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It is difficult to believe it is nearly the end of July, time has certainly
run away from us. So much has happened since I last put pen to paper so
to speak. Not all happy happenings I’m sorry to report. Gungy the
goat passed away having contacted a virus too; both goats will always
have a special place in our hearts. The good points from these tragic
deaths is that the community are beginning to understand why we are educating
them on the importance of “environmental control” throwing
plastic bags, badly opened cans, broken glass etc in their immediate area/s
these can cause serious damage and death, to animals and humans alike.
Their animals are their wealth so they appreciate how much they can lose
financially by their stock losses, due to neglect and not caring about
the immediate surroundings Twinkles also passed away, she was an old lady
and also very special. Thankfully she wasn’t ill but died of old
age.
The buck visiting us now have increased to 5, and can often be seen
early morning in the garden. We have seen the brown squirrels too and
very recently 2 Spoonbills have been visiting the dam. Grounded Hornbill
are often see as well as the Trumpeter Hornbills, usually 13 can be heard
with their unusual laughter sounding calls, it is amusing if you mimic
them they reply. Now to the Vervets, Again sadly I have to report on the
disappearance of our Alpha male N2, we are pretty sure he is dead. One
morning we had to leave early and there was a great deal of chatter but
on investigation we couldn’t see anything, but on our return he
was no where to be see and surprise, surprise we had been robbed, the
workers here are convinced that who ever robbed use must have used a catapult
to kill him. N2 was our “alarm system” any stranger, dogs,
cows or humans he would bark a warning. It was heart warming, as even
the police were upset, as they knew him too. Our wild monkeys are visiting
regularly now especially as its winter and food is very scarce. We throw
out the leftovers from our troop and of course yours truly always sneaks
extras. Of course we do not put food out when they are around, as we do
not want them to associate humans as a source of food.
There are two troops, one of which 35+ strong and in that troop there
are 3 of our previous rescued monkeys, Sunny, Precious and London, all
now totally wild and doing well. The other a much smaller troop has 14+,
one that we have named Halftail, a male what happened to the other half
of his tail? perhaps a trap, shot off while trying to avoid a farmers
bullets we will never know! Unfortunately East our young man who left
the “Lame & Lazy”enclosure and joined the wild troop,
he came back rather worse for wear. It was during the mating period and
he obviously thought he could do as he pleased then got punished. Anyway
with doctoring and care he is fit and well and a little wiser thank goodness.
He is now the Beta male of our training troop and Bobby who was 2nd in
command to N2 has taken over as the alpha male, not as strong as N2 but
showing signs of improving. Star is still adorable with his over-hanging
lip. He is the gang leader of the juveniles of our troop; he still has
very strong ties with Paddy and East. It is also very obvious that he
is definitely not going to be a high ranking male adult, as he has to
wait his turn if the older monkeys are eating but East and Star’s
“gang” have their own feeding area and protect this together,
but again if one of the older troop come they move off.
We have another addition to our family, Phil, Mandy’s son, he
is ridiculously small, but again he has a heart of a lion. Phil adores
swimming even when its a fairly cool day, Stylo, an infant brought in
by one of our Trustees, Paddy G. She found him clinging to the body of
his dead mom, in Amanzimtoti Durban, she had obviously been killed by
dogs and her infant son also had bite wounds, but not too serious thank
goodness .he is loveable but a very stroppy young monk, Stylo also has
a friend called Snip, he is from a place called Mooi River (it means Pretty
River) in the Midlands area of KZN He was found by some people who brought
him to us. Snip, is rather a small monk in stature but also a darling.
It’s sad that we do not know what happened to him mum, most likely
killed, as a mother monkey does not leave her infant willingly and sometimes
even if the infant is dead she will carry it until nothing is left. Another
new arrival, brought to us by a S.A.P. (S.A.Police) member who confiscated
him from an African who had killed the mother and eaten her, Lokie was
tied with wire around the waist and the scares are still visible. He was
fed maize meal and Coke,Lokie was so thin and obviously under- nourished.
He did not know what milk was! It took us a while to get him to eat fruit
and drink milk, though still very small he is well and happy. Thank you
and bless you Estelle for caring. The “Three Monkteers” now
spend all day out in their outside enclosure, and only come in at night
as it is still too cold for them to sleep outside, even though they do
have a special box in their enclosure as added protection. It is comical
to see them when its time to come in.
When either Rod or myself go out with their basket, hold the door open
and without hesitation all three dive in. The same happens in the mornings
when it is time to go out. Its amazing how quickly they learn. At present
they are also making friends through the wire of their enclosure with
the training troop especially Karen (beta female) and Mandy (alpha female),
who both groom the youngsters. As soon as its summer these three and the
two others, Les and Effa will join them in the big wide world. We have
also been involved ion the rescue of a female monkey, named Halftail by
one of our v very caring helpers Elise S, who reported her serious injuries,
some she had for a long time, this was made obvious when we captured her.
Halftail, is a total free wild animal and not always at Elise’s
home, (on a farm about 25kms from us), capturing her took a long time.
With patience and trust on behalf of Elise, she was finally caught and
taken to our local vet, on sedating her Helen found that she had at one
stage been caught in a snare, which had wrapped around her waist and in
time part of her flesh had grown over the snare. While this was happening
this poor primate had tried and was successful in removing the snare but
in the process broke most of her teeth, and being an elderly female her
teeth were not that strong either. Helen the vet decided to operate, and
then found that the stomach had attached itself to the flesh of her skin,
(wonders of nature) anyway painstakingly the wound was repaired with 24
stitches, a wonderful job, well-done Helen. We then took Halftail back
to Elise’s farm, where she was put into a “hospital room”
until recovered enough to be returned back to her family. Elise also made
an extra room for Halftail so she was able to see her family and make
contact with them while recuperating from her ordeal. We at APES can only
say, Bless you Alize and family and also to Helen the vet, for your caring
and dedication, we only wish there were more people like you out there.
MFENI THE INFANT BABOON;
A few months ago we were privaled to be asked to look after a 3-week-old
baboon, we named him Mfeni, meaning baboon in Zulu. This bundle of joy
did not have a very good introduction to life I’m afraid. His mother
had been killed in Hluhluwe a small town very close to a nature reserve
in northern KZN. He was barely a few days old at that time, he then was
confiscated from an African man, and taken to the local State vetinerarian,
where the assistant there Santa (an angel) we think, would not allow him
to he euthanised as suggested by the local parks official, she, unable
to keep him more than a week or so, contacted us and 2 of our volunteers
drove up to Richards bay and collected him. From the time he arrived he
stole our hearts, as well. He was all ears and pink skin with silky black
fur, he hands had a distinctive feature 2 extra little fingers, each had
a nail but no bones, but were just dangling on the side, as they didn’t
cause him any discomfort we decided to let them stay, as his special trade
mark! It was extremely difficult not to want to cuddle him constantly.
Infact I had to be rather strict with the volunteers and us in this regard.
He arrived with an elephant toy hot water bottle, numerous baby toys,
dummy, baby formula, baby cereal, vitamins, feeding bottles etc. Santa
had been his saviour in many ways. She was broken hearted when she handed
him over, understandably so. Well he soon settled in, went to bed with
the 3 vervets at night cuddled in and was soon at home. He started to
develop endearing habits, rushing up to you bandy back legs and all, his
mouth open wide and would in his own way kiss you. He was ticklish and
would make squeaky noises and loved to be held up in the air, and would
keep on like any human child, wanting more and more. When he missed me
or didn’t see me he would make a whooping noise getting louder and
louder, this only stopped if he found me, he would then cling to my leg
until I picked him up. As he got older he became more independent, and
spent time outside with his favourite dog, Dingbat, usually riding on
Dingbat’s back, as if riding a horse. (This infant baboons do with
their mothers as they get older).Mfeni enjoyed playing and chasing the
vervets too, the younger vervets used to play with him as well, he actually
lost one of his extra little fingers while climbing a log while playing
with Star, one of the juvenile vervets, there were no ill effects thank
goodness. As do human infants get tired and irritable so did he, he would
only go to sleep in the beginning if he was wrapped like a new born human,
but as he got older he preferred to be covered, had his dummy and cuddled
his favourite blanket, or my jersey, which he claimed as his own. He much
preferred to sleep on top of Dingbat during the day.
Well we all knew this had to end as much as we would have loved him to
stay with us until it was time for him to leave with a baboon family,
unfortunately for us, not for Mfeni, we took him to CROW as they have
baboons there waiting for release, and even though he was very young 12
weeks old at the time it was felt as there was a surrogate baboon mum,
who loved bringing up babies he would be better to go while quite young,
enabling him to settle quicker. Unfortunately this mum didn’t have
milk, so he still has to have his usual formula at least 4 or 5 times
a day being fed by one of the CROW helpers. We of course would have loved
to continue until he didn’t need a bottle anymore at plus minus
10 months but it wasn’t to be. The most heart warming part of this
is that one of the worker’s here Mandla Ntuli the foreman, asked
me to please take him to see his “son” Mfeni, as he wanted
to see for himself that Mfeni was alright, this I have promised to do.
On asking what was he going to tell his employer, when taking the day
off as it is a long way from us, at least 3 hours there and 3 hours back,
his reply was and I quote, “I really have to go to Tekweni to see
a specialist, I’m sick’ (Tekweni is Zulu for Durban) I’m
ashamed to say that I haven’t been to CROW since I left him screaming
for me, and of course both of us close to tears. We have been in contact
with them there and they tell me he is happy and settled, and the baboon
mum loves him, even though he still has to come out of his new home to
be fed. One of our Volunteers Claire, who fell in love with our bundle
of joy too, went to see him on her way back to the UK, she reported back
to us that he was fit and well, she too shed many a tear on his departure
from APES. We hope and pray that he and his new family will be released
on our new home at Zingela when it comes for them to be set free once
again. We will tell you more in the next CHATTER.
We appeal yet again for any help you can give to help us with our new
project,Zingela. Some of you might wonder what is going to happen to this
place, well its rather exciting really we intend to continue operating
a satellite so to speak, this will eventually be run by one of our members
plus we are hoping somewhere out there, there is a person who would like
to be train to continue our work ad infanitem, how’s that for a
challenge? If there is any way you can help us to make this dream come
true, please contact us either on e-mail apescentre@gmail.com.
Or mobile 072 306 5664, our postal address is P.O. Box 123 MUDEN 3251
KZN. S.A.
There have been some exciting contacts made as well this year, we had
DISCOVERY CHANNEL here to do a story for the “DIRTY JOBS”
SERIES this will be shown some time in August this year. We are also going
to have CHANNEL 4 from the UK coming out in September to do a series for
their programme MICHAELA’S WILD WORLD. There was also an interview
on a local radio station called HIGHWAY RADIO with yours truly, I’m
told this went off very well and await the arrival of a C.D made of the
programmed as well. All very exciting and this can only help make people
more aware of our vervets , and hopefully make difference as well.
Thank you all for caring.
ALL AT APES.
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