CERCOPAN

Category: Cercopan, Monkeys | Date: Sep 21 2008 | By: cercopan

Hello! My name is Sarah and I have just spent 3 weeks in CERCOPAN’s forest site, Rhoko, working as a volunteer with the Mangabeys and the Monas that CERCOPAN have situated up in the forest. The aim of my work was to ensure that everything relating to the monkeys was working well and there were no serious problems with any of the monkeys, their food and the electric fence. A typical day would start early, rising at 6:45 to ensure that I was down in ‘keepers’, which is the area near the Mangabey enclosure and 2 Mona cages where the food is kept and prepared, before 7:30 so that I could help Mary, one of the keepers with the morning feed.

Keeper Mary preparing food

The food has to be weighed out for each feed and recorded on the record sheets that we have down there. The usual amount of food given at each feed is between 9 and 11 kilograms shared between the 42 Mangabeys and the 5 Monas. The precise amount of food given howeverdepends on how much food we have and how much of the fruit is ripe. This may sound strange, but when we get the food the fruit isn’t completely ripe so with the bananas we have to keep them in a bucket to try and hasten the ripening process, the smell of rotting bananas that comes from that bucket will never leave my memory! When feeding we would go inside the enclosure but sometimes we would scatter the food by throwing it over the top of the fence, I preferred this method as when you take bowls of food inside the enclosure, some of the dominant males such as Clyde and Zombie would come up and take food from the bowls so that they don’t have to forage for it.

Me inside the enclosure feeding the Mangabeys

Myself and Mary spent a lot of time making sure that the food was scattered around the enclosure so that the monkeys were actually forced to forage, as they would have to do in the wild.  As there is a possible Mangabey release soon we have to ensure that they are as prepared as possible for life outside the enclosure.  After feeding I would test the electric fence to ensure that it was still working well and to look for any trees that may have fallen onto the fence which would act as an escape risk. After this I would then go through the forest to another cage further in which is home to Etimbuk and 2 younger Monas.  

Me and a visitor feeding Etimbuk

I would take food to them and depending clean out their enclosure and water- which gets surprisingly filthy, surprisingly quickly as they tend to wash their food in their dinking water! After seeing to Etimbuk I would then go back to the main shed and grab some breakfast and a cup of tea and then I would be back down at keepers by around 11:00.  At this time I help Mary with health checks; she has a recording sheet which she uses to mark the general condition of the monkeys, their hair condition, whether they are eating and drinking, checking to see if they have any wounds or if they are limping, making a note of their general behaviour and also writing whether they are staying in the group or not. This is done for every individual monkey and for the females she makes a note of whether they are swelling (on oestrus) and at what stage the swelling is at if they are swelling at all. After looking through the health checks I would then help with the feeding at 11:30 and then go back to Etimbuk’s cage before returning to the main shed to grabsome lunch. At around 3.45 I would start preparing for the 4:30 feed of the Mangabeys, Monas and of course Etimbuk. If there were any problems, such as we were running low on food, Mary would inform me and I would then discuss them with Sylvain who would tell me the course of action! I thoroughly enjoyed my stay with CERCOPAN as I gained a lot of valuable experience in working closely with Primates. Everyone was very welcoming and helpful and for that I have to thank CERCOPAN for giving me this experience which has been an invaluable one, and most certainly an experience that I will never forget.