CERCOPAN

Category: Cercopan, Conservation, Monkeys, Nigeria, Rain Forests | Date: Nov 19 2009 | By: cercopan

by Sylvain Lemoine, Mona Research Coordinator,

My work trekking all day in the rain-forest can already be rather extreme, so the idea of spending three days and three nights in the middle of the deep forest seemed like a big adventure.

During the weekend of the 11^th of October 2009, I undertook a preliminary survey into the Research Area and adjacent Community Forest with Osam, one of our Rhoko Camp Patrol, an ex-hunter now converted to the CERCOPAN cause.  The aim of the trip was to map the existing trails, streams and rivers in the area and to gather information about human presence and disturbance, wildlife, and monkeys in particular.  The Research Area is an area of about 3000ha set aside for research into ecology, botany, zoology and geology, and it is contiguous to the Cross River National Park, Oban division.  Farming, logging and hunting of endangered species is not permitted in the research area, but the community forest is close to another communiy and is not patrolled by CERCOPAN. Previous surveys carried out in both areas have indicated the presence of forest elephants, buffalos, and chimpanzees among other mammal species such as mona and putty-nosed guenons.

The first day was rather uneventful in comparison to the ones that would follow; we spent all day trekking across easy trails and reached Agbor Iyamba, a hunter shed, without any problem.  With an evening cooking, resting and chatting about local beliefs, we passed the time before bed and then were lulled to sleep with the sounds of the forest.  Little did we know we had been lulled in to a false sense of security on what the days to follow would hold in store…….

Osam preparing food in a hunting shed

The second day started interestingly since it took us 45 minutes to find the first trail to follow, with the junction being heavily obstructed by recent fallen trees.  It seemed that the trail wasn’t regularly walked, or only by a few ambitious hunters.  We followed it fairly easily when found, guided by Osam’s great memory and our sense of direction when the trail disappeared into impenetrable vegetation.  We trekked at a good pace, but stopped regularly to listen to the forest, trying to detect animal sounds and movement.  It was on these stops that we managed to see red duikers on two occasions.  The first one fled on our approach but the second we watched for several minutes, silhouetted by the river behind it whose noise kept us from being detected.  We continued our way across rivers and hills, occasionally following forest elephant trails unnervingly.

Elephant trails look like human trails and it can be very confusing for somebody unable to distinguish between them.  Elephant trails are often contiguous or mixed up with human trails and this encourages local people to beleive that powerful village chiefs can take elephant form when desired.  We could see elephant footprints, luckily a few months old, but still visible.  Following these paths we finally reached our first destination, a shed called Lokpui Iyura, named after the Lopkui river. Tracks of hunters were present, with pangolin scales scattered on the floor and a strong lingering odor of death, but the shed was empty.

We continued our exploration towards the East and eventually found a couple of fresh fruits on the ground.  Five minutes later, a noise in the branches attracted our attention and we stood and watched carefully while a single red-eared monkey moved away by jumping from crown to crown, then finally disappeared in to the vegetation.

Red Eared Guenon

We were pressed on by the time since it was already close to 3pm, and the weather was starting to threaten rain.  We left without further investigation and eventually reached our furthest East destination; a shed called Ikpobokbai where we stayed just enough time to take a GPS point.  That was the moment the real adventures began…….

The rain arrived suddenly, falling in large drops that quickly flooded the soil and trails.  Our plan had been to complete a loop along Lokpui river and return to the previous nights shed, Agbor Iyamba, where we had left all our camping equipment.  We couldn’t go back by the same trails than we had used to arrive; otherwise it would have made the journey too long.  We took a short-cut across the hills, following a trail that Osam knew only from an explanation by another ex-hunter, since Osam had never been to this area before. This trail was easy to find at the start, but the more the rain fell, the more difficult it became to understand the logic of the path.  We lost the trail several times, but always found something that looked like it again.

We passed a large river running which was running quite fast due to the heavy storm and then clambered up the next hill….at that moment it finally dawned, we had been following another elephant trail!  We found elephant dung, one a few months old with its contained seeds starting to germinate, and another just a few weeks old alongside vegetation broken aside by the recent passage of this massive animal.  Osam kept reassuring me that the elephants were not around during this time of the year, due to the increase in human presence caused by more collectors of wild salad, but these fresh tracks made me increasingly dubious – with forest elephants being so aggressive, more so than savanna elephants, an encounter with one had not been on my wish list for this trip…….

Elephant dung found on one of the trails

We followed the elephant trail for a while before Osam could find a decent human trail leading us to another river which was completely flooded.  We cut sticks to help to cross, and fought against the powers of the current.  Once on the other side, cold and wet, we couldn’t find the path and so we had to make a decision to follow the river.  I started to worry because we only had one more hour of light, and we were not sure of our position.  We crossed this stream again, climbed the hills on the other side, and reached yet another river.  All these streams were very confusing; I was never sure if we were following the same one as before. I tried to use the GPS to locate our position, but the bad weather didn’t allow anything technological to help in this wilderness.  We had to follow our common sense and our single compass. We passed several others torrents, climbed more hills, walked down into another river bed, and attempted to follow it but the water was just too powerful.  All the dust and earth from the forest drained into the river, making the water brown, so we couldn’t see the bottom and where we were able to step to reduce the possibility of being dragged downstream.  The night was falling fast, as well as the rain, and we were still looking for our way…

Long after the darkness had absorbed us into its hostile atmosphere, Osam finally recognized a junction between two streams.  We had actually been too far on the South and had crossed the major river without ever knowing it.  We then followed a small stream, walking through the centre of half-flooded areas of land.  Osam was using my head-light as he was in front of me, but this left me struggling with a wet torch-light.  Eventually, Osam stopped abruptly and stepped back: a green tree viper was coiled on the ground, waiting for any frog (or toe) to pass in close proximity……The nightmare of finding snakes in the forest at night got realized, and as we passed and continued downstream, the darkness seemed to get denser……..

Finally, after half-an-hour more trekking and zigzagging between hills and streams, we reached “home”.  It had taken us more than 5 hours to find our way, and we were completely wet and exhausted, but we were seriously relieved.  After all these efforts, the dilapidated shed appeared much more comfortable.  I figured out that we human beings only need shelter and a dry place around a warm fire.  The hot meal and deserved rest was very welcome and we slept well, even if a little more uneasily than the night before, anticipating the following day……….

Tags: African Wildlife, Cercopan, Elephants, Jungle adventure, Monkeys, Nigeria, rainforest

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Category: CERCOPAN staff fighting to save rainforest and endanger, CERCOPAN supporters saving rainforests and orphaned mon, Cercopan, Conservation, Life, Monkeys, Nigeria, Rare monkey babies born, Saving endangered monkeys, love and friendship in monkeys | Date: Sep 17 2009 | By: cercopan

Back in June Peace, a female mangabey from Callistus’ group, had her first ever infant, Pica.  Pica, a beautiful baby girl, arrived just 2 weeks after the birth of Marvelous; a bouncing baby boy, born to Mercy.  As Peace’s first infant, she was rather unsure how to look after Pica and seemed confused as to what her motherly duties involved.  As the first few weeks passed, her mothering instincts began to develop and improved somewhat, but unfortunately, as we carefully observed the pair we could see that Peace was still not fulfilling some of the important jobs she needed to do.

Peace and Pica: at times her mothering instinct kicked in. 

Peace easily lost interest in Pica, and so Pica spent a lot of her time riding around on the back of her older brother, Marley.  These two got on famously and Marley was always there to lend a helping brotherly hand!  She really enjoyed playing with him and he enjoyed playing with her, unless he wanted to play-fight with some of his older friends!  When Marley was not around though and Peace wasn’t interested, we had the problem that, in this prolonged wet season we are experiencing here in Cross River State, Nigeria, there was no-one to shelter Pica from the elements.  Being so small she felt the cold easily and when there was no-one to cuddle up to when she was wet, the staff at CERCOPAN began to worry.  In addition to this we had noticed that Pica was not putting on weight like Marvelous, who was only 2 weeks older.  As we continued to pay close attention to Peace and Pica’s relationship, and the nursing behaviour of the pair, we eventually came to the conclusion that the best course of action was to remove Pica from the group and hand-rear her until she was strong enough to return.  It was a tough decision and always a last resort here at CERCOPAN.

  Despite the vast experience CERCOPAN volunteers have in hand-rearing rescued, orphaned infant monkeys, Pica proved to be somewhat more difficult.  Never before had we had the problem of the mother still being in the vicinity and in ear-shot of the infant.  Pica refused to eat while she could hear her mother, and the two were continually trying to communicate with each other.  Our best option was to take Pica to our volunteer living-quarters two doors down the road and here she became much more settled.  Now she is a happy little monkey who loves lots of attention when she’s fed. She runs around the room where her travel box is being kept, climbing and jumping off the furniture.  She is putting on plenty of weight and we are really happy with the progress she is making.  We can’t wait for the time when we can reunite her with her mother, her brother and the other members of her group.

By Amy Baxter, Mangabey Research Coordinator, temporary Finance and Office Manager

Photographs by Sam Trull

Pica, after having rolled in either mud or food!

Tags: africa, animal, Cercopan, Conservation, endangered species, monkey, Monkeys, Nigeria, Nigerian wildlife, primates, rainforest, rare species, threatened species, volunteers, wildlife

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Category: Cercopan, Communities, Life, Nigeria, Rescued neglected bush dog | Date: Sep 14 2009 | By: cercopan

  As many of you may remember, a few months back we rescued a bush dog, Ticky, from appalling conditions in our host village Iko Esai.  She was found under a broken umbrella in the pouring rain, covered in sores and being home for a vast number of parasites including ticks, fleas and worms.  She was too weak to even stand and we discovered the reason was because she had been removed from her mother before she was ready to finish nursing.  Sylvain, our mona research coordinator, gently carried her back to our camp along the difficult 30 minute bike journey, through flooded rivers and with thunder crashing around our ears.  It was there we began to nurse her back to health and she started her new life as our camp mascot, surrounded by love and care.

Ticky being nursed on her first night at Rhoko Camp, after ger initial rescue 

 In our last ‘rescued dog’ update we announced she was firmly on the road to recovery and we are pleased to say she has now finally reached her destination!   Her patchy fur has fully grown back and all her wounds are healed.  She has put on plenty of weight, with a big belly hanging around her spindly little legs!  Her true character is shining through and she is excelling at her guard dog duties, taking her cue from our older camp dog, Simon.  Perhaps her bark isn’t quite as threatening as Simon’s, with its squeaky tones intermingled with low growls, but she is always on the lookout for passers-by.

  Her strength has grown even more and now she runs around camp, following us to our huts and playing with us in the grass.  She still tries to play with our older dog, Simon, but he has decided he’s a bit too old for these games and tries to find a quite spot where he can continue to be a grumpy old man.  I think he also gets jealous, as he’s a big dog and is unable to climb onto anything comfortable like a chair (although he was caught having pushed into Sylvain’s hut and asleep on his bed once)!  Ticky, on the other hand, has found one of our cushioned chairs particularly comfortable, and has become an expert at climbing up various small boxes to get on to it!

Ticky; patch-free and chewing the clothes of our volunteer, Sylvain.

The other week our camp manager, Richard, bought back some tasty treats from the city for our guarding duo in the form of two large bones.  Both are nearly as long as Ticky herself and she struggles to get a good bite with her small mouth.  For some reason though, which ever bone she is gnawing on is not as tasty as the one Simon is chewing, and so she always tries to muscle in on his!  He’s not too pleased about this but is showing more tolerance as the days go by!

Ticky trying to get her little mouth around such a big tasty treat! 

  In addition, we have begun general training with her.  She understands ‘sit’ even if she doesn’t always follow the order, and we are trying to teach her ‘stay’, as she regularly tries to follow us in to the forest.  Our favourite one though, and I think hers is ‘paw’, where she lifts up her paw to shake hands.  Perhaps not as practical as ‘sit’ or ‘stay’, but much cuter and it is becoming a very popular welcome with our visiting tourists!

By Amy Baxter, Mangabey Project Coordinator and temporary Office and Finance Manager

Tags: Cercopan, community, Conservation, Cross River State, dog, Iko Esai, Monkeys, neglected, Nigeria, rescued, volunteers

4 responses so far

Category: CERCOPAN supporters saving rainforests and orphaned mon, Cercopan, Conservation, Monkeys, Nigeria, Orphaned baby monkeys, Saving endangered monkeys | Date: Aug 18 2009 | By: cercopan

Fantasic news…thanks to our wonderful readers out there, we only have $1182 left to raise towards our rent!!! Recent donations from Kathy S, Kevin C, James M, Brenton H, Mark H, Ji-in L, Harry V, James M, Julie T, Jennifer S, Wanda H and Christine C have brought us so close to our target and there are still 14 days to go. When we started this appeal with $3333 to raise in little over a month, it seemed almost impossible…..but now we are almost 2/3 of the way there. Thanks very much from everyone at CERCOPAN for getting us here.

For all of you wishing to help our cause, you can now also support CERCOPAN by using ‘everyclick’ as your search engine. Simply add everyclick to your favourites or as your home page (http://www.everyclick.com/cercopan) and then each search you undertake raises money for our organisation. Even if you only search a couple of times a day every click counts.  Encourage your friends to participate too!

Little Ema eating orange

Tags: African Wildlife, Cercopan, Conservation, Monkeys, Nigeria, Orpahan baby monkeys, rehabilitation

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Category: CERCOPAN supporters saving rainforests and orphaned mon, Cercopan, Conservation, Monkeys, Nigeria, Saving endangered monkeys | Date: Aug 13 2009 | By: cercopan

Apologies to all of you for not giving an update on our situation for a few days….I know many of you are following our struggle to raise funds and are almost as worried as me about it! Sadly I haven’t been able to spend much time at my computer as I’ve been pretty unwell so have been trying to work on other things that don’t involve staring at a screen! I was hoping it was just a headache or cold, but I am now pretty sure I have malaria, so I will take some drugs today and hopefully be back to my normal self in the next 2 or 3 days …

We received disheartening news yesterday that two further sources of funds that I had been desperately awaiting news on are no longer a possibility for this year. I don’t think there has ever been a more difficult time for small charities to raise operational funds. In this global crisis, multinational companies, banks, foundations and individual donors have all been hit and are these are precisely the avenues we utterly rely on for funds. Im trying to stay hopeful though,  Im sure if we just keep trying every single available option, eventually our hard work and effort will pay off.

We still need to raise i$1742 and there are 20 days left to go. Huge thanks to Mr G, Kathy, Christine, Pirjo, Samantha and Bryony for their support. I can’t emphasise enough how much we all appreciate your efforts. The amount of work it takes to make a project like this run day to day can be exhausting for the volunteers and staff; and a crisis like this only serves to make the days longer and harder. To know that there are people in our corner who really care makes all the difference and your support is invaluable in so many ways. A massive thank you to all of you for everything you are doing!

Some of the CERCOPAN staff posing for a photo on George (our vet interns last day)

Bottom Left: Martina, me, Glory, George, Amy, Sam

Top left: Joshua, Austin, Egu, Richard, Matthew, Etan, Abakum

Tags: , African Wildlife, Appeal, Bushmeat trade, Cercopan, Crisis, Monkeys, Nigeria, rehabilitation

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Category: Cercopan, Orphaned baby monkeys, Saving endangered monkeys | Date: Jul 28 2009 | By: cercopan

A dark cloud still looms over CERCOPAN ’s future and it has nothing to do with the current rainy season…..The fate of more than 120 monkeys, orphaned victims of the bushmeat trade, still depends upon CERCOPAN being able to raise funds rapidly to pay rent on our Calabar premises. The animals at CERCOPAN’s HQ have been lucky once, escaping the hunters gun and the market dealers stalls; now they may be forced out of their place of sanctuary. 

The global financial crisis is making it more difficult than ever before to find the funds needed to pay for operating costs such as feeding monkeys and providing vital vet care. As a result, the unexpected doubling of our rent without any prior notice has left us in a very difficult situation indeed. We have only 34 days left to find the remaining $3103 needed to stay at our current site for another year which will allow us to continue to guarantee a home for every single monkey that needs our help. We need you to make this happen.

Please help. Donate today.

A big thank you from everyone here at CERCOPAN to those that have already pledged their support. Wanda,  Anna, Hilko, Sherri, Carl, Michael and Bethany your donations really are sincerely appreciated.  

Tags: endangered species, Monkeys, Orphans, save

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Category: Cercopan | Date: Jul 25 2009 | By: cercopan

CERCOPAN is now on Twitter! Follow the daily exploits of Director Claire Coulson  (http://www.twitter.com/CERCOPANHQ) and Office and Finance Manager Sam Trull (http://www.twitter.com/CERCOPAN) as they work to save monkeys and rainforests in Nigeria.

Tags: africa, animal, Cercopan, Conservation, endangered species, monkey, Monkeys, Nigeria, rainforest, rare species, threaten species, twitter, wildlife

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Category: Cercopan, Monkeys, Saving endangered monkeys | Date: Jul 23 2009 | By: cercopan

It’s a sad fact that charities and organizations across the world are suffering the knock on effects of the global financial crisis. Donors are drying up and support from individuals is lessening as people look to solving problems closer to home. CERCOPAN tries not to rely on appeals of this nature but we have found ourselves unexpectedly forced into an extremely difficult situation. We have had to tighten our belts considerably in view of the fact that unrestricted funds for operating costs such as monkey food, enclosure repairs and utility bills are just not forthcoming at present.

We are still supported in educational and rural livelihood development projects, for example, but these funds are assigned to the activities the funding organizations have specified. Our desperation at this time is the need to find funds simply to continue our day to day operations so that we can honour these commitments and most importantly give the food and care that our rescued monkeys require. We have been cutting expenses in peripheral areas for some time now and have put all we can personally into making sure these demands are met, however, something can always tip the balance.

Yesterday we received a demand for the rent on the property where our Calabar office and education centre stand; in which we house all of the primates not currently in our forest based site. This annual rent has doubled without warning and is required to be paid by the end of next month. Unfortunately we have no right to appeal this increased demand; in the future we would have no such threat to our existence having agreed to move permanently to a free undeveloped site on the University of Calabar’s grounds. We have funding proposals out being considered at the moment to finance this move; but face an imminent and debilitating crisis if we cannot find the necessary money to keep us in place until then.

We are continuing to try exhaustively all avenues of funding we can hope to raise from here but we have reached a point where we need to ask our readers and supporters to help us if at all possible, through whatever means you may have at your disposal, to raise the funds required to continue our work in this difficult time.

Thank you from everyone at CERCOPAN for taking the time to read this.

Claire

Baby Sclater’s guenon - CERCOPAN houses the only known captive Sclater’s guenons in the world.

Tags: africa, animal, Cercocebus torquatus, Cercopan, Cercopithecus erythrotis, Cercopithecus mona, Cercopithecus nictitans, Cercopithecus preussi, Cercopithecus sclateri, Conservation, endangered species, mona guenon, mona monkey, monkey, Monkeys, Nigeria, Preuss’s guenon, Preuss’s money, putty-nosed guenon, putty-nosed monkey, rainforest, rare species, Red-capped mangabey, red-eared guenon, red-eared monkey, rehabilitation, rescue, save, Sclater’s guenon, Sclater’s monkey, threaten species, wildlife

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Category: Cercopan | Date: Jul 18 2009 | By: cercopan

CERCOPAN is now a Facebook Cause!

For those of you who are regular Facebook users, why not join ….

We hope to encourage informal discussion and to post regular news items on the facebook cause page as well as on the blog.  I hope to see you there!

Here is the link: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/308596/68398117?m=6987e7df

Tags: africa, animal, Cercocebus torquatus, Cercopan, Cercopithecus erythrotis, Cercopithecus mona, Cercopithecus nictitans, Cercopithecus preussi, Cercopithecus sclateri, Conservation, endangered species, mona guenon, mona monkey, monkey, Monkeys, Nigeria, Preuss’s guenon, Preuss’s money, putty-nosed guenon, putty-nosed monkey, rainforest, rare species, Red-capped mongabey, red-eared guenon, red-eared monkey, Sclater’s guenon, Sclater’s monkey, threaten species, wildlife

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Category: Monkeys, Rare monkey babies born | Date: Jun 27 2009 | By: cercopan

All here at CERCOPAN would like to congratulate Peace on the birth of her healthy little baby!  Peace’s infant was born two days ago, and while this is Peace’s first child and she still has a lot to learn, each day she grows more comfortable with her motherly duties.  Born just a few weeks earlier, Mercy’s baby boy is growing quite rapidly and it won’t be long before these two young managbeys are causing trouble together!    Stay tuned for more updates and pictures on this adorable and lively group of monkeys.

Tags: africa, animal, baby monkey, Cercocebus torquatus, Cercopan, Conservation, cute monkey, endangered species, infant monkey, monkey, Monkeys, Nigeria, primates, rainforest, rare species, Red-capped mangabey, threaten species, wildlife

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