Funny pinatas to play…

This week we prepared some pinatas with old newspapers. We filled them with dried leaves and some pieces of fruits and sweet treats. The chimps loved them!

The paper pinatas
Misisi and Loia

Kalume
For Goma’s group we prepared 16 pieces of house pipe with honey and nice treats inside. They had a really nice time!

The pipes with treats

Ombeni giving the pipes to the chimps

Baheny

Gari and Kama

An update on Kalume

Kalume was a tiny baby when he was captured and bad injured by poachers (you can read more about him in older posts). Now he is a big and gentle boy about 11 years old. However he has reduced mobility in his legs, he is pretty active and he loves to play with Mama Dorcas who spend the whole day with him.

These last days we fixed in the bars of his den a plastic tube with some holes. Inside the tube we put honey and some other sweet treats to keep him busy for a while. At first he explored the new stuff in the grill…

…and the he used a stick to get the nice food inside…

Every evening his keepers leave dried banana leaves inside his indoor bedroom…Sometimes Kalume sleeps in this room but some evenings he decides to take all the leaves outside and he builds a huge nest in a different point!

Then he lies down watching the keepers tidying and cleaning the surroundings at the end of the day…and during the night he can watch the moon and the stars...
’Good night, Kalume’…

Old photo of Kalume

Kalume

Kalume was the first chimpanzee to arrive in Lwiro. He had terrible injuries on his face after the poacher had hit him with a machete. Here is a photo of him when he arrived in Lwiro as a tiny baby.

Kalume as a baby arriving at the sanctuary.

June 1st to July 11th 2008

It has been a long time since the last update, but a lot has happened here at Lwiro. Seven new monkeys of various species have arrived, through confiscations. This brings Lwiro sanctuary to 80 residents in total!

After Kanshi finished her one month quarantine she was moved to the sanctuary. She has now settled in well to the Goma group, and is getting on with all of the individuals.

Kalume is doing wonderfully also, and spends his days in a cage next to the Goma group or going for a walk around the sanctuary. His mobility has improved incredibly in the last few weeks, and he has even been climbing trees with the babies!

The four babies which arrived a few months ago are all doing well. They are getting bigger by the day! We have had to move them to the quarantine cage at the house, as they were getting too big and boisterous for the small cages at the sanctuary (besides the fact that they are all now occupied by monkeys). Construction on a small dormitory attached to the quarantine cage has finished this will serve as the babies night den. Another cage is in construction in the yard also, this will serve as a new quarantine cage.

Maiko, one of the babies arriving a few months ago, had a bullet fragment lodged above her right eye from when her group was shot at by poachers. This bullet fragment came out of its own accord a few days ago.

Construction also continues on the new dormitory, next to the small forest. The foundations have been laid and the walls are almost finished.




There have been several more small earthquakes originating from the DRC-Rwandan border area; however, they didn’t seem to impact the animals as much as the previous earthquakes.

I am a new volunteer at Lwiro, my name is Andrea. I will be writing the blog updates when I get time! When I came to Lwiro I had some goods and services donated to me for the sanctuary. I would like to acknowledge these companies and individuals for being so generous.

Firstly, thank-you to Darren and David of DARCHE who made and donated over 30 new hammocks for the chimpanzees night dens. These hammocks will go into the new dormitory and ensure that everyone can have a bed to themselves!



A huge thank-you to Peptech Animal Health, in particular Tim Trigg and Katie Yeates, who donated contraceptive implants for the chimpanzees. These were needed greatly.

Thank-you to LYNX (a keeper driven conservation group) who donated funds to allow us to purchase medications and protein powders which were desperately needed. To Zoos Victoria, for donating worming medications, thank-you. And thanks very much to Dr Kate Bodley who worked very hard to organize all of the medications.

Thank you to RCR International, who donated 8 hot water bottles for use with very young babies when they come to the sanctuary.

Last but not least, I would like to thank Jetta Express enormously for donating the air freight to get the above items and more to Uganda, so we could get them to the sanctuary in Congo.

A few updates

Julius has now finished his quarantine and spend his time with the other babies in the sanctuary or in the forrest. He loves playing with the others.

Kalume finally seems to be getting better, he enjoys his walks around the sanctuary and all the atention, he has become like a little baby! He also plays with the babies, but do find them a bit anoying.

Kalonge, the baby baboon, has moved in with our baboon group and it seems to be going well. Then it's just Kashusha, the adult male, to go...

The foundation of the new chimpanzee dormitory is finsihed, and we've got some money to continue, at least the outside wall.

Kalume

Kalume is about 8 years old and has horrific injuries from when he was captured as a baby by poachers. He had his face smashed in by a machete and has already had two operations, and is waiting for a third, to help sort out his mouth. There may be other internal problems as well as he often gets a bad chesty cough, but as there is limited medical equipment at Lwiro it is difficult to tell. Despite these injuries he is the boss of a group of 7 other chimps at the sanctuary, and has been surprisingly happy and active.
After the first big earthquake at Lwiro all the chimps were very scared and did not want to come down from the roof. Kalume was the same, but after all the others had calmed down a bit, he persisted in staying up high. We thought initially that he may have a cold, but we soon realised that he wasn’t walking well. When he stopped eating we decided something needed to be done, and took him into a smaller cage to keep an eye on him. The poor boy couldn’t walk and was very depressed. Carmen gave him some painkillers and an anti inflammatory and someone sat with him all day to keep his spirits up. As we can’t give a fixed diagnosis with no scanners or x-ray machines, we can’t tell exactly what was wrong with him, but after two days of being spoilt rotten he started to walk and eat again. After a few more days he seemed back to his usual self and we took him on several walks around the sanctuary, though he tried to milk it every so often by crying like a baby when it was time to go back to his cage! We have decided he will be happier back with the others so he will be joining them again soon.

Alexa