Limbe Wildlife Centre

Category: Anne Sofie Meilvang, endangered species | Date: Jul 28 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

If you visit Limbe Wildlife Centre at the moment, you will probably see two persons very busy making swings. It is volunteer Aoife who is from Ireland and our keeper Elvis who takes care of the guenons and mangabeys.

Aoife has been here for three weeks now, and she thinks that some of the monkey enclosures could use more toys. That is why she started her own little swing factory together with Elvis. Since then, nobody has seen Aoife and Elvis without a saw, wood and ropes in their hands. They have produced more than 30 swings now.  Most of the monkeys really like the swings, and enjoy playing on them.

On the picture here you see our grey cheeked mangabey Becky playing on the swing.

Here you can see Limbe Camp, one of our agile mangabeys on a swing. He was actually mostly busy peeling the bark of the wood, eating the insects under it, but that is fine too. As long as they are busy!

Best wishes,

Sofie

Tags: endangered species, mangabeys, monkeys

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Category: Simone de Vries, drill, endangered species, rehabilitation | Date: Jul 27 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

Nicky Mamfe is a female drill that came to the Limbe Wildlife Centre in February of this year. After a three months quarantine period she is now in the proces of being introduced to the other drills. The introduction is going very slowly, because Nicky has a lot of problems.

Nicky was called after Felix Lankester’s wife, who found her tied to a rope in the village of Mamfe. Nicky Lankester persuaded the owner to give up the drill and donate it to the Limbe Wildlife Centre. She had a crate made out of scrap wood and transported the drill to Limbe.

Nicky Mamfe’s spine is damaged and she has problems moving her hind legs in a normal way. On top of that, she completely lacks social skills and is afraid of the other drills. We can only guess what she has been going through, but is has left its marks both fysically and mentally. Nicky is now in a cage next to the drill enclosure and she has company of a few nice females with their young. However, during feeding we have to separate them, because Nicky is too scared to eat in their company. It is clear that this process is going to take a long time, but we will be very patient.

The drill is the most endangered primate species in Africa, with an estimated number of 3000 left in the wild. Nevertheless, hunting pressure is still very high. Drills live in large groups and mostly on the ground, which makes them very vulnerable for hunters. The hunters kill the adults, while the infants are kept alive in order to sell them as pets. Last year we rescued four drills that had been illegally kept in people’s homes.

The Limbe Wildlife Centre is now home to 62 drills. We breed with them, with the aim to do a reintroduction project in the future. As can be seen in the picture, the males are much bigger then the females. When a female is in heat, she attracks the males with a large sexual swelling. The dominant male, to be recognised by his colourfull buttocks and chin, will follow the female around, anywhere she goes, and mate with her regularly.

Hopefully one day Nicky will be a happy member of this group. With the condition of her legs she will never be able to run around like the ohers, but if she gets used to their company she can feel safe again and live a normal drill life.

Best wishes,

Simone

Tags: drill, endangered species, LWC, rehabilitation

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jul 25 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

I want to give you an update on our two youngest gorillas Atinbi and Adjibolo

Our youngest gorilla Atinbi is almost 5 months old now. She is still very dependent on her mother Akiba, and she hangs on her mother’s belly most of the time, but she is starting to get more confident. To start with, Akiba always had to support her with an arm, when they were moving around, but now Atinbi is strong enough to hang by herself. She is often trying to crawl away from her mother, when they sit on the ground, but Akiba won’t let her and always pulls her gently back on her lap.

It is very interesting to follow the development of a baby gorilla. Our keepers have to note down all her developments. Each day it seems like she is growing and getting stronger. Within the last months Atinbi has got teeth and has started tasting the fruit that the adult gorillas are feed. The other gorillas are still very interested in Atinbi and spend hours observing and touching her.

Adjibolo is now around two years old. She came to LWC when she was only about six months old, and very small. Now she is much bigger, and the happiest gorilla you can imagine. She has a big belly, like most of our female gorillas. This morning I was observing her playing in the enclosure, and it is always a pleasure. She loves to swing in the robes, and is quite acrobatic. She spends most of her day playing, and luckily her group is very playful. The two females, Tinu and Abbey still take very good care of Adjibolo.

All in all our two youngest gorillas are doing very well here in Limbe Wildlife Centre.

Best wishes,

Sofie

4 responses so far

Category: Chimpanzee, Simone de Vries | Date: Jul 21 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

At the Limbe Wildlife Centre we do a lot to keep our animals busy. The chimpanzees sometimes get coconuts and it is great to see how they deal with them.

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Category: Cameroon, Chimpanzee, Simone de Vries, Uncategorized, endangered species | Date: Jul 19 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

A few days ago Jo-Jo, a male chimpanzee of about 13 years old, went outside for the first time in a very long time. After years in a cage he could finally feel the grass beneath his feet again.

Jo-Jo was kept by a Greek business man, ever since he was a baby. Over time he became more and more difficult to keep and frequently escaped. When the man left the country he left Jo-Jo with a Cameroonian colleague. The colleague decided to donate Jo-Jo to the Limbe Wildlife Centre. This is how Jo-Jo was kept until then.

Jo-Jo was an aggressive chimpanzee when he came to us. Being in a small cage for a long time had been very hard for him and hours on end he was rattling his feet against the quarantine cage. His rehabilitation has taken a long time, but this week he was finally ready to go outside with the rest of the chimpanzees in the new Born Free Chimpanzee enclosure.

He first hesitated, going out for a few seconds and then run inside again. He repeated that a few times. Then he grabbed Papa, a young male, from the back and walked out with him. Papa guided him around, Jo-jo holding on tightly. Several chimpanzees came up to Jo-Jo and hugged him. It was almost like they were congratulating him: you are outside! Papa walked him all the way down to the end of the enclosure, where Carlos was waiting for them.

Carlos is our biggest chimpanzee and he weighs 84 kilograms. Carlos and Jo-Jo hugged each other and Jo-Jo even climbed on Carlos back. Like that, Carlos walked him around a bit then they went up to a climbing structure. Jo-Jo climbed up and stayed there the rest of the day.

Jo-Jo, who only weighs 50 kilograms, looks quite small next to Carlos.

At the end of the day Jo-Jo did not want to come inside. We could not blame him, because he had been inside for too long. Finally when darkness came, Jo-Jo went in and we closed the door behind him. This routine was repeated the two days that followed, until yesterday when he went inside with the others.

Tags: Chimpanzee, rehabilitation

5 responses so far

Category: Anne Sofie Meilvang, Cameroon, Uncategorized, education | Date: Jul 13 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

Our educators here take visitors around the centre every day, and most of our keepers guide visitors around whenever they have time. As Cameroon has both a French speaking and an English speaking part, many of our visitors are French speaking. Therefore many of the tours have to be in French. Until now only a few of the staff have been able to do the tours in French, but this is now going to change.

Thanks to Gwendy Reyes-Ills and her parents who have raised a lot of money for our staff education program, 15 of the people working here, last week started on a French course. The course is four hours a week, and pretty intense.

Here you see the group who started taking the French course;

It is great to see how hard the staff is working to learn French and how enthusiastic they are. Every morning after a class, we all practice what we have learned, so all over Limbe Wildlife Centre you will hear French. I even think some of the keepers started talking to their animals in French!

We are very grateful that Gwendy and her parents are supporting our staff education. Merci beaucoup!

Best wishes,

Sofie

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Category: Simone de Vries, endangered species | Date: Jul 12 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

After a rather turbulent time it is quite nice to work on a quiet, sunny Sunday. A lot of families like to visit the LWC on Sunday, especially when the weather suddenly changes from constant rain to a clear blue sky. But even with many visitors, for me the Sunday is always a good day to get some work done. No construction going on, no veterinary procedures, no discussions about how we should do things.

After a very productive morning I took the camera out and did a nice walk around the LWC. Things are going well. The water is back to normal proportions, the animals are all fine. I was watching the gorillas for a while.

Also for them it is Sunday, and they were just hanging out against the wall. In the weekends the gorilla keeper always gives a presentation for the public. When Bama came with some food to the fence, the gorillas woke up and walked up to him. Our silverback Chella always impresses everybody with his 175 kilograms. But it is Jumbo, with her silly arm movements and constant nose picking that makes the people laugh.

Best wishes,

Simone

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Category: Cameroon, Chimpanzee, Simone de Vries | Date: Jul 06 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

Not one day is the same as the next here in Limbe. When we woke up this morning it was raining heavily, but we are quite used to that. Only when we arrived at the Wildlife Centre we realized how much water had fallen, because the whole place was flooded. The river Limbe, which is most of the year just a small stream, had turned into a massive lake. The chimpanzees will have to stay inside today, because their enclosure is completely flooded. Hopefully the water level will go down soon, so we can clean the fence and get the chimps outside again. The cage of the mangabeys is also standing in the water, but the mangabeys don’t seem to care. Although the rain is still falling they are not hiding under the roof, but just sit high up in the cage.   At least the sky is lighting up a little bit now, so hopefully the rain will stop soon.Best wishes,Simone 

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Category: Guenon, Simone de Vries, endangered species | Date: Jul 05 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

The rainy season is always a difficult time in the Limbe Wildlife Centre, with many sick animals. This week the rains have been particularly heavy and the results are devastating. Two young moneys, both not even a year old, have died. It is very tough to realize that we have failed to give these animals what they need, but of course what they need most at that age is a mom.

Several times I have written about Bobendina, a young Preuss’s monkey. She was an adorable little monkey, always playing and still sucking her thumb. And although she was with four grown up females who all wanted to fuss over her, she thought she was big enough to take care of herself. A few days ago she was found in the middle of the day lying on the ground. Her breathing was difficult, she was hardly conscious. For about 10 hours the veterinary team tried to keep her alive, but in the end she gave up. The post mortem showed that she had died of pneumonia.

The morning after, Marais was found in pretty much the same condition. Marais came to us as a very small red eared monkey (see blog January 2009). She seemed to have suffered a lot, but after we introduced her to female red eared monkey Aggy, she turned into an almost normal young monkey. Aggy liked to carry her new ‘baby’ and both seemed happy with the arrangement. The only problem was that she refused to take milk from a bottle, so she did not grow very well. In the last month Marais had become more independent and was playing a lot with two young mona monkeys in the same cage. She was quite healthy and lively until that morning. And also for Marais it was too late to help her.

We have buried the two monkeys next to each other with a proper Bakweri ceremony.

It helps to share a ceremony like this with your colleagues, but at the same time I am thinking really hard about the design of the guenon enclosure that we are going to build after the rainy season. The climate in Cameroon is hard, especially for young animals that do not have the protection and warmth of their mom. We somehow have to build something that gives our young monkeys better protection. Should we build in wall heating?

Best wishes,

Simone

2 responses so far

Category: Anne Sofie Meilvang, Cameroon, Gorilla, education | Date: Jul 02 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

It has been a busy time for the education team in Limbe. Every year we have holiday workshops here at Limbe Wildlife Centre. Last week we had the first one this year, which were for secondary school students. This year’s theme is “Gorillas, research and conservation”. We decide to focus on gorillas, because 2009 is appointed as “Year of the gorilla”.  Our holiday workshops are sponsored by Buschgarden Zoo in Florida, and they came up with the idea of focusing on research. The holiday workshops are free of charge, and it lasts for three full days. They are very popular among the children and adults in Limbe, and every year we see a lot of well known faces from previous workshops. This year more than 50 children signed up for the first workshop. This year the program was very busy. Within the three days, the students had several lectures about gorillas and conservation. They learned how to recognize gorillas from each other, and they did behaviour studies on the gorillas here. They went to a nearby forest to investigate if it was a suitable habitat for a gorilla group. We also had a gorilla researcher, Albert, from WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) here to tell about his job. He is Cameroonian and do research on Cross River gorillas. The children loved to hear his stories about counting gorilla nests and analyzing gorilla faeces. Buschgarden Zoo has holiday workshops at the same time as us, and our children always have a chat session with Buschgardens children in Florida. It is a very important part of the workshop, and this year the students discussed everything, from the weight of a tiger and the status of lemurs, to how often people do shopping in Florida and how big a Cameroonian family is. On the last day the children prepared posters showing what they have learned doing the workshop. They all have to present their poster and the ones how had made the best poster, and who did the best presentation got awarded. At the end all the participants are given certificates.Everything went very well, and we are now looking forward for the next three workshops, one for primary school children, one for high school children and one for university students and other interested adults. We are very grateful that Buschgarden Zoo sponsors our holiday workshop, and that so many people are interested in learning about primates and conservation.   Best wishes Sofie

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