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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 18th 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.
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. 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,
Takwai is our latest arrival. She was brought to the Limbe Wildlife Centre on 30th April. She is a mona monkey of around 6 weeks old and upon arrival she weighed 345 grams. A hunter in Takwai forest killed her mother and brought it to a village. A woman who works for a Cross River gorilla conservation project took care of her for two weeks, until she had the possibility to travel to Limbe. As she also needs food during the evening and early in the morning I take her home after work each day. At home she runs up and down on the cough and jumps from me to my husband and back. Last year we had a baby red-eared guenon, Ebo, and it is interesting to see the similarities and differences. They both like to put things in their mouth and they love it when you tickle their belly, just like human babies. But Takwai is much more mobile then Ebo was at the same age. She jumps farther and is also a lot braver. Ebo did not leave the couch until she was a few months old, but Takwai has already made it to the table once. There could be individual differences of course, but this difference corresponds with the general difference between the two species: the red-eared monkey being shy and secretive, while mona monkeys are rather bold. Takwai seems to be very happy with her situation. In the daytime she has her own large cage and the keepers make sure she has everything she needs. In the evening she comes home with me and then she sleeps through the night, from 9pm to 6 am. Best wishes,
here are those pics I promised.
Regarding your question, Theresa, yes we have tried growing the aframomum and currently have an area of the project set aside for growing it. However it grows slowly and, as you can see from the amount we have harvested in the back of the pick up, we need far more than the space at the project can possibly grow. Consequently we have to send missions to the mountain to sustainably harvest it from areas of forest where it is growing in abundance.
You also asked about Ndok the drill with a broken arm: well her arm healed well and she is now out of her cast and happily living with Tiko, the young male, in quarantine. They are due to leave quarantine next week to begin their introduction to the main drill enclosure. So all is going well there. You are correct the African grey parrots rehabilitation is coming to an end and their feather regrowing phase is due to be up at the end of May. Already we are seeing quite a few good fliers in the flight cage. Plus we have had a few escapes (parrots are very good at chewing through chain-link, especially the weak type we get here in Cameroon), most of which we have been able to return to the cage, however some of the escapees were able to fly and could not be caught. These 8 birds have since formed a release flock of their own and now live in the trees around the project. We still provision them with food and water and they can often be seen sitting on top of the flight cage chatting away with their captive friends. This accidental release has been so successful that, rather than taking parrots to the nearby forest to let them go, we are considering simply letting them out to join this flock when we see that they can fly well. As the parrots are now familiar with their surroundings and the flight cage they will probaly not fly off immediately, which means we can monitor their progress and provision them with food and as they fly around the project their fittness will slowly improve until the flock is ready to fly off to the forests surrounding Limbe. This is called a ’soft-release’ and is a much better way to release animals that have spent some time in captivity as it enables you to monitor the released animals’ progress, and recapture any that are looking like they wont make it. Keep your questions coming and thanks for the support. Felix Lankester
March and April were very busy months for us all at the LWC and we were not able to update this blog as often as we would have like to have done. However despite this our readers have continued to generously support our ongoing work. Many thanks to Theresa S, Lucia C, Muriel T and Judd O’s who all made donations. A special thanks to the Animal Divulgation Trust (Italy) who made another donation of $250, and a huge thank you to Peter F. who dug very deep and pledged $750. Thank you to everyone. Its nice to know that people are out there reading the blog. Best wishes, Felix Lankester and Simone de Vries.
Our second choice was Brighter, a very gentle female. And now Brighter turns out to be a very good choice. She is very happy to mother over Bolo, picking her up carefully, putting her on her back and letting her sleep on her belly. And Adjibolo loves it. Although in the first half hour she was a bit afraid, she quickly started to appreciate this big hairy mother. It is no problem to feed Adjibolo, as Brighter just patiently watches over her while she drinks the milk from the bottle. After a week of spending more and more hours during the day, we decided on Friday that it was time to let them stay together for the night. Bama, one of our gorilla keepers, stayed the night with them. We were delighted to see that Brighter spend the whole night on the ground, not risking Adjibolo to fall from the hammock while asleep. They both slept through the night, until just after six when Bama was there to feed Adjibolo a bottle of milk. The night after that went exactly the same. We are all very happy that this first part of the introduction goes so smoothly. We will now give mother and daughter some time to bond and then we will start introducing other members of the group. They are all impatiently waiting for the day that they can play with the new gorilla. If all goes well, Brighter will be there to protect Adjibolo from gorillas that play too roughly. Simone de Vries
Part of the Limbe Wildlife Centre Conservation Education Program focuses on children. We run an outreach program that reaches hundreds of school students each year and every Saturday we have Nature Club. The outreach program consists of 16 lessons, about primates, ecology and conservation, that are taught once a week during 5 months. At the end of the program all the students visit the LWC to see the animals that they have learned so much about. Last week it was time for this annual invasion of students. More then 800 children came to the LWC and participated in the special program we had set out for them. The students who had successfully finished the program received their certificate. All students received a worksheet with questions about our primates. It stimulated them to observe the animals carefully and find out themselves about the behaviour of animals or the differences between males and females. This way of learning is new to Cameroonian students, as they are used to learning by listening or reading. In Nature Club we have more possibilities to take the children out and let them explore. Two weeks ago we have taken the children out for an insect excursion. One of the important subjects we teach to the students is biodiversity and there is no other group of animals that shows biodiversity better then insects, especially in Limbe. With very simple means we let the students catch insects in order to observe them. Each student had a half plastic bottle to put the insects in. Unfortunately we do not have magnifying glasses, but the students were very interested to observe the insects in the bottles. It is then easy to teach the children a lot more about what the animals eat, how they live, etc. We would like to expand our education efforts and you can help us with that. There are several things that we need to make our education program more effective. I list a few of them here: Thank you so much for you support!
I would like to take this opportunity to specifically thank the Animals Divulgation Trust who have very generously made three donations totalling $741 to be used to assist with the care and rehabilitation of the African grey parrots. The funds have been received and are being used, as promised, to help care for, feed and medicate the remaining parrots during their protracted stay at the LWC whilst their feathers regrow. We can not do the work that we do without such generous assistance and we would like to thank all the members of the ADT for their support.
In response to an already old reaction on this weblog I would like to explain a bit more about the bushmeat trade. It is true that the people who live in the forests of Cameroon have hunted for bushmeat for many generations. They used traditional weapons and the animals they caught were for their own consumption. As a result the scale of the hunting was small. Things are different now. Not because of habituation of primates, as this has hardly been done in Cameroon. Instead, hunters now have access to modern weapons. Secondly, the logging industry has opened up vast areas of forest, by building a network of roads. This makes it easy to transport bushmeat over long distances to cities in Cameroon and even abroad. Hunters and traders make a lot of money in this business, especially when it concerns chimpanzees and gorillas. As a result many species are in decline. The drill, that has a very small range in Nigeria, Cameroon and on the island Bioko, is critically endangered. Scientists think that there are around 3-6000 left in the wild. Drills live in large groups and mostly on the ground, which makes them a very easy target. This species is completely protected by Cameroonian law, but unfortunately the illegal hunting continues. The arrival of Ndok in the Limbe Wildlife Centre means that a whole group of drills have been killed. This way of hunting on such a small population can never be sustainable. Ndok will have to miss her family, but with the help of our sponsors we can take good care of her. She is doing really well. The cast has been taken off and her arm is much better now. The swelling is gone and she starts using the arm a bit more. A few days ago we have started introducing her to Tiko, another drill who arrived a few months ago. She is still a bit nervous when she is alone with Tiko, but already making progress. I think I finally managed to upload a picture of Ndok. The pink on her face is completely gone.
I received a question about the picture of a chimpanzee above this weblog. It is Koto, who has been with us since October 2005. His mother was killed by a hunter in the area of Koto. Koto was kept in horrific conditions, tied by a rope, alone in a dirty room. He was confiscated and brought to the Limbe Wildlife Centre. Koto is a very affectionate chimpanzee that likes to be hugged. After spending a year and a half in the infants group, he was moved to the group of young chimpanzees. From the first moment he has been doing well there. There is not as much physical contact with keepers and volunteers in this group as there was in the infants group, but Koto is playing a lot with the other chimpanzees and seems to enjoy being in the older group. He is now around three years old so he has grown a lot since the picture was taken. |
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My name is Felix Lankester, the Project Director of the Limbe Wildlife Centre and also the head veterinarian. I have been at the project since April 2004.
