Limbe Wildlife Centre

Category: Anne Sofie Meilvang, Cameroon, Chimpanzee, Uncategorized | Date: Jun 03 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

I want to give a little update on the three baby chimps that we received three weeks ago. All the chimps seem to be doing fine, and it seems like they have adapted to their new home at Limbe Wildlife Centre. We are now slowly getting to know them and their personalities. 

Tikar is the biggest of the three chimps, and he seems to be the dominant animal in the group. He is full of character and very confident. He is not scared of anything. Like the two other chimps he eats everything we give him. Tikar loves to be groomed and when he sees anybody near the cages he runs to the fence to get their attention. We have to be careful though, as he bites if he gets the chance. 

Ngambe, the female, is not as confident as Tikar, but she is not scared of humans. The babies have apparently not been feed from a baby bottle before they came here, but Ngambe quickly learned to drink from the bottle. We use the baby bottles to feed them milk and yoghurt. Ngambe is very good friends with Tikar.  

Ntui is the smallest chimp and also the most submissive. He seems to have a good character, but is a bit shy. We try to let him come to us, instead of going to him, so that he does not get scared. He is a little underweight but has a very good appetite. He actually eats all day so hopefully soon he will have a normal weight.  We will keep you updated on the chimps. 

Best wishes,Sofie

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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: Anne Sofie Meilvang, education | Date: Apr 27 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

Every month we try to make a “field trip” with the Nature Club members, which is always exciting for the children.

On Saturday the 25^th of April our nature club members went to Down Beach in Limbe to do beach cleaning. The beach cleaning is a yearly event, which in addition to cleaning the beach, also gives us a good opportunity to discuss garbage and its impact on nature with the children. The week before this event we discussed this subject in class to prepare and encourage the children.

This year more than 30 motivated Nature Club children showed up to help with the beach cleaning. In addition, 20 teenagers from a church group joined our efforts, so we had a big group. We divided the children into small groups, each with a wheelbarrow and rakes, and then worked our way from one end of the beach to the other. The children collected a big pile of rubbish, and even though the beach may look dirty again today, I believe that they learned a lot from the cleaning, and that it also made a good impression on all the people who watched us clean the beach.

Best wishes,

Sofie

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Category: Anne Sofie Meilvang, Felix Lankester, Simone de Vries | Date: Apr 19 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

It’s been a while since the last blog, but that doesn’t mean that nothing has happened at the Limbe Wildlife Centre. On the contrary, it has been a very busy month. Last week we had to say goodbye to Felix Lankester, who has been the manager for 5 years. His presence will be missed, but the results of his work will benefit the LWC for many years to come: a great veterinary team in a well equipped vet room / laboratory, an incredible chimpanzee enclosure, a properly trained and well organised staff, etc. But although the LWC has grown in many ways in the last years, there is still a lot of work to be done.

I am honoured to have taken over the manager’s position from Felix and I am looking forward to work on the further developments that are necessary to live up to the high standards we have set for ourselves. I would like to introduce to you the new assistant project manager: Anne Sofie Meilvang. Sofie comes from Danmark and is a biologist with experience in conservation education. I am looking forward to working with her and hope she will have just as much fun in her job as I have had in the past years. Together we will work on the further integration of our chimpanzees in the new Born Free chimpanzee enclosure, the building of a guenon enclosure, the expansion of our education program and all the other plans we have. We will keep you informed on this blog.

Simone de Vries

Project Manager

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