CERCOPAN

Category: Cercopan, Monkeys, Nigeria, Uncategorized | Date: Feb 26 2008 | By: admin

Another day, another baby, this time confiscated with assistance from the local authorities. The third Mangabey we have brought to CERCOPAN since December, but this time a female and a very demanding one at that! One of our keepers Austin was visiting Marion market on his day off and saw the baby for sale in a dirty cage surrounded by people and chickens. As soon as he informed Jerry and Uche about the baby’s location they decided that trying to reason with a trader in a crowded venue would be futile and that the only way to take this animal would be to do so by force. They also reasoned that being accompanied by the authorities had the added advantage that it would allow us to make a public example of the trader, therefore discouraging others market vendors to sell monkeys in the future.

Forestry Commission Officials with the baby Mangabey during the confiscation

The confiscation, despite considerable protest from the owners was over very quickly and the baby was brought back to CERCOPAN HQ. She seems very happy in her new home, but is proving to be an absolute handful; pulling hair, prising open and attempting to lick people’s eyelids, screaming as loudly as possible whenever she is put back into her enclosure and literally destroying anything accidentally left within her reach. As one of her primary carers at the moment, I will be very relieved when we integrate her into a group with Abonema and Murphy!

Baby Mangabey being cradled by carer

The arrival of yet another new monkey leaves us with a serious problem. Quarantine is almost full, our enclosures are at maximum capacity and if monkeys continue to arrive at the same rate as in recent weeks, we will very soon have nowhere to put them. Turning animals away would be seriously detrimental, not only to the monkeys themselves, but also to our education programme. Indeed, it would create additional problems informing people that they should not keep monkeys and that doing so is illegal if we are then unable to give any option of a safe place to hand in the primates they may already own. It therefore seems that our best option may be to extend our current animal accommodation and begin building new enclosures. Given the financial and space implications of such a project however, this is an avenue that will require considerable thought and planning before making the decision to go ahead.

Uche feeding the new baby

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Category: Cercopan, Conservation, Education, Monkeys, Nigeria, Uncategorized | Date: Feb 22 2008 | By: admin

Last week CERCOPAN began the 2008 education outreach programme in urban schools in and around Calabar. Jerry started the education programme in 1997 and in its 11th year it is more popular than ever. Over the next 6 months he will visit two schools daily, each for approximately 1 hour 30 minutes, lecturing on the topic “Wildlife protection, the forest and climate change”. There are 80-100 children in each class and as he hopes to visit between 50 and 70 schools, this means that he will effectively reach out to over 5000 children.

Jerry giving talk at Royal College

During his talk, Jerry explains CERCOPAN’s role in protecting monkeys and their forest habitat, the importance and interactions between wildlife and the forest, why monkeys do not make good pets and the benefits and functions of tropical rainforest to society. At the end of his presentation, every child is provided with a handout that they can take home and use to persuade others to change their attitudes towards wildlife. Furthermore, as a follow up, teachers from each school are requested to repeatedly reinforce the message that students should not keep monkeys as pets and that they should choose wisely whenever they opt to consume bushmeat.

Henshaw Town school

In 2007 Jerry won the Charles Southwick Conservation Education Commitment award, which he will collect at the International Primate Society congress in Edinburgh this year. We are all extremely proud of Jerry and are very pleased that his years of hard work and utter dedication have been recognized. As part of the prize, Jerry was given a cash reward to be spent on any aspect of the education programme that he considered appropriate. Always keen to motivate and reward the children, Jerry decided to use this prize to purchase trophies that were presented to schools at our 2007 World Environment Day rally. The rally was attended by thousands of children and involved a parade, school inspections, essay contest, carnival and drama competition, all related to wildlife and environmental protection. The rally is held every other year and will next take place in July 2009, yet Jerry is already making plans and is determined it will be bigger and better than ever!

World Environment day parade

Zenith High School in World Environment Day Parade

Chief Etan, Clan Head of Iko Esai, presenting trophies at World Environment Day

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Feb 19 2008 | By: admin

CERCOPAN would once again like to say a big thank you to Theresa S and Cathy R for your kind donations. Your support is very much appreciated and still much needed as new animals continue to arrive almost weekly. I will be heading up to Rhoko today, but will post an update on Peck and events in the bush when I return. Also, some good news for you this morning, as I was writing this message I have just been informed that one of our female Mangabeys, “Quality” has given birth. The baby is healthy and doing well.

Akampka hiding under his security blanket when he first arrived at CERCOPAN

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Category: Cercopan, Education, Monkeys, Nigeria, Uncategorized | Date: Feb 12 2008 | By: admin

It seems that no sooner we manage to find space in quarantine for one monkey, another one arrives. Last Wednesday morning we heard about a baby Putty whose owner was looking to sell the animal. I waited for Jerry to return from one of his school visits and then the two of us headed out to the man’s home, armed with education leaflets and a travel box.

Claire examining baby Putty on arrival

We arrived to find the baby in a poor state; wet, muddy, covered in faeces and tethered so tightly that she was unable to move more than a few centimetres. Indeed, the cord around the baby’s middle was restricting her bladder to such an extent that she was urinating almost constantly. Unfortunately, the owner of the animal was not on the premises and therefore Jerry had no choice but to try to negotiate her release over the phone. Despite lengthy discussion, the man was absolutely adamant that we could not take the Putty without a face to face meeting.

Dejected Putty desperate for some attention

Obviously I was not happy leaving the monkey tethered for even a few hours, so despite protests from the staff on site, we cut the cord and transferred her to the travel box. I had no option other than to leave, but the guilt I felt all the way to CERCOPAN was almost overpowering and it took every ounce of strength not to simply rush back and rescue her. I knew our actions were for the best however, as when we are able to educate the owners and they hand over an animal willingly, they are generally less likely to replace it with another in the future.

Tether binding baby Putty to the tree

Jerry returned later that evening but the man was not on site and his staff asked Jerry to be there the following day at 6am. At 6am the owner spoke to Jerry, accepted the educational material and requested that he be able to consult his lawyer before handing over the animal. After speaking to his lawyer and another visit from Jerry, the man subsequently demanded that he be given the opportunity to visit CERCOPAN before making any decisions (although he was not free to do so in the near future due to time constraints).

Jerry travelled to his house again and again, leaving home at 5am in an attempt to catch the man before work, returning during the day hoping the he may be there for lunch and even checking back on his way home at night. Despite phone call after phone call we were no closer to rescuing the baby monkey, but at least the trips were allowing us to ensure that she had both food and water.

Baby in travel box after being cleaned up

Finally, on Saturday morning Jerry and I made the difficult decision that should we fail to confiscate the baby by the end of the day, we would return first thing on Monday morning with the authorities to take her by force. At 1pm Jerry, Uche and myself arrived at the house, only to find that once again the owner was not at home. After several phone calls, we were asked to return at 5pm and when we did, we were told that the man was asleep and could not be disturbed. At 5.30 we all finally gave up and went home for dinner, but before I had a chance to put a pot on the stove, Jerry rang to inform me that the owner had requested we return.

Once we were finally able to meet and talk with the man inside his home, it became very apparent that he had a great deal of concern for his pet and simply wanted to make sure that we would be taking her somewhere suitable. He had bought the Putty from one of his staff who had shot her mother for meat, but due to the nature of his job he was rarely at home and had been forced to leave her in the care of others. Over an hour of questions followed and just after 7.15pm we drove out of his gate with the baby and firm promises that the owner would discourage his staff and colleagues from keeping and/or shooting monkeys.

Baby Putty eating fruit in her temporary home

Back at CERCOPAN, volunteer Sagan helped me to give the baby a bath, clean out the travel box and prepare fruit and milk. I returned home exhausted, but with a real feeling of achievement, with persistence, determination and extremely dedicated staff anything really is possible.

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Category: Cercopan, Monkeys, Nigeria, Uncategorized | Date: Feb 06 2008 | By: admin

After a week observing Abonema and Murphy in adjacent quarantine enclosures, we finally placed them together on Monday, and as you can see they are already inseparable. Indeed, Murphy spends most of his time clinging to Abonemas chest or riding on his back.

Murphy’s new means of travel

Unfortunately, no matter how close the two male Managabeys have become, food is still their number one priority and as a result we are being forced to find more and more ingenious ways to prevent Abonema stealing all of Murphy’s milk. Generally with patience, cunning and well timed ‘food bribery’ however, we can lure Abonema into another enclosure to allow Murphy enough time to drink his bottle in peace. The two will now remain together in quarantine until Murphy has competed his full three months and then we will have the complex process of trying to integrate them into a suitable social group.

Murphy gaining comfrort from Abonema

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Category: Cercopan, Conservation, Monkeys, Nigeria, Rain Forests, Uncategorized | Date: Feb 04 2008 | By: admin

I have just received some reports and photographs from the bush so thought I would post a quick update on the progress of our release group. Three months after the release of the Bebi, July and Nko, we have not lost any individuals, the group has remained in the area planned to be their home-range, no major health problems have been noted and the radio tracking equipment is still functioning.

Since the beginning, the three animals have stayed together as a group, with July leading and protecting the others from any potential threats. Indeed, July has been observed chasing red eared monkeys on two occasions, when they entered the same crown as the group. July has also been observed copulating with Bebi on two occasions, although these are certainly more social mounts, given the weak probability of Bebi being receptive.

Nko foraging for insects

So far, the group has remained inside the Core Area, with no single foray into the research area, community forest, or main camp. Using a grid system established inside the forest on the release site, we have been able to measure and assess the size of home-range in addition to the daily travel length. The approximate home-range size is now between 7 and 8 ha, and the daily length range is 750m. The 2 first months were characterized by a smaller home-range size and daily length range (2.5 ha for 350m per day), since the group was located in part of the forest rich in food resources, especially fruits. Since the production of their top 3 food species decreased, and we have been able to discern a noticeable increase in time spent travelling.

Bebe eating fruits

Food provisioning is still carried out, but with a process of progressive decrease in the provided amount. During the two first weeks after the release, we supplied the group with food twice a day, once in the morning and again in the late afternoon. We then decreased the provisioning to once a day, usually in the beginning of the afternoon as we observed that the group could find enough food and fruit on their own. Since the beginning of January 2008 however, food is provided only once every two or three days. This new reduction should allow the group to become more independent, and to reduce human/monkey interactions.

Bebe

The group tend to spend the early morning and end afternoon in the upper stratum of the forest, with more time in the lower layers/on the ground in the middle of the day. They own several sleeping trees they leave in the morning and that constitute central points around which they travel during the day. The Monas often follow the stream close to the release enclosure, walking in the water or on the banks, jumping from roots to trunks and foraging in the water on arthropods. Surprisingly, the largest percentage of time spent foraging is actually on arthropods, with fruits and seeds forming the second main food category.

July and Nko following the stream

We are all delighted that the Monas are doing well and that they have adapted so readily to life in the wild. Working at CERCOPAN can be emotionally draining at times, watching animals that have been poorly treated entering our gates day after day and losing animals that we have worked so hard to save. Nevertheless, watching the footage of our newly wild Mona’s makes everything else we endure worthwhile. Not only does it mark a second chance for Bebi, Nko and July, but it also fills us with hope for all of the other monkeys that we will one day follow them.

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