Limbe Wildlife Centre

Today we received a two-year-old orphan drill monkey. After his mother was killed for bush meat, this little boy was sold in the market of Bajo, near Mamfe. A military man on his way to Limbe took an interest in the monkey and bought it for 30,000 CFA (€ 45). He even went to the Chief of Post, the local officer for the ministery of forestry and wildlife (MINFOF), who prepared a certificate of origin. It stated that it was a colobus monkey and that the owner was free to travel with it. The chief of post also said that the owner should report to the MINFOF in Limbe, as soon as he arrived there.

The owner kept the drill for more than a month, but then reported to MINFOF. The senior divisional officer told him that it was forbidden to keep a monkey as a pet and that he should donate the animal to the Limbe Wildlife Centre. Together they came to the LWC and 10 minutes later we went to the owners home to pick up the drill.

The drill is now called Bajo and he is very sweet. The owner was a bit sad to let him go, but he received a free entrance ticket to come and see his animal later on. It is always best when people willingly give up their animals, in stead of animals being confiscated. It gives us the opportunity to discuss with the people why it is much better for the animal to be in a large enclosure with other monkeys of its kind.

Bajo will spend 3 months in quarantine and will then join the group.

Best wishes, Simone

The guenon monkeys have a new home! Where it used to be a marsh, we now have a very spacious enclosure for 5 different species of guenons. In the last week we moved all the monkeys and new groups were formed. The Preuss’ monkeys and the Red-eared monkeys form one group. These species are both rather calm and do well together. On the other side we have a group of Putty-nosed monkeys, Moustached monkeys and one Crowned guenon. These three species have much more temperament and also form a good team. All monkeys have much more space than before so they are enjoying themselves a lot. One side of the enclosure has a mango tree inside and the other a big stump of a tree that fell down last year in the big storm, so there are some natural climbing structures.

Many donations made it possible to build this enclosure. ProWildlife from Germany was our biggest sponsor, but the pipes and part of the mesh came in a container from San Diego Zoo. On top of that we used money that we raised with this blog. We would like to thank all our readers that have donated us through this blog. Our monkeys truely appreciate your support.

Best wishes, Simone

I am sure that many of you will remember Bazou, the chimpanzee we received a few months ago? He was confiscated after having spent 16 years alone in a small cage.

Yesterday his quarantine period was over, and we moved him to our chimpanzee section. I think all of us were very excited to see how Bazou would react when he finally met other chimpanzees. We were also a bit worried, as he has some very abnormal behaviors and is very unpredictable.

Most of the chimpanzees were outside when we moved Bazou to his new home, but in the evening they all came inside. Bazou ran up to the fence between the cages and screamed at all of them. This was Bazou’s first lesson in chimpanzee behavior; when you scream at other chimpanzees, they scream back to you… And they all did. That made Bazou very scared, so he ran back to the other end of the cage and tried to hide in the corner. It will take some time before he is ready to join the group. He has probably not seen other chimpanzee since he was taken out of the forest as a baby and has no social skills.

This morning I went to see him, and he was very stressed and was doing a lot of strange movements. I am afraid it will take a long time before he is living happily in our big chimpanzee group…

Have a nice weekend,

Sofie

The history of Limbe Wildlife Centre starts in the early sixties of the last century, when the Victoria Zoo was founded.

Unfortunately the zoo was a terrible place for animals. The enclosures were very bad and often the zoo didn’t have enough money to buy food for the animals.

This picture shows two cages from that time; the biggest was the cage for the chimpanzee, and in the smallest cage a big mandrill spent at least four years – he couldn’t even turn around!

Today these cages are only used as an exhibition here. But until now, we have still had some of the old enclosures in use for our rescued animals. Two dwarf crocodiles have been in a small round cage for a very long time, since we didn’t have anywhere else to put them. Yesterday we could finally move them to another and much better enclosure. The enclosure was until recently occupied by two Nile crocodiles, but they have now have been released back to the wild.

The dwarf crocodiles are small, but they are adults and very strong. It toke four keepers to carry them from one cage to another. They now have much more space and a much bigger pool, which they jumped into right away. I don’t know how to tell if a crocodile is happy, but I am sure that they feel happier in their new home.

Right after the move, Simon and Killi, two of our keepers, started demolishing the old round cage. We want no more animals in that small cage.

It feels so good when you do something that is improving the animals’ lives. If you want to help us improve the animals’ lives, please make a donation through this website, and we will make sure to use it on something good for the animals.

Have a nice weekend,

Sofie

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