Christmas in Lwiro

This autumn "the champions leauge CRPL" was organised in Lwiro. 9 teams of entusiastic children between 5 and 13 years of age, from Lwiro and suronding villages. After the game there was a barbeque for 150 local children. It's amazing how well football joins the people.
At five o’clock, when work was finished at the sanctuary, it was time for a well deserved Christmas party for the workers, with good food music and dance.

Monique Okapi
The newest chimp in the centre is Monique Okapi. She arrived 28th of November, and is a girl at about 2 years of age. She’s finished her quarantine and moved in with the others in the nursery group, Maiko, Osso, Fizi, Julius, Banro, Ituri and Uvira. She’s already settled in very well with the others.

Some of the players in front of one of their new football goals.

Local music

Food for everyone

The workers arriving at their christmas party

Monique Okapi with her keeper

Monique Okapi


The nursery group with their keeper

Leaving Lwiro

I have now left Lwiro due to the increasing instability in DRC. However, the veterinarians are still in Lwiro and working hard at the sanctuary. The nursery group has been moved to an enclosure within the sanctuary grounds and the sanctuary security is being reinforced. Currently, there has been no direct threat in the area, and the local staff and community are still committed to the sanctuary. Below are photos of the women’s group who bought an enormous offering of bananas and tomatoes to the sanctuary for the animals. The photos show them singing and dancing, wearing their new t-shirts!

Andrea

Lwiro update

People may have heard about the unrest in DRC over the past week or two. I want everyone to know the animals and the staff and their families are all safe. Everything seems to have settled down for the time being and it is business as usual. The volunteers were housed at the UN camp near by for safety reasons during four days of the trouble. We returned on the 2nd of November to Lwiro to find the sanctuary and staff well.
Shumbi – the olive baboon - has been moved from his small quarantine cage into a larger cage which neighbors Kashusha (another male baboon) and a group of other baboons. As soon as he woke from the anesthetic he climbed up on the branches with no problems at all. The staff were originally concerned that he would not be able to move about properly (due to the fact that he has one arm missing and the other is injured from a gun wound). His wound has healed very well.

Muhungu - a young male chimpanzee broke his on the 2nd of November. He has been isolated from the group to allow recovery. He still has visual contact with the group however, and can touch them through the wire. He is recovering well.

Banro is now very happy in the cage with the other babies. She has bonded with both the keepers and all of the babies very well. Every night, Banro and Julius cuddle up in their tub to sleep together. Below are photo of all of the babies in the nursery group. They are all strong, healthy and happy.

Update on Kanshi

Kanshi has been in the Goma group cage for almost 3 months and is doing very well. She is eating well and plays with many of the individuals in the cage. For a time, she was sleeping separately from the other members of the group, but she is now fully integrated and spending the night in the Goma group dormitory.

Fantastic support from the lwiro women!

Unexpectedly today, the wives of the CRPL workers arrived at the sanctuary (17 women in total). They informed the manager they were going to start to prepare the land (which the sanctuary has yet to be able to afford to do) to the right of the sanctuary and plant maize, beans and manioc. They will do this free of charge to the sanctuary and the crops will assist in feeding the sanctuary’s primate residents. They plan to come for four hours every Saturday to undertake the project.

It seems that the community is so excited about this project, that we have had two women join who do not even have relations working at the sanctuary. We also have had the daughters of two of our female workers join the group.

The management of the sanctuary are so touched and excited about this incredible offer from the women of Lwiro. For all of these women to give up their time and money to plant these crops to assist in feeding the animals is amazing.

Brandi gets to meet the other baboons

When the Baboons were moved into their new enclosure, Brandi was placed in the enclosure next door to begin the introduction process to the other baboons. All is going well.

Update on what's been happening the last couple of weeks

A week ago we started to integrate Banro into the nursery group cage. Her quarantine was finished, and it was time for her to meet the other babies. The days went relatively smoothly with Banro playing with both of the keepers who are in the cage on alternate days. Fizi and Maiko both asserted their dominance over Banro in the cage, which is a normal part of the introduction. She has spent her time playing mostly with Osso and Ituri, and in the last days has also found Uvira to be a good playmate.

Shumbi the Baboon is doing well also. His injured arm continues to heal and he is moving his hand now also. He eats and takes his medication very well. We have found out since the rescue that Shumbi is a celebrity in the area. A taxi driver who was driving the sanctuary manager to Bukavu over heard her conversation with some people from an NGO regarding Shumbi. After she returned to the taxi, the taxi driver inquired as to weather she was talking about Shumbi the baboon. Apparently, everyone knows him. He used to sit on the side of the road and demand food from people walking past. He would then pass this food back to the female and two young baboons who were always with him. Apparently this has been Shumbi’s practice in the park for years, and although demanding, he has never been aggressive.

The sanctuary had a visit from some local school children from Katana. These children had taken up a collection and purchased a bag of carrots to donate to the sanctuary. It was a wonderful surprise for all working at CRPL.

The wives of the CRPL workers called a meeting with the sanctuary manager on the 23rd of September. They presented the sanctuary with a very large sack of colcase and many bananas. It is fantastic to have the local community behind the sanctuary in such an incredible way.



The new baboon cage is finished! The baboons had a wonderful time exploring it for the first time.

LYNX – the keeper driven conservation group from Melbourne Zoo in Australia has again donated $300 to CRPL to purchase enrichment items for the chimpanzees. Thank-you very much.

Andrea

Second operation for Shumbi the baboon

Shumbi had his second surgery today to clean up the wound and have a closer look. The veterinarian bandaged the wound thoroughly, however a few hours later (with only his feet), Shumbi managed to free himself of the bandage. He is doing well at present and eating well. We now have to wait and see how he recovers.

Ituri and Uvira have integrated well into the cage with the four other babies, Maiko, Osso, Fizi and Julius. They have become very independent and all of the babies interact and play well with each other.

Banro is also doing well, and plays and runs around in the garden non stop. She is forever trying to escape into the area with the other babies. Her quarantine period will be over on the 20th of September, she will then be introduced into the nursery group also.

Andrea

Thank you!

CRPL would like to acknowledge the kind donation of a large quantity of infant formula and medical instruments by The Sandringham Hospital Maternity Department (in Australia). This donation is greatly appreciated. Also, thank you again to Jetta Express who have very kindly donated the airfreight to get these items to the Sanctuary.

Baboon shot in Kahuzi Biega NP

Yesterday the sanctuary manager and vet, Carmen, received a call from the ICCN officials to inform her of a baboon who needed rescuing in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park. This baboon had been shot in the arm by a drunken soldier who was patrolling the park. The soldier has been formally charged by the military and has received a jail sentence. As it was late in the afternoon, and the baboon was some way into the forest, Carmen decided they had the most chance of success if they headed into the park the next morning. Carmen and her colleague spent that night preparing the equipment and medications they would need for the rescue, and planning the next day.

Heading out at first light, they reached the area the baboon had last been seen, a few hours later. After searching for a half an hour, they found the male Olive Baboon about 100 meters up the road from the original sighting. He not only had the wounded arm from the gun shot, but the other arm was also missing, presumably from being caught in a trap as a young animal. They darted him, and took him back to the sanctuary where they preformed surgery. The wound is on the elbow joint and so he will at best never be able to move his arm. Carmen was discussing the case with some local researchers and villages, and soon discovered that this baboon was very well known, and already had a name, ‘Shumbi’. Shumbi is so well known because of the lack of arm, and also as he is so old. He has eaten well, and recovered well from the first anesthetic. However, we do not know yet if he will survive.

Andrea