Limbe Wildlife Centre

On Saturday, 10th November, we received 14 African Grey Parrots that were confiscated near Korup National Park from a smuggler who was on his way to Nigeria. Thankfully, all of the parrots arrived safely to L.W.C. without any deaths during transport.

Currently the parrots are in the stabilization period, and we have made special housing for them in our quarantine facility.

 

Within the next few days, all of the parrots will undergo health checks.

On 31st October, Amigo, a 9 year old male olive baboon (Papio anubis), was rescued and brought to Limbe Wildlife Centre. When he was only 3 months old, he was purchased by a village chief and his wife. At first, Amigo lived with the family, but he soon became aggressive and they locked him into a small dog cage outside. He lived like this for nearly nine years:

Last year, the owners tried to give Amigo vaccinations, and he attacked them. At this point, they decided that he was too aggressive to handle, and contacted authorities. The Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MiNFOF), along with the Last Great Ape organization (LAGA), confiscated Amigo and contacted us. Dr. John went to the village and brought Amigo back to L.W.C., at which point he underwent his first health check. It was clear that Amigo was emaciated – he weighed only 17kg, whereas a male of his age should weigh between 25 and 30kg. When we fed him for the first time, he ate ravenously, first eating the peels of the banana, and then discovering the fruit inside.

Amigo is now in his quarantine period, during which he will undergo 2 more health checks to ensure his health and well-being. His space in quarantine is approximately 6 times wider and 3 times taller than the cage he spent 9 years in, and is filled with branches and ropes. Amigo has been spending a lot of his time in the branches, and is especially alert around feeding time, looking to see what new food he will receive. After his quarantine period, Amigo will be with members of his own species for the first time since his capture from the wild at 3 months old.

Amigo appears to be very relaxed in this new environment, and we look forward to seeing his continued improvement.

The past couple of months at LWC have been quite busy, with multiple projects underway and many new arrivals.

Bakumba, a very young putty-nosed guenon arrived in June. Left orphaned after her family was killed, she had been living with a farmer in Bakumba village. Upon arrival she was very sick and malnourished, but is now doing well. She is currently being cared for in quarantine, where she receives milk throughout the day along with nutritious foods and much-needed love. As soon as Bakumba’s test results come back and we know that she is healthy, she will join the baby guenon group.

Sagat, a patas monkey, was brought in by her owner. While at a market, the owner claims to have seen Sagat being beaten until she was unconscious. Thinking that she was dead, he took her home, only to discover that she was still alive. The man kept Sagat in a cage that was so small, she could not stand. Her legs are still very weak, which causes her to limp, particularly on her back legs. We placed many planks into Sagat’s quarantine enclosure, which allows her to work her leg muscles without causing too much extra strain. We have already seen vast improvements in both behavior and motor ability since Sagat’s arrival.

Nvuru, a 4-year old mandrill, and Chiguo, an adult moustached-guenon, arrived on the 29^th of July. They were part of the first ever animal confiscation in Equatorial Guinea, along with a young gorilla and a young chimpanzee. The confiscation was completed by Conservation International and the Zoological Society of London with the help of the Hess petrol company, and all of the animals were brought to the Ape Action Africa sanctuary, in Mefou, Cameroon. As Ape Action Africa is currently short in quarantine space, we agreed to take both Nvuru and Chiguo for their quarantine period. Ape Action Africa will care for both the chimpanzee and gorilla, as they already have young groups of both species.

The man who had been keeping Nvuru and Chiguo had them both tied to trees by very short ropes. When Nvuru arrived, the rope was still tied around his waist. He was anesthetized by the LWC vet team, the rope was removed, and a health check was completed. Underweight, but otherwise in good condition, he was brought into quarantine. Nvuru is incredibly happy in his new enclosure, which gives him a large space to roam, and smiles when anyone approaches.

Upon arrival, Chiguo was very scared. We immediately placed her into a quarantine enclosure filled with branches, which gives her space to move around and places to hide. She remains afraid of humans, but is eating well, which is a good sign. Over time, with needed love and care, we hope that she will become more comfortable in her new home.

Finally dry season has arrived. Rainy season has been a bit longer than usual and that has delayed our building plans at LWC, which have kept us pretty busy. We have built new climbing structures and platforms for the drills as the old ones were in bad shape. We also planted some new trees in their enclosure so they have some shade. They will have to wait for it, as it will take some years to the trees to grow enough.

The pool in the island chimp enclosure has been repaired as it had some leaks. The animals were very excited about it because they love to play and bathe in the water. We also built a new pool for the chimps in the nursery.

The climbing structures in the island enclosure were also repaired and upgraded.

Now some news about the animals:

Yabien and Lolo, our youngest chimp, have being introduced to the nursery group. Gah, has toatally adopted Yabien and Lolo she has become a great friend of Mayos’s.

Ngambe left the nursery and now lives in the island group. She is adapting fine and yesterday she went to the outdoors enclosure for the first time. She gets along very well with Ntui, Tika and Koto. TKC, the dominant male, likes her but is not very patient with her when she behaves like a baby.

The Grey-checked mangabey Y’de was sent to another sanctuary in Cameroon where they have two groups of his species. We will miss him, but we know he will be much happier with his new family.

Since our last post we have received two putty-nose, two baboons and one mandrill.

We also received a very special animal: a male preuss’s monkey. The preuss are a endangered species that only live in this area of Cameroon. We already had four females, and now we can start a breeding group for a future reintroduction. We have called him Warbay, and he’s going to be really busy with four wifes, poor Warbay!

Just a brief note for  the newest primate arrivals at LWC this past month of July.

The 4^th July 2011, a new Mona monkey (Cercophitecus mona) reached LWC totaling 2 this year. The first, Akak, from Mamfe area and this one from Wum Sud Division in the North West Region. She has been named  Wum after her area of origin.

Both areas, are boundary to the Nigerian border, well known for their exceptional high biodiversity and low protection. The Wum subdivision is located between the Takamanda-Okango and Gashaka-Manibilla National parks, it also is an area of distribution of this species. It would make it difficult to identify which rainforest exactly she comes from but for sure from an area that is supposed to be protected.

Wum, is a subadult female who is missing her left eye, probably due to trauma. She is scared of human pressence. She was brought in by MINFOF officials with a rope around her neck.

She  arrived with a poor body condition, high internal and external parasite load,  extremely underweight and anemic. She has already undergone her first quarantine health check and as soon as she passes her quarantine period, she will be introduced to the resident Mona group.

The second arrival of this month is a female infant chimp named after the village of origin, Yabien. She was brought from the Nkondjok sub division in the Litoral region of Cameroon. This subdivision is close to the Ebo Forest Reserve which is being transformed into a National park. It is very likely Yabien is from the Ebo forest, in which case she would be an extremely endangered chimpanzee subspecies, the Pan troglodytes eliotti. Her presence in LWC shows the urgent need of protection of these areas that hold such extremely endagered animals.

Yabien is estimated to be 3 years old. She was brought by an official of the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MINFOF). According to the official´s story, she was contacted on the 14^th July in relation to a young chimpanzee trapped in a snare by her right forefinger. She could not reach the place inmediately so, she asked the animal to be released and brought to her office as soon as possible. It took the villagers 4 days to arrive her MINFOF office with the chimp. Five days later, she contacted LWC to inform that she was on her way with the animal. Upon her arrival, Yabien had a very deep infected injury in her waist due to a rope that was tied too tight. This wound was stinking and full of maggots.

The rope and the maggots were removed under anesthesia. It looked like the rope  was put long time ago and Yabien had grown with it around her waist.  She was bloated, dehydrated with swellings of some parts of her body, especially the face, which could be due to  malnutrition. You could see her stare  blankly into the air in utterly hopeless and desperation.

Now, the wounds are healing slowly and she is starting to show her sweet personality. She seems to be habituated to human presence, which makes us doubt about the whole story.

The good news is that she is at LWC and we will take good care of her.

Today’s is a post of welcomes.

The 5^th of May another young monkey arrived. This time a juvenile putty-nosed guenon, Cercopithecus nictitans, was handed to us by a MINFOF official from Idenau. He had found this young female tied to a boat on the beach in a small village called Bibunde. No persons were around, so he, as a MINFOF official, confiscated the guenon, and brought it to us. It is illegal to keep any monkey in captivity without permission in Cameroon.  We call her Bibunde. Bibunde is now in quarantine and will have to stay there for three months and go through three health checks before she can join our group of six other putty-nosed guenons.

Welcome Bibunde!!!

We want to welcome our new volunteer Jenn Draiss who arrived on Monday and is staying with us for three months. Jenn is a primatology student from New York. We are sure she will have a great experience and enjoy herself a lot. We are very happy she is here.

Welcome Jenn!!!

More info on our volunteer programs on limbewildlife.org.

Within the last week, we received two new primates at Limbe Wildlife Centre!

Grey-cheeked mangabey

On the 20^th of April Onana Messofelix, a police commissioner living in Buea brought a beautiful male grey-cheeked mangabey infant Lophocebus albigena.  These fascinating monkeys are not native to the Cross-Sanaga region where we are located and so is likely to have come from southern or eastern Cameroon.

The Commissioner’s wife had acquired the animal in Yaoundé, 3 weeks earlier. She wanted to keep the mangabey as a pet, but the husband refused and brought the mangabey to the LWC.  We applaud his efforts to convince his wife that wild animals do not make good pets, and even more so that he brought the young mangabey to the wildlife center.  Thank you, Sir!

We estimate he is more than one year old. We call him Y’de, as he came to us from Yaoundé. He is a bit thin, but is now in our quarantine where the keepers are experts at restoring malnourished animals, and he is getting lots of good food and care.

We hope in future that one of the Cameroon PASA sanctuaries will have a group of this species for our young male to join.

Y'de

Female chimpanzee

On the 21^st April, barely 24 hours after receiving the mangabey, a LAGA official brought a tiny female chimpanzee to LWC. She had been confiscated from a hunter based in Lolodorf, a small town some kilometers away from Kribi, on the southern coast of the country.  This area is not part of the Cross-Sanaga faunal region so, as in the case of the grey-cheeked mangabey, this little chimpanzee probably does not belong to the endemic subspecies of our region but rather to the Central African supspecies Pan troglodytes troglodytes.

According to the story, the hunter who killed her mother, tried to sell her to a hotel in Kribi, which is a popular resort town.  The hotel owner contacted our government partner MINFOF (Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife) and they organized a joint operation with LAGA to recover the infant. The hunter and his companions were arrested and the chimpanzee was brought to LWC.

We have named her Lolodorf (or Lola), to remind us of her area of origin. On arrival she was dehydrated, tired and very hungry. Lola also had an infected wound on her right arm around the elbow, which was swollen and appeared painful to move.  It was probably inflicted by a shotgun pellet.  These pellets often self-expel, or can be removed surgically once a patient has been stabilized.  We are hoping to perform an x-ray soon to determine if the bone has been cracked. Lola had a high fever.

Lola was rehydrated and placed on antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medicines. Now she is much better, no fever or signs of infection, and she has a good appetite.

She spends her nights in our house, the normal procedure with very young infants, and so we can feed her during the night. During the day, Lola comes to the centre and is cared for by a keeper.  She enjoys hearing the other chimpanzees. Lola is an adorable small chimpanzee: she has only 4 teeth and we estimated her age to be around 6 months.

Lola

The whole Limbe team is very busy taking care of the parrots that we received in the beginning of December.

Last week we finished a 25x4x3 m flight cage for the parrots. The cage is placed in the Botanic Garden just opposite the wildlife centre on the edge of the Bota Hill Forest. The cage has perches in each end and is covered by palm ferns on the sides to make the parrots feel safe. During the night we have a security guard on the spot, to make sure that the parrots will not get stolen. “World Parrot Trust” has paid the construction of the flight-cage.

This Saturday we moved the first parrots to the cage. Before moving them we check their feather and the ones, who need to have their feathers plucked, stay in the cage in the wildlife centre. We pluck the feathers one the ones that have had their wing-feathers clipped off. In that way the feather will re-grow faster. The parrots are also treated for parasites. “World Parrots Trust” has sent us bands to put on all the birds. When the parrots are released back to the wild, it will be interesting to find out where they go, and see if they end up here again. The catching and moving of the parrots early in the morning, so the parrots will not overheat.

So far we have moved almost 300 parrots to the flight cage. From the new group we have many strong birds with intact feathers.

The parrots get a variety of food. We are trying many different fruits, leaves, seeds and vegetables to find out what they prefer.

We have changed the way of feeding, where we before always feed in feeders on the floor, we have now moved the feeders up on platforms, and the parrots seems to like that.

It takes a lot of time, people and money to take care of the parrots and we really appreciate all the organizations and people that have already given us support. I am sure that the parrots are happy too.I have just passed by the new flight cage and the parrots are eating, singing and making happy sounds!

If you want to support us, please go to our website: www.limbewildlife.org and choose the button: ‘make a donation’ under ‘Limbe Wildlife Centre’. Thank you very much! We need and appreciate every donation we get, and will make sure that the money goes directly to animal care.

Best wishes,

Sofie

Here a little update from LWC. The last month we didn’t receive any new animals, but we have been busy improving the conditions for the ones that are already here.

For our group of mandrills we have build new climbing structures and some platforms. The group consists of 12 mandrills in all sizes. In a month Bibindi, the small mandrill we received a few months ago will join the group. The mandrills are very happy for their new enrichment.

We have also started building a new climbing structure for the group two gorillas. We do the climbing structure bit by bit, as we don’t want to keep the gorillas in for many days in a row. On the picture you see the first part of the structure. We still need to add more, and then put up a lot of ropes and tires to make it more fun for the gorillas.

Our baby chimpanzees have also got a new climbing structure and a pool. To begin with they didn’t really dare to use the pool, so we had to go with them. On the picture you see Mayos (with a big smile) and our vet. volunteer Ann (also with a big smile) playing in the water.

As our big chimpanzee enclosure is next to the river, we have had a lot of problems with floods during the rainy season. Therefore we have now started building a 200-meter long embankment wall between the enclosure and the river. The chimpanzees follow the work with big interest!

All though we didn’t receive any new animals the last weeks, we did move some of the animals around. All our guenon babies stay together in a safe and warm cage with extra heating. Spot, the putty-nosed guenon that arrived last year in December has long been big enough to join our group of adult guenons, but since it was rainy season, where the animals are more fragile, we didn’t dare to move him. Now the dry season is here, and a few weeks ago we introduced him to the adult guenon group. The introduction went very well. In the group we have two female putty-nosed, Douala and Motumba. They loved Spot right away and are grooming him all the time. I am sure that Spot will have very nice life in that group!

Best,

Sofie

Last Saturday I was called to the wildlife centre late at night to receive a young male Mandrill. He was confiscated in Bibindi village near Kribi. The mandrill, who we call Bibindi, has being living as a pet for at least a year. The owner bought him from some hunters for 10.000 CFA.

Bibindi is very tame. He is in a pretty good condition, but still have to spend three months in the quarantine so we are sure that he doesn’t carry any diseases. During the quarantine period he will go through three health checks. He is used to eating bananas, papaya and sugar canes. We have given him a lot of branches in his cages and he loves to play with them.

Mandrills are not found in this area of Cameron but only south of the Sanaga River.  We have 13 of them in LWC. Mandrills are listed as vulnerable on IUCNs red list, because of the intensive hunting pressure and habitat loss on the species.

Today a man from Douala brought us a young male baboon. The baboon has been living with him since it was a baby. The owner told us that a friend, by accident, hit the baboon’s mother with a car five years ago. The mother died but the baby, who was hanging on the mother’s stomach, survived. This happen in the North of Cameroon, but the baby baboon was brought to Douala. The baboon is called Nana Bey.

He is now five years old and was starting to be a big challenge for the owner. Baboons are not good pets! Nana Bey ran to the neighbors’ house and stole their food and also started to be quite aggressive. That’s why the owner decided to bring him to LWC. Nana Bey is quite small for his age and a bit skinny. He is eating very well though, and I am sure he will gain some weight quickly. After his quarantine period he will join our group of 12 baboons. Baboons are found in the Northern part of Cameroon and are not endangered.

Have a nice Sunday,

Sofie