Limbe Wildlife Centre

In March last year Akiba gave birth to daughter Atinbi. Atinbi is growing up well and starts to be more and more independent. She is now allowed to wander off on her own and only when it takes too long Akiba comes to pick her up. Akiba is a great mom, who knows when to be protective and when it is okay for her daughter to explore. Most of the time Atinbi is riding on the back of her mom.

Akiba spents much time with Benito, a 14 year old male in the group. Benito is a very gentle and calm gorilla, which is probably why he still doesn’t get himself into trouble with the silverback Chella. Akiba is completely relaxed when Atinbi crawls on Benito’s lap and plays with him. So far we have always thought that Chella is the father of Atinbi, because mating between him and Akiba was observed. I am now starting to wonder if it might have been Benito. Would gorilla females know who is the father of their offspring?

Best wishes,

Simone

I just wanted to show you this picture of Spot and Unity. After a week of carefully introducing the two to each other, they are good friends now. Spot is no longer afraid of Unity. Instead they are grooming each other, playing, running and jumping together. It is not so easy to get them on a picture, because they are too mobile!

For Spot this is the start of his rehabilitation. He has been with people for a long time, tied to a rope around his waist. He will have to learn again the rules of the monkey world. Unity has already spent some time with other monkeys in quarantine. While the others moved on, she had to stay because she had a problem with her tail. It started with a small wound that did not heal and got worse and worse. In the end part of her tail had to be amputated, but as she is picking the wound it still does not heal well. Hopefully her new playmate will keep her mind off the wound, so it will finally get better.

Best wishes,

Simone

First of all I would like to wish all our readers and supporters all the best for the new year. You have been great for us in the last year and thanks to your help we have been able to do so much more for the animals in our care. I would like to thank you for that and hope that you will stay part of the LWC family in the years to come!

Today is the fourth day of Spot’s introduction to another young monkey: Unity. It is not going very well yet, because Spot is very afraid. But every day something new happens and hopefully he will soon learn to appreciate some non-human company.

Every day I go with Spot into Unity’s cage to let the two meet each other. Spot is very attached to people, so when I go into the cage he just clings to me. Unity is curious, so she comes up to us and wants to smell, touch and groom him. Today for the first time he let her do it. She started with the tip of his very long tail and worked her way up. Spot became completely passive, just hanging on me. Unity reached his head, poked in his nose, looked at his teeth (like someone checks a horse!) and then, I think by accident, stuck a finger in his eye. Right away he was scared again.

A little later I left them alone for a while, but Spot kept on running with Unity on his tail. So I went in again and took Spot back to his own cage. Tomorrow we will change it around: put Unity in the smaller cage that is now Spot’s home. Then Spot can take some time to get to know the place better.

Most of the time it is not so difficult to put two young monkeys together, but Spot has probably been with people for a long time. He will need some time to get adjusted to monkeys again, but we will just take it slowly with him.

One last picture of Unity:

Best wishes,

Simone

This morning we released the first 49 parrots in a community forest. The operation went very smoothly. We started early in the morning by catching 53 parrots. They were put in the three story transport box that Jacob, our carpenter, had prepared for them. The box was loaded on the car and off we went to the forest.

Upon arrival the box was opened and while a few parrots flew out right away, most of them took their time. Some had to be taken out of the box by hand and then they flew off. We found that 4 were not strong enough yet to fly well, so they went back home with us.

This release is a very nice start, but most of the parrots will have to stay much longer at the Limbe Wildlife Centre before they are ready to fly. We appreciate your continued support greatly. Please help to take care of these wonderful birds and bring them back where they belong.

Best wishes,

Simone

This Gah, who is now almost 5 years old. When Gah came to the LWC almost 4 years ago he was completely paralyzed as a result from shot wounds and a fall from a high tree. Many of our readers remember him and we often get questions about how he is doing.

Gah is doing quite well, but he is often a big worry to us. In the first half year at the LWC Gah made a miraculous recovery, but he has never completely recovered from his induries. He drags a bit with his feet and he seems to have a mental handicap. When chimpanzees come up to him he does not respond in a normal way and therefor the others always bother him. Too many times he has ended up with big bumps on the head. A few months ago he had a big cut above the eye and even the eyeball it self was scratched. He had to be separated and treated for a quite a while.

After he was released from sick bay we have joined him with some other chimpanzees that have problems. Alex and Achidi also cannot cope very well in the big group. Alex spend several years chained to a car wreck, until she was rescued and brought to the LWC. She is a very scared animal. At least she has a friend in Achidi, who has been with her ever since she arrived. Now they form a small group with Gah and all three seem to be happy with this arrangement.

We are all running around to get everything ready for Christmas day, the busiest day of the year for the Limbe Wildlife Centre. We always have more than 1000 visitors coming to see the animals, so we make sure everything looks at its best. From all the staff members and animals, we wish you a very happy Christmas! We will be in contact again soon because we still have a very busy last week of the year ahead of us (the start of the parrot release!).

Best wishes,

Simone

Yesterday we counted, selected and treated all the parrots that were confiscated in Douala Airport two and a half weeks ago. With 7 people we worked from 7am to 5pm, but in the end we had done all the parrots. There were many more birds than we had estimated! We now know that the total amount of parrots seized was 503. All of them were stuffed in 10 wooden boxes and arrived in terrible circumstances in the Limbe Wildlife Centre.

This number explains why the parrots are eating so much. We spend about $45 per day on food for the parrots. We really can use all the support you can give us. Please do a small donation through the paypal option on this page. We are very grateful.

In order to treat the parrots for parasites and to assess their health each parrot has to be caught separately. A lot of the parrots are too skinny and have clipped wing feathers. The parrots in this shipment hardly had glue on their wings, which is something we have seen a lot in earlier parrot shipments. Parrots are often caught by applying glue into a basket and then placing a live parrot inside the basket. Other parrots then come to see what is happening and get stuck in the glue. On the other hand, this time we found a lot of birds with their feathers tied together, which is something we have not seen before.

The good, healthy flyers were then placed in one room and all the others in another room. The total amount of flyers is 176. In ten days time the treatment against psittacosis will be finished and we will then start with the release of the flyers. The other animals will have to spend more time in the LWC in order to become healthy and strong.

Best wishes,

Simone

In the three years that I am working in the Limbe Wildlife Centre we have released many dwarf crocodiles, who are critically endangered. They live in small rivers and it is not difficult to find suitable release sites around Limbe. For Nile crocodiles it is not so easy, because they only survive in big rivers that are not found close to the LWC. Last week we released two Nile crocodiles that were rescued from the bush meat trade. It was quite an adventure to reach the perfect release site.

The day started at 6 am with the catching of the crocodiles. Jonathan and Killi are great keepers and they are very fast. That is very useful when you have to grab a crocodile. On the other hand, I am much more useful making the pictures. The mouths and the legs were tied with rubber and the crocodiles were placed in the back of our pick-up. Then the long trip to Barombi Mbo Forest Reserve began.

The roads in this part of the world are not always good, so it took some effort to arrive at the reserve. But that was only the beginning. In order to reach the perfect release site the team had to track for three hours, crossing several small streams, carrying the crocodiles wrapped in a tarp. On the picture you can see Egbe and Kenneth carry one crocodiles together. The local authorities had asigned some foresters with guns to come along, because they thought the crocodiles might eat the people of the release team.

The day came almost to an end when the team arrived at the river. The crocodiles were unwrapped and untied and then released in the water.

It is good to see that these two crocodiles are back where they belong.

Best wishes, Simone

I just want to show you this picture of Bazou, who was rescued a few days ago.

He is now in our quarantine, and as you can see on the picture we are feeding him well. He eats everything that we offer him. Apparently he was normally fed on food scraps and whatever the people in the village had. They also used to give him beers and cigarettes.

He is slowly beginning to feel a bit comfortable here. He spends most of his day eating or observing the other animals in the quarantine. Bazou also likes human company, and we spend some time every day sitting next to him to give him a bit of comfort. Bazou is a very sweet chimpanzee. When I sit next to his cage, he comes to me and grooms my arms and hold my hand. He still has some strange reactions sometimes, and make very special noises. It seems like his hair plucking is already a bit less. We will continue to give him a lot of care.

Best wishes, Sofie

A sixteen-year old male chimpanzee, that has spent most of his years in a small cage, has been rescued. After a long day of confiscation and travel, the rescue team and the chimpanzee arrived in the middle of the night at the Limbe Wildlife Centre.

We have named the chimpanzee Bazou, after the village where he was kept since a very young age. Bazou is much smaller then a normal adult, as a result of malnourishment. His arms are very thin and his ribs are visible.  He is showing abnormal behaviour, like plucking his hair and making strange movements. But he also seems to be craving for contact. When I pet his hand he relaxes and just watches me. Bazou must have been taken from the forest at a young age, having seen his mother being killed for bush meat. At first he was kept on a rope around his neck, but when he grew up he was put in a small cage. The old rope was still around his neck when he was rescued. It is very sad to see a chimpanzee in such a state, but we will do our best to rehabilitate him.

Bazou was kept by the widow of an important man. According to the stories in the village, the man had a special relationship with chimpanzees. When he was still a baby, chimpanzees had taken him away to the forest and later returned him to his home. Therefore it was only logic that the man kept a chimpanzee at his house. One of the people on the rescue team was our vet Dr. John. He told us this morning that the villagers did not agree at all with the confiscation. They thought that the chimpanzee was happy to be where he was. After a long discussion a few villagers chose the side of the rescue team and helped to convince the other people. In the end the villagers decided to be cooperative and the chimpanzee was sedated and moved into a travel box.

Bazou will spend three months in our quarantine, before we will start the introduction to the other resident chimpanzees.

First of all, thank you all for your support concerning the rescue of around 300 parrots from Douala Airport. Some of you might wonder why your remarks were not visible on the blog right away, but I just found 18 responses in the moderation box. It is good to know that so many people are thinking about us while we are doing everything to save the lives of these parrots.

Unfortunately we still have a few dead parrots every day. The vet team has done post mortems on them and found symptoms that could point in the direction of psittacosis. We do not have final results yet, but we are treating with doxycycline in the food.

Which brings me to feeding the parrots. Parrots eat a lot! The staple food we give them is a mash of cracked corn, casava flour and peanut. They also eat a variety of fruits, palmnuts and plums. Palmnuts are their favorites, but we are careful not to feed too much of them, as they have a very high fat content. Plums in Cameroon have nothing to do with the juicy fruits we eat in Europe. What is called plum in this country is a rather hard, dark blue fruit with a lot of carbohydrates. If you cook them for two minutes they taste like potato!

Best wishes,

Simone