Limbe Wildlife Centre

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 09 2008 | By: admin

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.
I would also like to thank all of the individuals who have made donations through this blog site recently. I have been away but have been monitoring the site and have been very happy to see how many kind people have made donations. Thank you all.
Felix Lankester
Project Manager

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 05 2008 | By: admin

I am sorry I have been silent for so long, but I had a problem accessing the weblog. As some of you might know the situation in Cameroon has been prety bad last week, with strikes, roadblocks and riots, but everything is back to normal now. It was a bit difficult to get all the food we needed for the animals, but we managed.

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.

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Feb 18 2008 | By: admin

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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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Feb 15 2008 | By: admin

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

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jan 24 2008 | By: admin

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.

Since those two hectic days the management, veterinary, animal keeping and construction staff have all had to devote huge amounts of their precious time to cope with this extraordinary parrot situation: building new flight cages, checking each and every parrot, releasing those birds that were fit enough to be released, developing a new feeding regime, designing an edible mash, sourcing antibiotics to combat an outbreak of chlamydophillosis and spending hours and hours each day anaesthatising parrots one by one so that they can have their damaged feathers removed.

Not only have we had to change our entire staff management program to accommodate the situation, but we have all had to learn and develop new skills, as looking after 1220 parrots is not the same as looking after gorillas and chimpanzees!

So a summary of the situation thus far is this:

• Two shipments of African grey parrots were seized by the authorities at Douala International Airport in late 2007

• The total number of parrots being illegally exported out of the country to Mexico City and Bahrain were 1220

• The LWC was asked by the confiscating authorities to care of the parrots which arrived in small wooden crates, live birds standing on the bodies of their dead cage mates

• The LWC placed the birds in a variety of rooms and quarantine cages whilst 2 flight cages to house the birds were rapidly constructed

• All the birds were given repeated health checks, with fit and healthy birds being selected for release

• The daily death toll began to rise with gross pathological signs consistent with the disease chlamydophillosis (caused by Chlamydia psittaci)

• The veterinary team struggled to contain the disease, which has serious public health implications in humans

• The design of a new mash, made from cassava flour, corn and oil, enabled effective in-feed medication to treat all the parrots against chlamydophillosis

• Veterinary assistance and anaesthetic drugs from the World Parrot Trust arrived in Cameroon and work began on aneasthatising all remaining birds to remove damaged feathers

• The beginning of the 3 month recuperation period begins during which time the flight feathers will re-grow, leading to final releases

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
Food bill $200/week
Medications $100/month
Fuel for vehicle $20/week
Enclosure repair costs $50/week
Gloves and masks for staff $10/week
Wood chippings for substrate of enclosure $30/week
Veterinary costs $50/week

Many thanks for any assistance that can be given to help us deal with this ongoing extraordinary situation.

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Category: Bush meat | Date: Jan 20 2008 | By: admin

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.

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Category: Gorilla | Date: Jan 20 2008 | By: admin

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.

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Category: Felix Lankester | Date: Jan 19 2008 | By: admin

Thank you to Rosemary L., Clizia P., Barbara M. and John S. who have all donated much needed funds to help with our ongoing costs with the African grey parrot saga and the new infant gorilla ‘Bolo’. With all that is going on we are really stretched at the moment financially (and for time!) and receiving your donations is a real shot in the arm to us all.
Many thanks,
Felix

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jan 19 2008 | By: admin

‘sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind’, that’s what I keep telling myself as we continue to pluck feathers from the African grey parrots. It is a rather nasty procedure, which involves each parrot being anaesthatised and then having each and every damaged wing feather literally pulled out. The feathers are very firmly attached to the wing and pulling a single feather out is not easy and a hard tug is required. When you first do it you think you are going to break the wing bones, but soon you get in to the swing of things and with a snap of the wrist the feather is plucked. The birds feel nothing as they are unconscious, and, on waking up, they immediately climb to their perches, seemingly unaffected.

We have approximately 300 birds all with cut primaries, secondaries and/or glue damaged feathers that require plucking however the task has been made much easier with the arrival of Dr. Gino Conzo, avian veterinary specialist from Napoli, Italy, and his associate Mario d’Angelo. They have flown here, funded by the World Parrot Trust, specifically to assist with the feather plucking procedure of the birds and they brought with them 6 bottles of the anaesthetic ‘isoflourane’ and lots of nutrient supplements to stimulate feather re-growth. Since their arrival they have spent 8 hours a day slowly working their way through the birds, aneasthatising each parrot, removing damaged feathers and treating wounds. We hope that by the time they leave on the 22nd January all of the parrots will have had all of their damaged feathers removed. Thus will begin a 3 month convalescence period during which the feathers will slowly re-grow and, by the beginning of May, we hope that we can begin releasing these final 300 birds.

Fortunately the earlier crisis of the Chlamydia infection seems to be waning. We changed the treatment to be given in-feed, and have been preparing a medicated mash with cassava flour, cracked corn, and oil which the parrots began eating almost immediately. Consequently the daily death rate, that was approximately 5 birds a day, has reduced to almost nil.

However, the enormous challenge that the arrival of 1220 parrots presented to us is not over, as we still have at lest 3 more months of looking after 300 plus birds and the costs remain very high. Currently we are spending $200US per week on food alone, and the medicated food makes costs a lot higher still. Your donations have been wonderful and have enabled us to have the success that we have had so far, but we do unfortunately need to beg for more assistance to see us through the coming months of feather recovery. Only with your help can we get to the day when we can finally release all of the remaining 300 parrots.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the individuals and the organisations who have been so supportive of the Limbe Wildlife Centre and have rallied behind us to provide emergency funding, equipment and assistance in our hour of need: they are the World Parrot Trust, the Born Free Foundation, the Born Free Foundation – USA, the Humane Society, the Animals Divulgation Trust, and last but not least the individuals who have donated funds on the LWC’s Wildlife Direct website.

Thank you to you all.

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Category: Uncategorized, illegal trade | Date: Jan 08 2008 | By: admin

The situation with the African grey parrots is becoming critical. Having placed the two seized groups in two rapidly constructed flight cages and having released all those birds that were healthy and had undamaged feathers we felt that we had managed to stabilise the situation. However after a period of about a week when the death rate of birds fell to almost zero we began to find the death rate creeping up again with two or three birds dying each day. The post-mortem findings of all of these birds were consistent with the disease pisttacosis, suggesting that the doxycycline treatment that we had been painstakingly giving in the water was not reaching effective concentrations in the birds. In contrast, the acutely sick birds that we had been treating with our limited stock of injectable doxycycline were all recovering well. Clearly the in-water method is not working. So we have now started to make a mash that we can feed to the parrots and in which we can place the doxycycline. Currently we are trying to encourage the birds to eat the mash, which is not easy as wild parrots are pretty picky eaters, but we expect that after a few days they will begin to eat the mash and we can begin giving the doxycycline this way. Medicating in the feed will, it is hoped, enable sufficient concentrations of doxycycline to be reached in the blood.

The situation is not all doom and gloom though as, on the 6th and 7th of January, we selected 59 birds, that were previously too thin to be released but who had since put on weight and were now strong flyers, for release.

During the pre-release clinical examination of each bird it was noted that all of the birds, including those with damaged feathers that could not be selected for release, had put on considerable weight since they had arrived at the LWC. This is a good indication that the quantity of food that we have been feeding is supporting the large numbers of parrots and is enabling them to gain weight steadily. Considering the emaciated state that many of these birds were in when they arrived it is encouraging to find that they are now looking much healthier and stronger.

Most of the remaining birds will not be candidates for release, despite having gained weight, until their feathers have recovered and so we are now planning to begin the laborious feather plucking process to speed up the feather recovery.

Thank you all for your kind donations for this ongoing saga. Particular thanks to Theresa Siskind who has kindly made a monthly donation for the parrots. This is extremely kind of you. All of your funds have helped us to purchase medications and food and to construct the flight cages. We are currently spending $200US per week on food alone for the birds so please do continue to assist us with your kind support.

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