Donations

Thank you for the donations we have recived the last few months, all the money will go towards getting the new enclosure built and the chimps in the forest where they belong. Your support means a lot to us, thank you!

Jordi C. - 90 USD

Jennifer M. - 50 USD

Alexa C. - 50 USD

Jill S. - 25 USD

Maiko (back), Misisi, Julius, Uvira, Mangay(back turned, hugging Misisi)

Monkeys Arrived!

Yesterday evening after a very long boat and car ride the two monkeys from the illegal “sanctuary” in Goma arrived safely at our door with Arthur one of the veterinarians from the North Kivu ICCN team! After many a mix up with the boat times, Arthur arrived safely at the port and was greeted by one of our own veterinarians. The monkeys are both thin, but thanks to the care the ICCN and PASA have been providing in the last few weeks, their condition was not as bad as we had expected.
PASA has provided all costs for the transport of these two monkeys and will also give the CRPL $1000 to help with their continued care. We are very grateful for their help not only in this case, but for all they do.
The first monkey is a 4 year old male Mangabey whose name is Hilton. He is extremely thin and his hair is in terrible condition. The second monkey is a 3 year old red-tail who is yet to have a name. They are currently in solitary cages with access to each other. They will stay in quarantine for one month to ensure that no diseases are passed on to the other animals in the sanctuary. With good nutrition and veterinary care they should both improve quite quickly!

New Monkeys Expected Today!

At about 12pm today we are expecting two new monkeys. The mangabey and red-tail have been kept in an illegal "sanctuary" for the last few years along with chimpanzees and other monkeys. PASA have done a wonderful thing and intervened along with the ICCN to confiscate the animals. For the last two weeks the ICCN have been providing food, water and veterinary care to all the animals (something they had not been receiving regularly for the last few months). PASA have worked tirelessly to find homes for all these animals and are supporting the cost to transfer them. I will post a blog tomorrow about their arrival. Sadly, we do not have a lot of space for new animals. With our current number of primates standing at 108! However, we will provide them with the best medical care, nutrition and husbandry we can! With your help we can make a bigger difference to the lives of all of these 108 primates! Please donate on our blog if you can!

An Update on Lulinga

Lulinga was the last baby to be introduced to the nursery cage. She is a tiny little chimpanzee with a HUGE personality. She moved into the cage and immediately fitted in well. All of the other chimpanzees love her, in particular Misisi who likes to care for Lulinga while she is having an afternoon nap. Here are some pictures of Luli in the cage today!

Lulinga and Monique playing in the cage!

New years suprise!

Happy new year to everyone!

The 31th of December we got a new years suprise at the sanctuary, as a red-tailed monkey gave birth to a healty baby. All our monkeys now have contraseptive implants so this was a big suprise. Nature will always find a way... The baby was called Bonne Annee, wich means happy new year in French. Welcome to Lwiro Bonne Annee!

Also please read our first official newsletter! http://www.sjimpanser.net/newsletter/december2009.pdf

Roots&Shoots-Lwiro continues the work!

The children learning about animal tracks

The Roots&Shoots club in Lwiro is going on with their educational activities. In these last weeks we have learnt more about the animals of the Kahuzi-Biega National Park. Using guides and books we identified different species of mammals and their tracks. And we have also watched documentaries about wild gorilllas and chimpanzees, so we can see how these amazing animals live in the wild and discuss the problems they face in DR Congo.

Watching chimp documentary

We have also visited the small forest that will be fenced soon as it will become the new home for the CRPL chimpanzees. We enjoyed a nice walk and discovered the several species of trees and plants that the chimps will soon enjoy!
Visiting the forest as a Nyoka
However, as the children walked to the forest we discussed how it is possible that they have never entered this particular forest before. The R&S club told a story of a giant pithon that lives within this forest which is the reencanation of the ancient spirits of their ancestors. So, to give them the courage to enter the forest the R&S club made a giant human Nyoka (snake in swahili). This gave them the strength to explor and enjoy the adventure.
Learning about the forest
We would like to once again thank the Jane Goodall Institute Spain (www.janegoodall.es) for thier support and for making this R&S-Lwiro club a reality.

-Laia-

Lulinga introduced to the others

Lulinga has now finished her quarantine period and 4 days ago she was introduced to the other baby chimps in the nursery group, witch means there are now 12 chimps in this group.

Luckily Lulinga has quite an independent and confident character and she coped very well with being introduced to the group. It is quite an overwhelming experience for the little ones, going into such a big group, as everyone wants to get to know them straight away. Little Lulinga did very well though and told them off if they were being too rough.

A few days later she seems to be turning in to a favourite among the slightly older females of the group, Maiko, Misisi, Monique and Ituri. They take turns carrying her around and wanting to hug her. She has also shown that she knows what she wants, defending her food fiercely against the other chimps, also the ones that are much bigger than her! We are very happy with the progress of Lulinga, and are confident she’ll be a well integrated member of the group very soon.


Everyone wants to meet the new arrival
Fizi saying hello

Maiko wanting a hug

Maiko, Lulinga and Misisi

Lulinga eating her corn


-Hilde-

Donations on the blog in October

October has been a good month for donations on this blog and we would like to thank the people who contributed! Every donation means a lot to everyone in Lwiro!

So thank you very much for your help!

Kate O: 80 dollars

Cleve H: 30 dollars

Natalia R: 200 dollars

Bolungwa

Update on the civets

Some of you might remember that we recived 3 baby civets some weeks ago. Although we are mainly a primate sanctuary sometimes other animals arrive on our doorstep and we take care of them as well as we can. Sadly it did not end well for two of our civets... After growing and triving for some weeks on milk formula, a few weeks ago two of them stopped eating properly. We don't know the reason for this and we tried our hardest to get them to eat and drink, we tried both with the milk and solid foods like bananas and meat, they also got medicines and veterinary care. But sadly the two of them didn't make it...


The good news is that the third civet is doing very well and has grown a lot! He eats a lot with his favourits beeing banans and rats. He is an independent little caracter and we do hope to find a solution to realease him back into the wild, if not he'll always have a home here.