EXECUTIVE SUMMARY | PROJECT MANAGER

Foreword

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY | PROJECT MANAGER

Good Bye, Akiba

Dear Friends and Supporters,

The year 2021 started with the deepest sorrow, and it is with a lot of pain that I am writing this foreword.

For more than a month, our sweet Akiba, a female Western Lowland gorilla beloved in our community as a gentle and lovable soul, had been fighting for her life. Despite immense efforts to understand and treat her condition, our vet team were unable to save her. Akiba sadly passed away on the 1st of February, a date that will remain in our minds and hearts forever.

I wish to thank the community of veterinarians who provided advice and great support. Without them, we would not have been able to get her as far as she could before she could go on no longer. Despite limited veterinary capacities and equipment to perform thorough diagnoses, we successfully performed our first ever blood transfusion from the daughter Atimbi to her mother (same group was confirmed). We had hoped that Akiba would recover after this procedure. We pursued our efforts to understand the cause of sickness with several microbiological, biochemistry and hematological analyses. But as with humans, gorillas cannot fight forever. A few days after the procedure, she passed away(p.11-14).

Akiba has had a long history of health issues in the past, but in the past 5 years, she had been very stable, active, playful and feeding very

well. In mid-December, she started to show sign of gastrointestinal disorder. Of course, given that the COVID-19 pandemic is still very active in Cameroon and actually increasing, we were extremely concerned that it could be a first case of infection in our animal population. The Limbe Wildlife Centre is in town and implementing strict quarantine procedures are extremely difficult. The centre remains closed to visitors until all conditions are met to minimize the risk for our animals. Pandrillus is entirely dedicated to assisting and advising the Government of Cameroon in these matters, to prevent disastrous consequences.

However, the test performed on Akiba came back negative. Though a relief, it left our vet team with more questions than answers. It is always frustrating to face our material and technical limitations in such cases, even if it happens very rarely. It serves as a poignant reminder that we always need to improve on our diagnostic capacity and to strengthen our vet team. We are always keen to receive expert wildlife veterinarians who wish to support us and build the capacity of our team on the ground. Because running the centre is a full-time vocation, we do not have time to mourn our loss. We must keep our focus on all the other: great apes, African grey parrots, and many other primate species for which we maintain our level of care and encourage the government of Cameron to further support.

Other activities were successfully achieved this month and gave us some satisfaction. While the Mandrills got access to the grassed strip, our Art4Nature programme has been progressing very well and a special project is currently under development! Other educational activities have been conducted in class and the construction team performed some much-needed maintenance work (p. 2123).

This month, while going through this report, I am asking you to understand, sympathise with and feel our painful morning of Akiba. Join us in continuing to look ahead, and keep supporting us by contributing to conservation efforts.

Thank you, as ever, for your unfailing support.