Limbe Wildlife Centre

Category: Anne Sofie Meilvang, Cameroon | Date: May 20 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

In nature many wild animals spend most of their day searching for food which keeps them busy. When you keep wild animals in captivity and bring them food regularly, there is always a risk that they will get bored and evolve abnormal and stereotypical behaviours. This is a particular risk when you keep intelligent animals as e.g. primates. Enrichment is therefore an essential part of the daily routines here at Limbe Wildlife Centre. Enrichment should encourage the animal to display natural skills and species-appropriate behaviours.  Everyday we have to come up with new ideas for enrichment of the animals. Enrichment can be many things. An easy way to stimulate and enrich the animals is to make them work a bit for their food. This can be done by using food containers with small holes, by freezing their food or by simply hiding the food in their enclosures. It is important not to do the same kind of enrichment everyday as it will just become apart of their daily routine, loosing the novelty and significance of enrichment.

 Enrichment is especially important for animals that we need to keep alone e.g. during their quarantine period. At the moment we have one single female drill in the quarantine. We put a lot of effort into stimulating her. Drills love to dig in the soil for small animals, so we have put a big pile of soil in to her cages which she really enjoys.  

Our volunteers at the moment, Annabelle Squires and Michelle Stevens love to do enrichment and the animals love them for it!

In the pictures you see our baby chimp Mayos enjoying a lollipop made out of frozen fruit, juice and honey.  It was a special treat for our chimps made by Annabelle on a hot day. Like us humans, chimps love cold things on sunny days.

  An old t-shirt can be great enrichment too, as you can see on this picture. Our young chimpanzee Mbam spent a whole afternoon playing with this t-shirt, tearing it apart.  

Here you see Michelle preparing enrichment for the gorillas, while they are waiting and watching excitedly. The enrichment here is honey and peanuts hidden in big leaves.  

As you can see enrichment can be very simple, but still be a joy for our animals.  If you want to support our enrichment program and help to make our animals happy we always welcome donations.  

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Category: Cameroon, Chimpanzee, Simone de Vries | Date: May 16 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

Thursday morning 14^th May three two-year-old chimpanzees were confiscated from an logging camp in Cameroon. The Italian owner of the chimpanzees was arrested. The three are in quarantine in the LWC and are doing well. Ngambe Tikar, where the logging camp is, is not close to Limbe. Veterinarian Dr. John and Head Keeper Jonathan had travelled the day before from 5 in the morning until 9 in the evening to get near the logging camp. The confiscation and arrest was done by an official arrest team from Yaounde, while our guys were there to take care of the animals. While the confiscation and arrest went smoothly, the way back to Limbe was full of obstructions. First of all there were administrational matters needed to be solved, but when that was done and the journey had started a much bigger problem arose. On one of the rivers that needed to be crossed with a ferry, a truck loaded with wood had fallen in between the ferry and the land. For three hours John and Jonathan were sitting and waiting, while trying to keep the stressed chimpanzees out of sight of the public. Then the problem was solved and the journey continued. On Friday 1.30 am our team arrived with the chimpanzees and the chimps were put in a nice big cage in the quarantine. The chimpanzees, two males and one female, are about 2 years old. One of the males was a bit dehydrated, but they are all doing well. Here you see pictures of Tikar, Ntui and Ngambe.

Best wishes,

Simone

Tags: chimpanzee confiscation cameroon

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Category: Cameroon, Simone de Vries, education | Date: May 13 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

The Limbe Wildlife Centre has run a conservation education program for more than 10 years, but in the last months something has changed. It seems like Limbe has woken up, things are moving and people are organizing themselves. It is very exciting to be in the middle of all this. It is LWC’s ambition to be a conservation resource centre for other organisations and more and more we live up to our own expectations.

In February the LWC organized a meeting for all the people who are involved in Conservation Education is this region. The big organisations were there (WWF and WCS), but also small and new initiatives. It was very interesting to hear from each other what we are all doing and it was decided to collaborate more. While often promises like this are merely words, this time it seems to have a real impact.

Last Saturday the African Alliance for Development Action and LWC jointly organized the first workshop for church leaders and pastors. Religion is very important in the South West Region of Cameroon, so church leaders and pastors can play an important role in educating the community in conservation matters. The workshop was very successful and all participants would like to continue organizing more workshops in order to reach more churches and also traditional leaders.

While I am writing this, yet another workshop is in progress in our education building. This time the members of ASPTUG-CAM TRESAT, a new eco-tourism initiative in Limbe, are trained by LWC staff. Spread out over three days, several topics will be discussed, with the aim to provide the eco-guides the skills to communicate a strong conservation message.

We are funding these activities out of a small budget that Givskud Zoo has provided us, on top of the funding for the salary of our full time Education Officer, Glenn Motumba. But when we want to keep up with the current developments we will need more funding. We are grateful for any gift to support this important work.

Best wishes, Simone de Vries

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Category: Cameroon, Gorilla, Simone de Vries | Date: May 08 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

In an earlier blog I wrote about Western lowland gorilla Akiba and her new born baby. Now I can show a unique little film about the birth and the first days of Atinbi. Akiba and Atinbi are doing great. If you would like to help take care of the baby, please send your donation through the paypall option on this page. Your support is much appreciated.

All the gorillas in the Limbe Wildlife Centre are on contraceptives, because it is not necessary to breed Western lowland gorillas in captivity. Atinbi’s birth was not planned, but for the group of gorillas this event is a great enrichment.

Best wishes,

Simone de Vries

5 responses so far