Limbe Wildlife Centre

Category: Simone de Vries, Uncategorized, endangered species | Date: Nov 17 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

It is has been too long since my last blog, while there is really so much to tell. If you could pay a visit to the Limbe Wildlife Centre now, you would see that the entrance is nicely painted, with new plants along the wall. Then you would come in and go to the new gorilla pavilion, where you would have a great view over the gorillas that are high up in the trees. We are still working on the education signboards in and around the pavilion, but that will be ready before your next visit! During your visit you would of course see all the 15 species of monkeys and apes that live in the LWC. When you would be almost at the end of the tour you would see a giant construction of pipes.

This is the new enclosure for our guenons. I am very happy with this new construction, because the old enclosure is about to fall down. The new enclosure is bigger, has better separation possibilities and there is even a real tree growing inside. But I must say, it also costs a lot of money! We have received building materials from San Diego Zoo and money from Pro-Wildlife, but we still need more money to complete the enclosure. You can help us giving the monkeys the space they need, by making a donation through the paypal option on this page. Thank you very much for your support.

I will write more often again, so we will keep in touch!

Best wishes,

Simone

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jul 25 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

I want to give you an update on our two youngest gorillas Atinbi and Adjibolo

Our youngest gorilla Atinbi is almost 5 months old now. She is still very dependent on her mother Akiba, and she hangs on her mother’s belly most of the time, but she is starting to get more confident. To start with, Akiba always had to support her with an arm, when they were moving around, but now Atinbi is strong enough to hang by herself. She is often trying to crawl away from her mother, when they sit on the ground, but Akiba won’t let her and always pulls her gently back on her lap.

It is very interesting to follow the development of a baby gorilla. Our keepers have to note down all her developments. Each day it seems like she is growing and getting stronger. Within the last months Atinbi has got teeth and has started tasting the fruit that the adult gorillas are feed. The other gorillas are still very interested in Atinbi and spend hours observing and touching her.

Adjibolo is now around two years old. She came to LWC when she was only about six months old, and very small. Now she is much bigger, and the happiest gorilla you can imagine. She has a big belly, like most of our female gorillas. This morning I was observing her playing in the enclosure, and it is always a pleasure. She loves to swing in the robes, and is quite acrobatic. She spends most of her day playing, and luckily her group is very playful. The two females, Tinu and Abbey still take very good care of Adjibolo.

All in all our two youngest gorillas are doing very well here in Limbe Wildlife Centre.

Best wishes,

Sofie

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Category: Cameroon, Chimpanzee, Simone de Vries, Uncategorized, endangered species | Date: Jul 19 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

A few days ago Jo-Jo, a male chimpanzee of about 13 years old, went outside for the first time in a very long time. After years in a cage he could finally feel the grass beneath his feet again.

Jo-Jo was kept by a Greek business man, ever since he was a baby. Over time he became more and more difficult to keep and frequently escaped. When the man left the country he left Jo-Jo with a Cameroonian colleague. The colleague decided to donate Jo-Jo to the Limbe Wildlife Centre. This is how Jo-Jo was kept until then.

Jo-Jo was an aggressive chimpanzee when he came to us. Being in a small cage for a long time had been very hard for him and hours on end he was rattling his feet against the quarantine cage. His rehabilitation has taken a long time, but this week he was finally ready to go outside with the rest of the chimpanzees in the new Born Free Chimpanzee enclosure.

He first hesitated, going out for a few seconds and then run inside again. He repeated that a few times. Then he grabbed Papa, a young male, from the back and walked out with him. Papa guided him around, Jo-jo holding on tightly. Several chimpanzees came up to Jo-Jo and hugged him. It was almost like they were congratulating him: you are outside! Papa walked him all the way down to the end of the enclosure, where Carlos was waiting for them.

Carlos is our biggest chimpanzee and he weighs 84 kilograms. Carlos and Jo-Jo hugged each other and Jo-Jo even climbed on Carlos back. Like that, Carlos walked him around a bit then they went up to a climbing structure. Jo-Jo climbed up and stayed there the rest of the day.

Jo-Jo, who only weighs 50 kilograms, looks quite small next to Carlos.

At the end of the day Jo-Jo did not want to come inside. We could not blame him, because he had been inside for too long. Finally when darkness came, Jo-Jo went in and we closed the door behind him. This routine was repeated the two days that followed, until yesterday when he went inside with the others.

Tags: Chimpanzee, rehabilitation

5 responses so far

Category: Anne Sofie Meilvang, Cameroon, Uncategorized, education | Date: Jul 13 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

Our educators here take visitors around the centre every day, and most of our keepers guide visitors around whenever they have time. As Cameroon has both a French speaking and an English speaking part, many of our visitors are French speaking. Therefore many of the tours have to be in French. Until now only a few of the staff have been able to do the tours in French, but this is now going to change.

Thanks to Gwendy Reyes-Ills and her parents who have raised a lot of money for our staff education program, 15 of the people working here, last week started on a French course. The course is four hours a week, and pretty intense.

Here you see the group who started taking the French course;

It is great to see how hard the staff is working to learn French and how enthusiastic they are. Every morning after a class, we all practice what we have learned, so all over Limbe Wildlife Centre you will hear French. I even think some of the keepers started talking to their animals in French!

We are very grateful that Gwendy and her parents are supporting our staff education. Merci beaucoup!

Best wishes,

Sofie

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jul 02 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

It may sound as a strange opening sentence of a blog that has been running for more than a year, but today we celebrate the first day of internet access in the Limbe Wildlife Centre. Until yesterday we could write a blog in our own office, but then we had to go to a cyber cafe to cut and paste and upload it. That is all very well when you are used to it, but it is a great luxury now to just write this and then push the publish button. We thank Brevard Zoo in Florida for sponsoring our connection and hope to do a lot more exciting things like webcams, students chats, etc. in the future. And we have a lot more thanks to give to all the people who have been donating money to us via this blog in the last months. It is really heart warming to see that so many people support the work we do. Most of all we need to thank Gwendy Reyes-Ills and her parents, because they have raised a lot of money that will be dedicated to staff education. We will report soon on the education program in this blog. Blog to you soon! Best wishes, Simone 

One response so far

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

One response so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Feb 24 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

 The Limbe Wildlife Centre runs a volunteer program whereby we invite people to come and gain a unique experience working hands on with endangered primates, and in return they are asked to pay a donation. All of the funds raised in this program go directly to pay for animal food and medicine.

One of our volunteers at the moment is Monique Thybo Djarn from Danmark. She wrote an impression about the Miniworkshop about Climate Change last month:

“The 24th of January the LWC held a workshop about global warming. The LWC is not only a sanctuary for injured and orphaned animals, it is just as much an education centre that aims to teach people about conservation and how to live their life without being a damage towards nature.
At first there was an introduction of the various speakers, and afterwards Glenn, one of the teachers from the LWC, shortly described what global warming is, and how the workshop was going to take form.
We started seeing part of a documentary called The Inconvenient Truth made by Al Gore. The documentary describes what global warming is, what is causing it, and what consequences it may have. Every now and then the documentary was stopped and the head speaker, a Canadian woman named Jane Boles, would explain it in an easier language, answer questions and afterwards ask some questions both about the documentary, but also to test the basic knowledge that the visitors had about global warming.
Before lunch the participants had a guided tour around the centre. Many still think that the LWC is a zoo, but by taking them around the centre and explaining to them that the animals are here because of the bush meat and pet trade, we not only make them aware of the work that is done here, but hopefully we also make them think about what their behavior can cause nature and the animals in it.

After lunch Jane Boles gave a perfect introduction to the possibilities of Carbon Credits for conservation in Cameroon. The idea is that money will be donated to initiatives that avoid logging of the tropical rainforest and instead promote a sensible management of these valuable habitats. This new instrument can secure large amounts of CO2 locked in the biomass and at the same time save important ecosystems from destruction.
We saw the last bit of The Inconvenient Truth, and ended the workshop with a debate of what can be done to prevent, or stop global warming. Almost all of the visitors took part in the debate with both questions and suggestions, which we at the LWC see as a positive reaction to the workshop.”

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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: Uncategorized, illegal trade | Date: May 18 2008 | By: limbewildlifecentre

Back in December 2007 we rescued 1220 African grey parrots of which approximately 700 birds were released within a few weeks of their arrival at the LWC.  The remainder of the parrots had damaged feathers, from the glue that was used to catch them or from being purposefully cut by the hunters.  Each of these injured parrots had their plumage treated back in January 2008, with the help of a veterinary team from the World Parrot Trust, and have been recuperating ever since.  Now, four months later, some of these parrots have shown through their ability to fly strongly in the flight cage that their plumage has recovered and so it is time to begin the final release phase.  

 However the program will be different from the previous releases, as, rather than taking the selected birds to a nearby forest to be set free, we have decided to simply open up their flight cage here at the LWC and allow them to fly off in their own time. 

PHOTO: ROOF OF FLIGHT CAGE IS PEELED BACK TO ENABLE PARROTS TO FLY FREE AT THEIR WILL 

The decision to opt for this LWC-based ‘soft-release’ strategy was taken after we saw how well a few parrots who had escaped from the flight cage were doing living free amongst the trees of the wildlife centre.  So the plan is to simply start adding birds to this ‘escaped’ flock and to continue to provision them with food and water so that they can regain their strength and fitness steadily.  The forests surrounding the town of Limbe are only a short distance away so when the birds are ready we hope that they will simply fly off together.  Flocks of up to 40 African grey parrots are regularly seen flying around the capital city of Yaoundé so living in the small town of Limbe should not be a problem for the greys. Today, Sunday 18^th May, the roof of one of the flight cages was peeled back and the first batch of 12 recovered parrots were freed. 

PHOTO: parrots flying free from cage

So far they are doing well and have joined the ‘escaped’ flock that is resident at the LWC.  The sight of a flock of parrots flying strongly through the trees of the LWC is a truly wonderful sight, all the more so when one considers the absolutely appalling conditions in which they arrived in 6 months ago.   

PHOTO:  Parrot flying at speed!

PHOTO: newly released parrots flying high into a tree in the Limbe Botanic Gardens

A special thank you to the World Parrot Trust, Pro-Widlife, the Born Free Foundation, the Animal Divulgation Trust and the Humane Society for all their support with the parrot rehabilitation.  The process is still ongoing and we have a while before we can say that we are parrot free, but we certainly would not be where we are today without this support.  Thank you.

10 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: May 08 2008 | By: admin

After our four new gorillas (The Taiping 4) were moved to the gorilla enclosure on the 24th of April, they first spent a little over a week to get used to the new environment and the proximity of 10 other gorillas. The two groups were watching each other a lot and they seemed eager to meet each other.

Last monday we started the introduction and in the past days we have tried different combinations of gorillas. So far this has gone really well. Arno was the first to be introduced to the Taiping 4 and he is already part of the group, his biggest friend being Tinu.

This morning we also let Nyango and Akiba meet with the new arrivals. Akiba was having a ball with all four new gorillas, climbing on their backs, wrestling with them and running around like crazy.

Nyango is not that playful and she was just sitting in a corner like nothing interesting was going on. After a while Tinu joined her, touching her every now and then. They were just sitting there like two old ladies, drinking tea. In the meantime Izan, the new male, was trying to get some attention from Nyango, poking her in the belly and than run away. Nyango just ignored him.

At some point Abby, one of the new females, became aggressive towards Nyango. Suddenly the group split up again in the ‘old’ gorillas and the ‘new’ gorillas. We had to separate them for a short while to bring back the peace. After that they were okay again and in the afternoon they were all just lazy.

We are very happy with the introduction so far. We are not there yet – the silverback Chella will have to be introduced to the new gorillas soon – but none of us expected it to go as smooth as it has gone until now. All together we have 16 gorillas now. They are by far our most expensive animals, because they have a very specific diet (see Felix’s blog on Afromomum). We are very greatful for all the support we get from our readers and more money is always very welcome!

Best wishes,
Simone de Vries
Assistant Project Manager

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