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!
As always we are very grateful for all the donations that we have received through this blog site. Recently Muriel T. and Lucia C. have made donations to assist us with the costs of caring for Bolo. Thank you both very much for this help. I would also like to take this opportunity to make a special mention to Theresa S. who has made several one-off donations as well as committing to a regular monthly donation to our various causes (parrot rehabilitation, Bolo’s care etc.). Theresa, I know you are aware, but your donations are extremely important to us and we really appreciate the generousness of your repeated kindness. The LWC appreciates all of the donations received and is humbled by the support. Best wishes, Felix Lankester
The time has now come to start the introductions of the Taiping Four gorillas to the resident group of gorillas at the LWC. For the past 3 months, since their arrival from South Africa, they have lived in the quarantine area of the project in a moderate sized great ape cage. However, now that they have passed successfully through quarantine they can be moved to the large open gorilla enclosure, with its 2500m2 outdoor area and 7 chamber night house. The move is going to be a very difficult and tense period for all of the gorillas and the staff as, like in any introduction, one can not be certain of what will happen. We hope, of course, that there will be no fighting or injuries and that all will go smoothly, however, as we are trying to introduce 4 sub-adult gorillas in to a stable group of 11 (sub-) adult and juvenile gorillas, we have to expect some serious clashes.
Fortunately the sex ratio of our resident group (7 females and 4 males) and the T4 (3 females and 1 male) being skewed towards females should mean a less aggressive introduction phase. However, as we have seen frequently, the females are by no means slouches when it comes to defending their territories.
A second introduction is also due to begin soon: that of the infant gorilla Bolo to a surrogate gorilla mother. This introduction phase will take place away from the main group in the privacy of a separate enclosure, so that the surrogate and Bolo can spend time together forming a strong bond and becoming familiar with their new feeding routines that will need to be strictly adhered to if the introduction is to be successful. For instance we need to ensure that the surrogate mother, who will be selected from the group, will still bring Bolo to the keeper side of the enclosure so that she can be offered her milk bottle through the fence to drink. Only when we are satisfied that the bond is strong and that the surrogate will care for and protect Bolo properly, will we begin to try to reintroduce the pair to the resident group.
So, in a few months time, if things go to plan, our resident gorilla group will have swelled from 11 to 16 gorillas. However we are aware that the group as a whole may not form a cohesive unit in which case we are prepared to split the group in to two, which will mean redeveloping the enclosure itself to cope with the needs of two separate gorilla families. All in all it is going to be a very interesting few months in Limbe and we shall keep you posted on how it is all going. I have posted a couple of photos so that our readers can see the gorilla enclosure that the T4 and Bolo will be enjoying soon. Felix Lankester
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.
As Felix is on holiday it now my honour to keep you all up to date about the Limbe Wildlife Centre. I already received a message that says that we received donations from Lucky Press, Giuliano C., Lucia C. and Theresa S. It is really great that you are able to help us help the endangered primates of Cameroon! It is also heart warming to read the reactions to our weblog. Thank you all very much for your support. Both gorilla Adjibolo and drill Ndokbagengue seem to be growing every day. Our volunteer Roseanna, who takes care of our baby drill, still cannot believe that Ndok’s face turned black over night. Ndok suddenly looks much older. Her arm is still in a cast, but maybe it will come off on Monday. Bolo doesn’t show any sudden changes, but she has gained more than a kilogram since she arrived here. The two of them together drink a lot of milk, but with all the donations we receive we can take care of that. I wanted to include some recent pictures of the two, but I don’t get it to work. Around the parrots everything is quiet at the moment. Their flight cages are in a secluded area of the LWC, where the visitors have no access. Their feathers are starting to regrow, but it will take months before they will be able to fly again. We are looking forward to that day, because we will than be able to release them back into the wild. Simone de Vries
It is interesting how you can be so busy one minute, and then something else more urgent turns up and everything that you were doing is immediately sidelined as attention is focused on the incoming crisis. So it has been since the seizure of 1220 African grey parrots back in November and December 2007.
So a summary of the situation thus far is this:
This diary of events is quite remarkable and exhausts me just reading it. Unfortunately, despite the wonderful achievements thus far, we are still a long way from resolving this issue as we still have hundreds of parrots living in cramped conditions in two flight cages. We still have to divert large amounts of funding to purchase fruit and nuts and ingredients to make the mash; numerous staff have been reassigned to make the food and look after the birds; the vet team still spend many hours each day checking the birds and making medication feeds. The degree to which this issue has affected every aspect of life at the LWC can not be overstated. It has literally consumed us all. So the costs continue to mount up and the following is a price list of what we are facing on a daily basis, that it would be fantastic to receive help for: Extra keeping staff $125/month Many thanks for any assistance that can be given to help us deal with this ongoing extraordinary situation.
I received the telephone call at lunch time warning me that an infant drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus) had been seized, and by 3pm the little female infant was already with us. That’s the thing about this job, you just never know what is about to happen. The infant drill had been seized from a hunter’s house in the forests of the Littoral Province of Cameroon, several hours drive from Limbe, by our conservation colleagues working for the organisation Conservation Research for Endangered Species (CRES). The hunter had killed the mother and had kept her 2 month old infant as a pet to sell. In the past year or so CRES and the LWC have joined forces to try to teach hunter’s from the forest areas where CRES’s field project is based about the dangers of over-exploitation and the conservation issues affecting the species that they typically hunt; so it was disheartening to hear that a hunter from that region had killed another female drill. However on further investigation we realised that the hunter was actually from a neighbouring area that had not benefited from the CRES/LWC program which sees hunters from the forest being brought out to Limbe to spend 2 days being taught all about the species that they hunt, what the conservation issues are pertaining to those species, and what the legal implications of hunting these species are. So far the program has been very popular with the hunters, many of whom have never before had the chance to travel far from their forest homes, and have certainly not had the chance to learn about the animals that they hunt. Each workshop ends with a hunting debate in which the hunters are divided in to two opposing groups to debate the issue of whether the hunting of endangered species should be allowed. The debates are always lively and typically the ‘anti-hunting’ camp wins. The program will now be extended to include the hunter that shot this infant’s mother and all the other hunters in his area. We hope that through such programs the hunters will learn about the impact that their actions are having on the fragile forest ecosystem and the legal ramifications that will affect them should they continue to hunt. The infant drill meanwhile has been named Ndokbagengue, or Ndok for short, after the village in which she was rescued. On arrival at the LWC it was immediately obvious that she had an injured hand and a very swollen elbow. Arrangements were made to smuggle her into the local hospital for an x-ray the result of which illustrated that she had fractured her left elbow and 2 bones in her right hand; both injuries were probably caused by lead-shot from the cartridge that would have killed her mother.
Ndok has now got a splint stabilising her elbow and is being cared for by a volunteer. Ndok will spend a few weeks being looked after by her human carer before we will begin the process of introducing her to other young drills that we have in quarantine. Eventually she will join the LWC’s resident drill group, which is the second largest captive breeding group in the world, the largest being at the LWC’s sister project , the Pandrillus Foundation’s Drill Ranch (Afi Mountain) in Nigeria.
Drills are one of the most critically endangered primate species in the world, with current estimates placing the total population in the wild between 3,000 and 6,000 individuals. When one considers that the LWC and Drill Ranch have over 300 drills (5%-10% of the total wild population), it becomes clear how important for the conservation of this species our rescue efforts are. So few of these precious monkeys remain in the wild that each captive individual has become vital for the survival of the species as a whole, and that is why the rescue, rehabilitation and eventual integration into a breeding group of rescued infants like Ndok, is of such critical importance. It is hoped that in the near future our two projects can begin releasing groups of drills back into the wild to restock areas of forest from which the drill has been extirpated.
The most rewarding sound any carer could hope to hear when looking after a young gorilla (or child for that matter) is the sound of laughter and, considering the traumatic experience that little Bolo has been through in the past month, it is a testament to the loving care and attention that Sandy and JK have been giving her that she now frequently breaks into fits of laughter at the slightest provocation. As you can guess Bolo is doing really well and is putting on weight and is growing in confidence every day. We have built her a small climbing structure next to the resident gorilla fence, and she spends hours each day playing and climbing and venturing further and further from the safety of her surrogate mother Sandy.
Bolo will stay with Sandy for 24hrs a day for the coming months until such time as we decide that she is old enough to begin her introduction into the gorilla group, at which point we hope that Bolo will be fostered by one of our adult females. If we do succeed in fostering her onto an adult female, and if she does become the youngest integrated member of our existing gorilla group, then it will be a job well done. However, for now, such goals are a long way off and for the foreseeable future Bolo will require several milk feeds per day ($10/week), diapers at night ($20/month), medical care ($200 in 6 months) and plenty of towels and blankets and a carer for 24 hrs/day ($50/week). Any funds given by the readers of this blog towards these costs will be greatly appreciated. |
|
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.
