Monthly Report
November 19
Limbe Wildlife Centre: November 2019 by Guillaume LE FLOHIC Manager (Limbe Wildlife Centre) & Country Director (Pandrillus Cameroon)
Published in December 2019 Limbe Wildlife Centre, P.O. Box 878, Limbe, Republic of Cameroon
Limbe Wildlife Centre is a collaborative effort between the Pandrillus Foundation and the Republic of Cameroon, Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife, MINFOF Pandrillus Foundation is a non-profit making NGO specialized in the protection, rehabilitation and reintroduction of primates, as well as management and sustainable financing of conservation projects in Africa Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife is in charge of implementing the national forest policy for ensuring sustainable management and conservation of wildlife and biodiversity over the national territory as enacted by forestry law No. 01/94 of 20 December which regulates all forestry, wildlife and fisheries activities
guillaume@limbewildlife.org limbewildlifecentre
+237 681 991 590 limbewildlife
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limbewildlife.org limbewildlife
Monthly Report
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Content OCTOBER 2019 HIGHLIGHTS ACHIEVEMENTS OCTOBER 2019 & OBJECTIVES NOVEMBER 2019 1. Pandrillus-GoC Partnership| Public Relations| Project Management 2. Infrastructures and development| Material & Equipment 3. Capacity building 4. Community Conservation, Environmental Education & Ecotourism 5. Management of animal population and well-being 6. Rehabilitation and release programme 7. Research, Monitoring & Health Safety rules 8. Communication & Visibility 9. Revenues generated
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Foreword
Dear Friends and Supporters, Last month saw our immense pride in completing the construction of the first African grey parrot rehabilitation aviary in Cameroon. This month the focus again was on this magnificent endangered bird, unfortunately not with such a positive note. In the past few months, the Limbe Wildlife Centre has been at the forefront of the conservation efforts to secure the survival of the African grey parrots, one of the most endangered and emblematic species of the Central African region.
small and dirty wooden boxes in which they could barely stand and move around. They arrived at the LWC in a state of distress resulting from starvation and dehydration, as well as their severe, prolonged overcrowding. The rescued birds arrived in terrible condition and required a great deal of specialist care. The feathers were cut by the poachers, preventing them from flying. It is essential for the parrots that these feathers grow back. Each bird then faces the challenge of learning to fly again before they can be released, healthy and in a safe place (p. 1417). This confiscation underlines the unfortunate truth that despite further international and national regulations, poachers and traffickers continue to trade the species and to feed illegal pet markets. Despite increasing conservation and educational effort by the LWC, African grey parrots are not safe and their populations still highly threatened.
The survival of the African grey parrots, like other endangered species, is threatened by the rapid destruction of forest habitats, poaching and illegal trafficking. The illegality of such activities is unfortunately insufficient to deter criminals. It is critical that the law is effectively enforced, and that wildlife crime is deterred and combatted. Nevertheless, I would like to congratulate the Rapid Intervention Battalion (Bataillon On 3 December, the Limbe Wildlife Centre d’Intervention Rapide, BIR) for their (LWC) rescued 84 endangered African grey intervention and saving these amazing birds. parrots. The birds, along with a large bag However, the amount of pangolin scales filled with over 100 kilograms of pangolin confiscated is alarming and a disaster for the scales, were seized by military forces (BIR) in species. As is becoming increasingly Bakassi where they were being shipped to apparent, pangolins are the most threatened Nigeria. The parrots were crammed into two mammals in the world. Protecting wildlife is
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a national effort, and I am glad to see that the Ministry of Defence is also showing full participation in this fight against wildlife crime alongside the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife. These seizures serve as a grave reminder of the huge task ahead of all of us to ensure a future for nature in Cameroon.
integrated into the savannah dwelling group in the large enclosure (p. 16 & 18). Secondly, for J.K. (Mona monkey) who, despite his handicap, happily integrated into his new group (p. 16 & 18). Malende (Tantalus monkey) was also finally transferred to his new enclosure (p. 14).
Now, the LWC will be in crucial need of more financial and politico-administrative support to ensure the survival of the parrots. Fortunately, we are glad that a large number bird specialists and experienced vets are willing to help and advise our team on the ground. Despite a long history saving African grey parrots, we always need to identify areas of improvement in the hopes of progress. We take this responsibility very seriously, and acknowledge our role as the national rescue and rehabilitation centre for the Endangered African grey parrots.
The Education department continued to improve its activities. This month several different programs served to connect children with bats, penguins, African grey parrots and elephants during the Saturday Nature Club (p. 12-13). Finally, we are pleased to have started several new activities this month. These have been implemented with the goal of helping us improve our standard procedures for rehabilitating the Endangered African grey parrots; for integrating Endangered Chimpanzee Chinoise to the Mainland group (p. 15 & 17) and reorganizing results of the haematological analysis made during health checks of the Endangered Drills in order to better address medical cases (p. 19).
As well as the rescue and care required for the African grey parrots, our vet team was on the front line dealing with two major medical cases in Mandrills (p. 14-15). Further, our animal care team successfully underwent two social rehabilitation procedures. Firstly for Thank you as always for your unfailing Coco and Leonie (Patas monkeys), who support,
With very best wishes, Limbe, 30 November 2019
Guillaume LE FLOHIC LWC Manager, Pandrillus Foundation
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November 2019 Highlights
□ Official visit of the new DO for Limbe I to the Limbe Wildlife Centre □ Completed the restructuration of the vet clinic/quarantine complex □ Completed the full renovation of the Olive baboon satellite cages □ Wilson ATEH, Head of Education, attended the PASA Community Engagement Workshop in South Africa □ Transferred adult male Tantalus monkey Malende into his new enclosure □ Rescued 84 Endangered African grey parrots □ Mona monkey: Completed J.K. social rehabilitation □ Patas monkey: Completed the social integration of Leonie and Coco to the savannah-dwelling guenon group □ Media coverage: 3 local reports made
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Achievements November 2019 & Objectives December 2019 1. Pandrillus-GoC Partnership| Public Relations| Project Management □ The new DO for Limbe I made an official visit of the Limbe Wildlife Centre (Images 12)
Image 1. The Division Officer for Limbe I was offered a LWC #ProtectWildlife t-shirt highlighting the tree pangolin, one of the three species present in Cameroon.
Image 2. Group picture after the official visit of the DO to the Limbe Wildlife Centre.
December 2019 objectives: □ Validate internal rules and regulations (pending)
2. Infrastructures and development| Material & Equipment □ Completed the restructuration of the vet clinic/quarantine/chimp nursery complex (Images 3-11) □ Completed the renovation of the Olive baboon upper satellite cage and full maintenance of the downer satellite (Images 12-16)
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Image 3. Preparation of palm leaves mat Image 4. Roofing of the extension part for roofing. with wood and palm leaves.
Image 5. Setting up bamboo ceiling for Image 6. Painting for the new intensive the new intensive care section. care section.
Image 7. Final inner view for the new Image 8. Final outer view for the new intensive care and the enrichment intensive care and the enrichment sections. sections.
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Image 9. Replacing bamboo screen in Image 10. Concreting of the foundation front of the new quarantine section. for the new quarantine section.
Image 11. Raising of block wall of 1.5m Image 12. Concreting of the floor and height for the new quarantine section. second layer painting of the new Olive baboon upper satellite cage.
Image 13. Final view of finished new Olive Image 14. Cutting out rusty metal tubes in baboon upper satellite cage. the Olive baboon downer satellite cage.
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Image 15. Maintenance on the Image 16. View of finished maintenance foundation and concreting of a new floor work of the Olive baboon downer of the Olive baboon downer satellite satellite cage. cage. December 2019 objectives: â–Ą Complete the renovation of the Olive baboon satellite cages â–Ą Continue restructuring the vet clinic/quarantine/chimp nursery complex
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3. Capacity building □ Continue the new manual of standard operation procedures (SOP) for the African grey parrots □ PASA Community Engagement Workshop: Wilson ATEH, Head of Education, attended the workshop in South Africa (Image 17)
Image 17. Wilson Ateh, Head of Education, presented the different programmes run at the LWC to connect the local communities and engage them to protect their surrounding nature. His presentation focused on the Batoke Family Nature Club, the Green Project and our #ProtectWildlife campaign launched in May 2019. December 2019 objectives: □ Continue with the above ongoing activities □ Organise monthly staff workshop: Why the Protect Wildlife Campaign in Limbe? Outcomes, partners and future steps, by Cyril Delfosse (Pandrillus Community Awareness & Education Programme Coordinator)
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4. Community Conservation, Environmental Education & Ecotourism □ Saturday Nature's Club: 2019-2020 Nature Club continued: 420 kids registered; monthly attendance: 421 kids (Images 18-20). Sessions:
- Penguins (BBC Documentary “Dynasties- Emperor”): 17 attendees, 8 new kids. - Bats (Crafting bat masks): 52 attendees, 43 new kids. - Environment (Singing): 88 attendees, 49 new kids. - Parrots (Visit of the African Grey Parrot aviary of the LWC): 141 attendees, 93 new kids. - Elephants (Documentary of Odzala-Kokoua National Park): 123 attendees, 43 new kids □ School outreach programme: Continued the 2019-2020 programme: 10 schools, 24 classes and 1,488 school children had their pre-tests (Images 21-22). □ Education Team: Yvette Soukou, a former volunteer, is now employed as our new bilingual junior educator (Image 23) □ Community-based Green Economy: 15 ex-hunter members sustainably harvesting wild herbaceous plants: 799.5 kg of Aframomum stems and 550 kg of Costus stems; 39 women members harvesting crop by-product: 1,160 kg of cassava leaves, 4,454 kg of papaya leaves, 3,430 kg of potato leaves, 388 kg of invasive Trumpet wood shoots, corresponding to 87 trees hand-cut; 1,076,880 XAF (€1,644) paid directly to the local community association this month; 10,579,905 XAF (€16,153) contributed to alleviate local poverty in 2019.
Image 18. Group picture of kids wearing their bat mask in the Saturday Nature Club.
Image 19. Talk about the endangered African grey parrots during the Saturday Nature Club. 140+ kids attended this lesson.
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Image 20. Kids went to the African Grey Image 21. Kids who are part of our School Parrot aviary of the LWC to see our birds Outreach Programme had their pre-test in rehabilitation. about environmental sciences.
Image 22. Kids are bright, curious and interested in Nature. Our programme simply aims at nurturing this connection by providing essential knowledge to prepare them to act and teach their neighbours and parents.
Image 23. Yvette Soukou, our new bilingual junior educator integrated our Education team, after several months volunteering at the LWC. She will participate in our various education programme.
December 2019 objectives: â–Ą Continue with ongoing programs â–Ą Continue the 2019-20 school outreach programme
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5. Management of animal population and well-being Ongoing activities □ Maintained frequency and diversity of enrichments in each section
Specific activities □ Transferred adult male Tantalus monkey Malende into his new enclosure (Image 24)
□ Vet cares (November 2019): ◌ 27 Primate individuals treated; 11 anaesthesia performed; 9 individuals sampled (6 blood samples for haematology analysis, 9 faecal samples for coprology analysis); 4 contraceptions; 0 identification with microchip; 1 laceration repair; 1 major surgery; 33 drug therapies: 24% antibiotics, 24% antiparasitics, 15% anti-inflammatories, 9% dietary supplements, 6% arthritis supplements, 6% fluid therapy, 13% others; 2 health checks: Chimpanzee (1), Mona monkey (1); 0 death; 0 euthanasia (Images 25-26) ◌ African grey parrots: Conducted 64 health checks and treated each individual with acaricide (Ivermectine) and taenicide (Praziquantel); 3 deaths (Image 27)
Image 24. Malende coming out of the Image 25. Dr Kiyang and Dr Janssen satellite cage onto the grassed performed a surgery on female Mandrill Nko, and removed impactions from enclosure for the first time! several segments of the large intestines. Nko was placed in medication and kept in recovery section.
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Image 26. Nko in recovery. The bandage is changed every 2 days.
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Image 27. Identifying damaged primary feathers (broken, malformed and/or glued). They need to be removed so new feathers can grow.
December 2019 objectives: □ Continue with the ongoing activities □ Chimpanzee: Continue the positive reinforcement training for Ngambe (adult female) □ Vet cares: General health checks: None; Contraception: Drills, Mandrills
6. Rehabilitation and release programme Arrival & quarantine □ Rescued 84 African grey parrots (Images 28-33)
Behavioural rehabilitation □ Mona monkey: Completed J.K. (juvenile male) behavioural rehabilitation □ African grey parrot: Opened access to the new aviary to 15 individuals
Social rehabilitation □ Chimpanzee: Started the social integration of Chinoise (subadult female) into the Mainland group: introduced in a separate room (Images 34-35)
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□ Mona monkey: Completed J.K. (juvenile male) social rehabilitation (Images 36-37) □ Patas monkey: Completed the social integration of Leonie and Coco (2 subadult females) to the savannah-dwelling guenon group (Images 38-39)
Release (ecological & environmental rehabilitation) □ None
Image 28. The two wooden boxes the 84 Image 29. They were crammed inside, African grey parrots had been traveling in standing on their own faeces and urine, and aimed for illegal export. and among other parrots who died during the trip.
Image 30. LWC Head of Quarantine, Killi Stephen Matute, and vet nurse, Tana Ossomba, sorting all the parrots into three groups based on age, which can be assessed by eye colour.
Image 31. As soon as the birds were freed from the wooden boxes, they were happy to walk, climb, and even fly around. They went straight to the water and ate the food and browse provided.
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Image 32. Feeding 100 parrots for one week costs us $350 as they need a speciesspecific and diverse diets in addition to vitamin and nutritional supplements.
Image 33. Parrot feeding time. Palm nuts are must appreciated by the African grey parrots but are only provided from time to time because of their high fat content.
Image 34. Chinoise playing with Akwa Jean, the first chimpanzee to be introduced to her, through the mesh, since her arrival in the Mainland group, one day before.
Image 35. Chinoise is attracting quite a crowd of curious chimps! Integration requires time and thorough monitoring. Over the past few years, the LWC has developed a great expertise and successfully conducted dozens of integrations of individual various species, ages and sexes.
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Image 36. During the social integration process, we stimulate the individuals to eat in close proximity. This favours interaction and self-confidence.
Image 37. JK grooming Ebo. Grooming is the most affiliative behaviours in monkeys, through which the bonds between individuals strengthen.
Image 38. Patas monkey Coco (down) and Image 39. Dominant male Boyo getting Tantalus monkey Ndjaman (up) hanging more familiar and interacting with Patas out on the structural enrichment installed in monkey Coco. our large, 600m 2 savannah-dwelling enclosure. December 2019 objectives: â–Ą African Grey Parrots: Continue the rehabilitation process of the rescued individuals â–Ą Chimpanzee: Continue social integration of Chinoise (subadult female) into the Mainland group
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7. Research, Monitoring & Health Safety rules Ongoing activities □ Continued the scientifically-sound behavioural monitoring of the Mainland chimpanzees to assess the group cohesion and individual welfare before, during and after social integration of Chinoise (subadult female) □ Started the thorough assessment of the health and welfare of rescued African Grey Parrot during rehabilitation □ Started to build the dataset of haematological analysis performed during general health checks in order to analyse the standard values for the endangered Drill
Activity achievement □ None
Data analysis □ Continued the analysis of the data collected on our gorilla’s groups, in partnership with AKONGO | Wildlife connection (www.akongo.fr)
December 2019 objectives: □ Continue with the above ongoing activities □ Continue the analysis of data collected on the gorilla groups (Gorilla Research Project)
8. Communication & Visibility □ Digital communication (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter): November was a very good month for social media as we reached a total of 407,270 people across all platforms, a record for the LWC! Additionally, we have seen a bigger increase in followers this month compared to past ones.
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â–Ą Media coverage: 3 local reports made Several reports highlighted the critical role played in Cameroon by the Limbe Wildlife Centre to preserve the endangered African grey parrot: o Newspaper: Limbe Wildlife Centre cements role in rescue, rehabilitation of endangered African grey parrots, The Star, 11th November 2019 o Newspaper: Traffic of endangered animal species on the rise in Bakassi, The Guardian Post, 28th November 2019 o Newspaper: Limbe Wildlife Centre rescues 84 endangered African grey parrots The Sun, 30th November 2019
December 2019 objectives: â–Ą Continue advocating the missions of the LWC within the Central African Conservation Landscape in Cameroon
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9. Revenues generated â–Ą Entrance fees (November 2019): 450,000 XAF (798 visitors; 71% adults, 29% children) 5000 4500 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 Nov-18 Dec-18 Jan-19 Feb-19 Mar-19 Apr-19 May-19 Jun-19 Adult Nationals
Children Nationals
Jul-19
Adult Foreigners
Aug-19 Sep-19 Oct-19 Nov-19 Children Foreigners
Figure 1.Visitor statistics November 2018-November 2019
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