discuss the Cross river gorilla, its needs and the threats it is facing.

‘Gorilla stories’ is developed by the Czech Radio, with money that came from their project Odhaleni (Revealed). This gorilla project, which started with a gorilla version of the television show ‘Big Brother’, filmed in Prague Zoo, is very popular in the Czech Republic. Now the Cameroonian students will meet with the Czech Zoo gorillas and will learn about the life of gorillas both in the wild and in the zoo.

The principles and teachers of fifteen schools were present for the book presentation, which was covered by the Cameroonian Radio and Television and some local radio stations. Miroslav Bobek, one of the writers of the stories, and Jana Jiritova, were over from the Czech Republic to assist with the presentation and start the distribution of the books. All school representatives were very pleased with the donated books, which are very nicely illustrated with lots of gorilla pictures. Like everybody in this country, the Cameroonian schools are always struggling to make ends meet, so it is very difficult for them to build up a library. This book donation is for most schools a valuable gift, that can be used in all sorts of classes, from conservation education to comprehensive reading, drawing, etc. The Limbe Wildlife Centre will use the books as well in both the outreach program and the Saturday Nature Club.

Best wishes,

Simone de Vries

Assistant Project Manager

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Category: Bush meat, Cameroon, Guenon, Uncategorized, endangered species | Date: Nov 11 2008 | By: limbewildlifecentre

The Preuss’s monkey is an endangered species with a very small ranch: Western Cameroon, Eastern Nigeria and Bioko. The Mount Cameroon Area is an important area for this species, but as everywhere they are threatened by illegal hunting. Bobendina, a three weeks old baby Preuss’s monkey, was brought to my house at the end of August. Her mother had been killed for bushmeat and the hunters tried to sell her to me. The Limbe Wildlife Centre never pays for animals, as it would encourage people to search for more animals in the forest, but I took the little monkey from them. In 2008 the LWC has already taken in 11 monkeys and 2 chimpanzees. Because of the necessary health checks, the 3 months quarantine is an expensive period. If you want to help us to buy the necessary drugs and anaestetics, please make a donation. Your assistance is much appreciated.

Bobendina, or Dina for short, has been eating and drinking well from the beginning, but she was still very quiet in the beginning. After a few weeks she started playing a little bit more, but she only had people to play with. This is why we were both happy and sad when we recently received another baby monkey, a mona monkey (Cercopithecus mona). It is very good for Dina that she has a friend in quarantine, but it means that more monkeys were killed by hunters. The young mona is a male and he is called Ngolle-ngolle, just like the Minister of Forestry and Wildlife. It is a pleasure to look at the two, playing in their enclosure. Ever since the arrival of Ngolle, Dina is much more adventurous. Together they run around, climb the branches and jump on top of each other. It is quite difficult to make a nice picture now, without having at least one of the two move or completely disappear out of sight.

Best wishes,

Simone de Vries

Assistant Project Manager

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Category: Bush meat, Cameroon, Felix Lankester, endangered species, illegal trade | Date: Nov 06 2008 | By: limbewildlifecentre

The aftermath of the seizure of 1227 African grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) from Douala Airport, Cameroon, back in December 2007 is still consuming much of our time and resources.  Despite having released over 900 parrots back into the wild, we still have approximately 100 birds left.  Back in February 2008, with assistance from the World Parrot Trust, we removed the damaged wing feathers from hundreds of parrots and of these approximately 200 have successfully re-grown their feathers and have been released in to the forests around Limbe.  The remaining 100 birds have not yet re-grown their feathers and are still living with us at the Limbe Wildlife Centre.  Some of these birds may never re-grow their damaged feathers and will remain flightless, whilst others, we hope, will eventually recover their feathers and will be able to fly off.   

  The plan now is to build these remaining parrots an open-top enclosure surrounding a mango tree into which they can climb and live freely.  Any parrots that are able to fly will be able to fly off into neighbouring trees, thereby strengthening their flight muscles in preparation for the time when they will be able to freely choose to fly off.  Whilst other parrots, whose feathers have not re-grown, will live in the mango tree, free to climb in and out of their home using ladders that will be placed in the tree.   We will continue to provision the parrots with food, and treat them medically when necessary, and it is for this that we are seeking financial assistance.  Currently it is costing approximately $450/month paying for food and medical costs for the parrots and any donations towards these costs would help enormously.     

Please do return to this blog as we will soon post pictures illustrating the progress of the construction of the Mango Tree Parrot Enclosure. 

Thank you, Felix Lankester

Tags: , African grey parrots, bushmeat, Cameroon, conservation, endangered species, Felix Lankester, pet trade, Psittacus erithacus

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