Limbe Wildlife Centre

Category: Bush meat, Cameroon, Simone de Vries, endangered species | Date: Aug 23 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

In less than two years time this blog has become a major fundraising activity for the Limbe Wildlife Centre. While the credit crisis is having an impact on the possibilities to fund projects, this blog is proving that lots of small donation make a big difference. First of all I would like to thank everybody who has donated money through the paypall option on this page. You have made it possible that we are taking care of more than 200 primates and other wildlife species! For all our other readers, I would like to say: please make a donation now. I will explain why this is so important for the LWC.

Every month we are faced with the payments of salaries. Pandrillus, the NGO that manages the Limbe Wildlife Centre, employes a veterinary surgeon, a vet nurse, keepers, education officers, etc. Our staff is truly amazing. They are the most dedicated people I have ever worked with and the LWC would not have been what it is today without their passion and perseverance. Nevertheless, raising funds for salaries is very difficult. Therefor this blog has been invaluable for us in this matter and I hope it will be in the future as well.

Another big chunk of our expenses has to do with veterinary care. All animals that arrive at the LWC go through quarantine and need several health checks before we start introduction into a resident family group. Anaestatics, TB-tests, etc. have to be brought from Europe or America and are very expensive. And in a time like this, with so many animals on treatment for respitorial diseases, a lot of money goes into medications. Again, the money sent through this blog has been incredibly helpful and we need your ongoing support.

So please, if you all give a small donation now, the Limbe Wildlife Centre will be able to continue its work. Our animals deserve the best possible care and together we can give it to them.

Finally, this blog is not only about money. I really appreciate all the comments to our stories. It is good to know there is so many people out there who care and support what we are doing. It gives us the strength to go on and do what we need to do.

Thank you so much!

Simone

Tags: Cameroon, conservation, help

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Category: Bush meat, Cameroon, Simone de Vries | Date: Aug 05 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

The two African civets (Civettictis civetta) that were brought to the Limbe Wildlife Centre in March, will be released in the forest today. When they arrived in the LWC they were still babies, their mother possibly killed for bushmeat, but in 5 months time they have grown up enough to go back to the wild.

The civets were reared with puppy milk and later fed with fruits, rats and noodles. With this diet we have successfully reared several civets. They stay in a nice enclosure, that gives them plenty of coverage. We don’t want them to become used to people too much. The civets are monitored closely by our vet team. On the picture you can see how Dr. John is giving one of the civets a last treatment against worms, while keeper James is holding the animal. The very useful gloves were donated by Stichting Aap in the Netherlands (www.aap.nl).

For the reintroduction of civets and other non primate species we work together with the Ebo Forest Research Project of San Diego Zoo. Their research camp is a perfect place to release animals and keep an eye out for them afterwards. Civets that were released here earlier typically disappear right away into the forest, but one of them lingered around a bit and seemed to be doing quite well.

This morning very early our two civets started their travel to the forest in a transport box. They will be fed and watered during the trip, first in the car, then on the head of a porter. It is a long and strenuous walk through a thick forest with a big box on your head!

We will have to wait for two weeks, when this reasearch group comes back from the forest, to hear about how the release went.

Best wishes, Simone

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Category: Bush meat, Cameroon, Guenon, Simone de Vries | Date: Jan 10 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

Although she is lucky to be brought to the Limbe Wildlife Centre, our new red-eared monkey (Cercopithecus erythrotis) is nothing like a normal, happy young monkey. The man who brought her in said he had found her in the marsh - ‘Marais’ in French – but later changed his story to a market in Douala. It is often difficult to find out the truth about the history of an incoming animal, but it is clear that Marais, as we call her now, has suffered.

She is very small, but probably older then she looks. She is so skinny that her ribs stick out, which shows that she’s not been fed very well. It would be good for her to drink milk, but she doesn’t want to take it. She likes bananas and other soft fruits.

When everything is normal, Marais makes soft noises: PRRR, PRRR. But when something scares her she let us know with an alarm call: KAKAKAKA! This morning I heard a new sound from her, a loud, deep CROO! It was the storm that scared her, the noise of the rain on the roof and the lightning. Surely her mother would have comforted her, but without doubt she was killed for bushmeat by hunters.

Marais does not quite know yet what to think of me and the other people who are taking care of her now. She is basically afraid of people, but she craves physical contact and she has found out that we can give that to her. Once she decides to come to me she completely surrenders, lies on her back and wants to be stroked. To see a monkey so mixed up makes me sad, but at the same time I am extremely happy and grateful that I can be bring a little comfort.

Best wishes,

Simone de Vries

Assistant Project Manager

3 responses so far

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

3 responses so far

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

One response so far

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

One response so far

Category: Bush meat, Cameroon, Chimpanzee, endangered species, illegal trade | Date: Oct 29 2008 | By: limbewildlifecentre

I just returned from a four weeks leave in the Netherlands and it feels good to be back at the Limbe Wildlife Centre, Cameroon. A lot of things have happened while I was away, like the integration of four infant chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). It is great to see that the two new infants play with the older two and have become a little bit less dependent on people. Nevertheless they still need a lot of extra care, milk etc., which costs a lot of money. If you want to sponsor milk for our infants, please make a donation. Milk for one infant costs 15 euro per month.

Our frequent readers know the stories of Mbam, who was very afraid of people when he arrived, and Mayos, the four months old baby that needed 24-hour care. When Mbam was still in quarantine he spend a lot of time with Mayos and her caretaker Sandy. Although Mayos is a lot younger then Mbam, she seemed to understand the social chimpanzee rules a lot better then Mbam. We suspect that Mbam has spent a long time with people in a very bad situation. After his quarantine period he moved to the infant enclosure where he met Ilor and Nanga. Just before my leave Mbam was still a bit afraid of these big infants (2 1/2 years old!), but they now play together like they’ve known each other for years.

Mayos has been with Ilor and Nanga in the daytime for a few months now, but now she is fully integrated into the group. She gets an extra bottle of milk during the day and the security staff gives her another bottle late at night. She also needs to sleep for an hour during the day and she prefers to do that on one of the keepers’ laps. She is very confident with the older chimpanzees, more so then Mbam, and she is developing very well. It is great so see that our two new chimpanzees are growing and adjusting so well.

Best wishes,

Simone de Vries, Assistant Project Manager

Tags: bushmeat, Chimpanzee, conservation education, pan troglodytes, Pandrillus, pet trade, vellerosus

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Category: Bush meat, Cameroon, Felix Lankester, education, endangered species | Date: Sep 30 2008 | By: limbewildlifecentre

The Limbe Wildlife Centre, Cameroon, focuses predominantly on the rescue and rehabilitation of endangered primate species, like western lowland gorillas and the drill monkey.  However we also often rescue non-primate species, like reptiles and birds and other small mammal species.  Many of these species tend to be solitary animals whose behaviour is fairly instinctual and consequently returning them to the wild when they are healthy is less complicated than it is with primates.   In 2008 we have rescued and released dwarf crocodiles, African rock pythons, black kites, genet cats, palm civets and African civet cats, land tortoises, and 1227 African grey parrots to name a few.   

Earlier this year a fledgling owl was brought in to the LWC by members of the French Army who have a base nearby.  The owl was a Fraser’s eagle owl (Bubo poensis) and it’s left eye was extremely swollen, closed and bruised.  The army cadets had rescued the bird from some children who had been throwing stones at it.  Locally, and in many other parts of the world, owls are associated with witchcraft and as a consequence people are frightened of them and tend to try to kill them if they see one.   

We took the owl in and placed it on treatment and waited for the swelling in the eye to reduce.  After a few days the swelling had reduced sufficiently for the eyelids to open and at this point we could assess the damage to the eye.  Using an opthalmoscope it was clear that the damage was permanent as the retina had become detached from the back of the eye.  Owl’s hunt using their hearing but also rely on sight to guide them through the trees as they fly and only having one good eye would severely handicap this owl in the wild.  Consequently we decided that we would not be able to release it.   

This posed us with a dilemma of what to do with the young owl:  keep him in a cage for the rest of its life or euthanase it?  Not great choices.  Luckily, however, we came up with a third option:  to try to train the owl to fly to the fist in the hope that we could use him for displays whilst educating visitors about owls, how they live and hunt, and how they are not witches in disguise!  At this point, as the owl was to stay, we gave him a name and the obvious choice was Fraser.  

So for the past 5 months our quarantine keeper, Killi Matute and an English ornithologist, Robbie Whytock, have been working together to train Fraser.  The process is quite complicated but Robbie has a lot of experience training raptors and under his guidance Killi and Fraser have slowly developed a very intimate relationship.  Killi sets traps at night to catch mice and rats and then during the day he chops them in to bite sized pieces, weighs them, and at 1pm feeds approx. 25grams of meat to Fraser.  The amount fed each day has to be carefully calculated as if Killi feeds him too little he will lose weight, and if he feeds too much he will not want to fly the next day. It’s an interesting balance and its only through careful daily calculations made by weighing the food fed and judging how Fraser responds each day that Killi has been able to finally estimate what Fraser’s preferred daily ration should be.  Each day since the training began little by little Fraser has become more comfortable sitting on Killi’s fist, feeding from his hand, flying to his fist in a cage, flying to his fist outside with a string attached to his jesse (leather straps attached to his feet), to finally, this week, flying outside to Killi’s fist without a string attached.   

Last weekend Fraser and Kill had their first display in front of a crowd of local children and visiting government dignitaries.  The response that Killi received when he appeared with a ‘witch bird’ on his hand that flew at his command was quite incredible.  However before anybody began to think that Killi was himself a wizard, we described how and why Fraser came to be living at the LWC, how vulnerable owls are and how they deserve protection not persecution.   

The impact was remarkable and Fraser’s story really underlines how at the LWC we try to extract the maximum conservation value from each and every animal that is unfortunate enough to need rescuing.   I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Robbie Whytock for his expertise in training Killi and Fraser.  A great job well done! 

Felix Lankester

Tags: bushmeat, conservation, conservation education, Felix Lankester, Limbe Wildlife Centre, owl, raptor

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Category: Bush meat, education | Date: May 30 2008 | By: limbewildlifecentre

This week we organised for the fourth time a workshop for hunters. The participants came from two villages, one of them Ndokbangengue. Our loyal readers might remember this name: it is the name of one of our drills that came from the same village. It was very interesting to show little Ndok to the hunters and tell her story. Unfortunately the hunter who had killed her mother was not among the participants, but they all knew who it was.

The Hunters Workshop is organised in cooperation with Ebo Forest Research Project of CRES and sponsored by San Diego Zoo. This time 21 hunters travelled the long distance from Ebo Forest to Limbe and took part in the two days program. The goal of the workshop is to raise awareness about endangered species and discuss alternatives for hunting. It is very interesting to work directly with hunters. They understand our message well and they experience in the forest that the numbers of many species are going down. We discuss with them the possibilities for other ways to make a living and most participants are positive towards change. It is now too early to assess the long-term effects of the workshop, but the immediate result seems to be positive.

And in this last workshop Ndok offered a great tool to talk about the pet trade crisis. She was rescued from a hunter in Ndokbangengue and lucky to be brought to the Limbe Wildlife Centre. She had a broken arm when she arrived, so she had to wear a cast during the first weeks. Then she was introduced to another drill named Tiko, who had recently been brought in from a Catholic mission. Together they have now moved to the drill enclosure, where they are slowly introduced to all the other drills. Ndok still gets her milk twice a day and she looks very healthy.

Simone de Vries

Assitant Project Manager

3 responses so far