Born Free

On Monday 12th October, a lorry load of recycled office furniture and supplies started its long journey from Swindon to Malawi as part of a joint project between the Born Free Foundation and the Green Standards Trust.

The recovered materials, which include everything from printers, computers and furniture to brooms, books, binoculars and veterinary supplies, started their journey in Swindon, where the Green Standards Trust has been gathering donations from various companies and Born Free supporters. In total, about 27 pallets, weighing over 20 tonnes, were loaded on board the 40ft container.

Of the office equipment, Ellen Winter, the overseas project manager for the Green Standards Trust, said “It could have ended up in landfill so it’s a real win, win.”

All being well, the container should arrive at the Lilongwe Wildlife Centre in the next 6-8 weeks.

Using recycled and donated equipment will save the Wildlife Centre considerable funds in equipping an on-site Office, Veterinary facility and Education Centre that are all to be built in the near future.

Chris Wright, Programmes Officer for Born Free, said: “There is a great threat to the animals in Malawi and education is a major issue. People aren’t aware of the impact that taking these animals out of their environment can have and they don’t know how to care for them, causing sever welfare problems. Wildlife can be seen as pests – they can harass people and spoil their crops. Rather than shoot them or trap them as pets we’re trying to encourage people to consider ways that they can mitigate that conflict and live side by side without fatal consequences for wildlife.”

The Wildlife Centre and Born Free would like to offer our sincere thanks to those generous supporters who have donated their time, equipment and finance to the delivery of these much-needed items.

It’s been a long time since we last updated you on the progress of the troop of baboons released last December. This has partly been because of personnel changes at the project, but also because the team have been enduring a tough time of late, and all available time has had to go into intense monitoring efforts.

Sadly, since the last blog from the release team, at which point the troop were adapting well to their new life in the wild, we have lost several individuals from Jack’s troop. Chris and Najinga were found dead just near their sleeping sites, presumed to have been killed by leopard. In addition, three other individuals (Nina, Ali & Bob John) have also disappeared from Jack’s troop, and have not been sighted among Zenus’ troop, the wild baboon troop in the area. Jack, Brenda, Becky and Ruth have not been seen since May 11th, leaving their whereabouts a mystery, though it is hoped they have simply moved to another area of the park, beyond the range of the monitoring team’s equipment.

Following such disruption to Jack’s troop, only Mandy could be found with Eddie, who had sustained a very deep flesh wound on his back right leg. After consultation with the Wildlife Centre’s vet it was decided that Eddie would have great difficulty surviving in the wild if his wound were left unattended. On June 6th both Eddie and Mandy were removed from the field and brought back to the Wildlife Centre where they are currently residing. Eddie’s wound needed proper treatment in a closed environment and Mandy was extremely vulnerable on her own without any troop members for protection.

The research team’s efforts to relocate the missing members of Jack’s troop continue.

On a more positive note, the Centre began its second release of rescued and rehabilitated monkeys. In late May, Titan’s troop of fifteen vervet monkeys was released into Kasungu National Park, 13km from the baboon release site. Some monkeys raced for the door, springing out of the cages as soon as the gate was lifted. Others were a bit shy, taking their time to venture out into the great expanse of the wild. Within half an hour of the release all monkeys were exploring their new surroundings, ecstatic to be free!

One of the troop’s adult males, named Jimmy, decided to join a wild baboon troop just two days after the release. Jimmy was the alpha male (leader) of the troop until three months before the release, when another male, Titan, took over the leadership position. Understandably, Jimmy has been having a difficult time relating to his group members… let’s face it, it’s embarrassing to be overthrown and lose all your power… how will the ladies ever respect him now? I suspect Jimmy became a little confused about what species he was on release and approached the baboon troop out of desperation to join another troop. Two weeks later though, he was back with his own kind, no doubt still resentful of Titan.

One of the troop’s adult females, Hellena, went off with a wild troop of vervets in the third week of the release. Just six days later, she was back under Titan’s command – presumably missing all the delicious food we were providing for Titan’s troop. During the first eight weeks of each release we provide the monkeys with supplementary food to help ease their transition into their new environment, allowing them time to learn how to cope with finding all of their own food.

Tragically, Michael, one of the sub-adult males in Titan’s troop was found dead a few weeks after release. He was killed by a predator in the park, likely believed to have been a jackal. Michael was the most curious monkey in the group – one of the favourites of the research team. His playful manner and sweet face made it impossible not to love him. Since his death, his best friend, Moses, has been a bit lost without him. Moses can now frequently be found sitting somewhere near the vehicle or research team, intently watching the humans, as if he’s expecting us to tell him how to continue on.

This event is deeply discouraging for everyone here in the field, especially on the tails of the results from the release of Jack’s troop. The research team and Wildlife Centre staff are currently doing all they can to assess what factors are contributing to the deaths, reworking our release protocol so we all can see increases in survival rates. It is expected that a few individuals will die with every release; however, this does not make it any easier to cope with when we find one of our beloved monkeys dead. We will remember Michael fondly.

All other members of the troop are doing well, and continue to enjoy their new found freedom.

Hi, my name is Rebecca Heath from Chester, England. I was a volunteer at the Widlife Centre for 2 months from March to May of this year. The time went by so quickly, it only feels like 2 minutes since I arrived!!

Most of my work time was spent at the quarantine area, helping to feed and clean the animals there until they could be moved to the larger enclosures. I especially loved bottle feeding the baby vervet monkeys. They are so mischievous, always trying to steal each others milk, so it was not an easy task, but it was very entertaining!!

I was also lucky to be around when the Wildlife Centre rescued a female baboon and a blue monkey during their deal with Mua Mission, at the end of March. It was very rewarding to see them settled in at the Centre in nice big enclosures after being kept in such small cages for so long. Ada, the baboon, was very overweight when she arrived because she didn’t have room to get any exercise and has since lost nearly 3kgs since being here, so hopefully soon she will b fit and healthy and ready to join the other baboons in the large enclosure.

One of my favourite moments, and possibly the most exciting as well, being on of those once in a lifetime moments for me, was when the leopard, Kambuku, was given a health check. Kambuku is normally very shy and likes to keep himself to himself in his enclosure, so it was a real treat for me to see him up close and to actually touch his fur!! Oh I forgot to say, he had been darted and aneasthetised so that the vets could do his health check!!

I gained many amazing memories and lots of good friends while being a volunteer at the Centre and really enjoyed my time there. I also got to see some of Malawi, which is an amazing country, especially the lake. I would recommend it to anyone!!

That’s me in the brown top in the photos. These are the other volunteers and animal carers at the Centre. Photo thanks to my friend Tina.

For more information about volunteering visit http://www.lilongwewildlife.org/volunteer.html

You may remember one of our blogs about a small baby Impala (antelope), named Mitambo.  He was rescued by the Wildlife Centre after we were notified by the National Parks of Malawi that he had been injured.  Our vet, Wendy, went immediately to fetch him for treatment.

When Mitambo was brought to the centre his leg was badly injured.  There were two breaks in his right front leg, one even going through his skin.  Wendy worked hard to keep Mitambo alive with a cast that allowed access to his wounds for routine checks while slowly nursing him back to solids, but we are sad to report that Mitambo did not survive.

It is always nice to read about happy endings to our rescue stories – we love happy endings – but it is a reality that some animals will not survive.  We believe Mitambo’s leg was injured by a poacher’s trap and unfortunately poaching and the illegal pet trade are a significant problem in Malawi. 

The Wildlife Centre itself is a great place for the rescued animals, but the centre extends beyond that by educating visitors.  Children and adults learn about poaching, illegal pet trade, deforestation, and conservation while on tours of the centre.  We believe these problems can be combated through education.

Please send your donations to help our continuing efforts in educating the public about the dangers threatening wildlife on a daily basis.

Happy New Year everyone!!

Well we have had an exciting and busy time this last month. We are proud to announce that we had our first official release of animals that we have rescued and rehabilitated. It was an exciting and emotional day for all concerned.

After a year of planning and co-ordinating with National Parks of Malawi we found a suitable site in Kasungu National Park in central Malawi on Sunday 6th December, the Wildlife Centre rounded up Jack’s troop into their travel boxes.  The transfer up to Kasungu was in fact delayed by 24 hours, it appeared that Jack (the troop’s alpha male) was not so happy about the whole move and refused to come into the holding area where he could be darted and sedated.  He was however eventually darted and boxed up.  After just five hours on the road Jack’s troop was at the release site in Kasungu National Park, a beautiful spot along the river, where Jack and his family were transferred into a temporary holding area where they remained for a week to give them time to settle into their new environment.  The troop was now one step closer to freedom!

Then on Saturday 13th December, a team of us from the Wildlife Centre opened the gates and Jack and his family were released back to the wild. The final step that saw them returned home, free and wild. It was an emotional morning for the team,  watching the baboons take their first steps out of the gates of the holding area, especially for those who had cared for these animals and nursed some of them back to health, it was wonderful to see them free, chasing butterflies and climbing trees.

Our release research team headed up by Andrea will stay up at the park and track and check on the baboons for the next year. Three of the troop have been fitted with radio collars so tracking is easy.

Andrea is coming to town this week and will give us an update on how the baboons are doing….. keep watching this space!!

The release site where the baboons stayed for a week to acclimatise.

Hello blogsters.

You remember recently I told you about two tiny baby Bush Babies we rescued, Barack and Obama? Well an update on our boys.

They are growing well, they weighed only about 112 grams each when we got them and now they have doubled in size and weigh just above 150 grams! They were syringe fed at first every evening and early morning but now they are lapping by themselves and also eat fruit, grasshoppers and boiled eggs for protein.

Being nocturnal animals they sleep all day but spend all night chasing each other around their enclosure! They are becoming quite adventurous with their climbing skills but when it comes time to sleep they still snuggle up in each others arms for comfort and warmth – this is such a sweet sight to see. They NEVER sleep apart or alone.

Once again, please keep you donations coming, every little bit helps us to help rescued animals like these.

Have a very merry Christmas from all the team at Lilongwe Wildlife Centre and all the very best for the New Year!!  We look forward to giving you lots more interesting blogs to read!!

For more on the work we do here in Malawi visit Lilongwe’s website at http://www.lilongwewildlife.org/

Hi this is Tracey again, Marketing Manager for the Wildlife Centre. I have a great story for you this week.

In February this year after a heavy rain storm, I found this tiny spiky ball curled up in my garage. It turned out to be a baby hedgehog, a very young one. I took it down to the Wildlife Centre where the vet looked it over. It was in good shape, if a little cold and very hungry. As it was so small they recommended I take it home and keep it warm. There followed several weeks of hot water bottle changing and LOTS of feeding. For a small creature she sure ate a lot! My gardener even got involved by helping to catch grasshoppers and crickets and other insects to supplement Kissy’s diet. We named her Kissy which is short for ‘kisoni’, the Chichewe word for hedgehog. For several weeks she lived in my laundry room and the vet from the Lilongwe Wildlife Centre paid her regular visits to check up on her.

Eventually, about 6 weeks ago, we decided Kissy was big and strong enough to be released. As I had found her in my garden this is where we released her. She still came back every night for her dinner though!! Then this week she introduced me to her new family, she has had 3 little babies!! They are roughly the same size now as Kissy was when I first found her that wet afternoon in my garage.

So you see it’s not just the large wild animals that the Wildlife Centre helps but the small ones that most people never see – who would have thought that we get hedgehogs in Africa?!?! Without their help and advice I don’t think this story would have had such a wonderful ending.

Please help us to continue helping the wildlife of Malawi. Every donation helps an animal. Just £10 helps us feed a baboon or vervet for a week, or provide medical care and food for a hungry hedgehog!!

Thank you!!

There is a leopard basking in the early morning Malawian Sun just fifty metres away, its camouflage is fantastic with only its tail giving its position away. At night, laughing hyenas can be heard, their tracks from the previous night criss-cross the path in front of me. A troop of yellow baboons stretches its legs nearby. The remarkable thing is that I am not in a national park; I am in the capital city of Malawi, at the Lilongwe Wildlife Centre and I’m enjoying every minute of it.

The Lilongwe wildlife centre is a wildlife rehabilitation and rescue centre, combined with a large wilderness zone, providing an oasis right in the centre of the city for wildlife that has been rescued, confiscated or relocated from poachers, the illegal pet trade, zoos and other organisations. The centre provides several functions from rehabilitation to release combined with education programmes, for all levels and ages, about how people and wildlife are undeniably linked. For this reason the centre is being developed as a “People and Wildlife” centre, where key messages aim to reduce poaching and trading while raising an appreciation, and ultimately an understanding, of the natural world through community support, co-operation and education.

 Malawi is a beautiful country with exceptionally friendly people and although I have only been here for a few weeks, it already feels like home. As the new Education Manager, it is my role to expand on the fantastic work of the small but dedicated education team, in making sure that the Malawian public and tourists alike have the opportunity to find out how wildlife and sustainability can benefit the future development of Malawi. 

For the last few days I have been familiarising myself with the huge scale of the centre, the existing education and community outreach programmes and the whole team, the majority of which are Malawian. Employment, and more importantly support, of local community staff is essential in any People and Wildlife initiative so it is fantastic to see this in practice and working so well. It is now a case of adding to the existing educational programmes and facilities in order to make sure that the educational activities generate enough income to ideally make a profit which can be put straight back into the vital work of the centre.

That’s all for now, as I’m off to radio track one of our newly released animals, a genet by the name of J.D. (it looks like a cross between a ferret, a cat and a raccoon!) which has been released into the large protected wilderness zone around the centre. It’s one of many success stories to come thanks to the support of the Born Free Foundation and our other supporters.

Cheerio
Bruce – Education Manager at the LLWC

Hello, today’s blog is a bit different in that it has been written by someone who brought a rescued baboon to our attention at Lilongwe Wildlife Centre. This is a typical story for many wild animals in Malawi:

Stumpy was first seen on the 10th of July at a market in a village on the Lunzu Road. He was kept on a short rope, tied around his neck to a pole with no shelter. Although there were lots of vegetables for sale around him he was given little food and was under nourished. It seemed all in a day’s entertainment for kids to throw stones at him, confident that he could not escape and cause them any harm.

Stumpy was confiscated from his owner the next day by Parks and Wildlife. After explaining to his ‘owner’ the village butcher, that it was illegal to keep a baboon as a pet he willingly gave Stumpy over to them.

Despite having most of his teeth removed and only having one arm Stumpy is still in good spirits. Thankfully we now have the Lilongwe Wildlife Centre as previously there really wasn’t a facility to accept so many of the injured or orphaned animals like Stumpy.

Stumpy will spend the next month in quarantine, then he will move into a larger enclosure and be introduced to a troop of other orphaned baboons where he will be able to live a more normal life and perhaps one day be released back into the wild.

Thank you to all the staff and Volunteers at Lilongwe Wildlife Centre for all there hard work at dedication to the animals. Without a facility like this Stumpy’s story would not have such a happy ending…..

Bev Trataris

Please keep your donations coming in so that we can continue to help animals like Stumpy. Just $20 will help us to feed someone like Stumpy for a week.

You can Subscribe to Born Free Wildlife Direct blog by Email here

The Lilongwe wildlife Centre is a new and exciting project for Malawi based in the Capital City, Lilongwe.  In only its second year it is already rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing its orphans back to the wild….there is no facility of its kind in Malawi.  Watch the Centre grow over the coming months and years and follow the stories of some of the animals that are confiscated from illegal traders, injured or orphaned in the wild.  Follow our dedicated team (both local and international) in their weekly routines, experience our successes, and share in our disappointments.  Watch us grow into what we all believe will be a model on which other facilities around the world should be modelled.  Let us meet some of the team first -

Hi, my name is Lee Stewart, the Operations Manager of the Lilongwe Wildlife Centre…  I have spent this morning darting a young male duiker (a small antelope -similar to a European deer but with horns not antlers) who needed to be moved to a new enclosure from the vervet monkey’s enclosure, where he was being kept temporarily.  Antelope are usually darted with a drug called M99 which is an opiod derivative that is extremely dangerous to its users (although extremely affective in game capture).  With M99 unavailable, we tried something different, using a Zoletil and Xylazine combination. Micky has he is affectionally known at the Centre is a feisty young character having been brought to us as a sub-adult. He was hand raised by an expatriate living within Lilongwe having been orphaned as a youngster. He had become a little too dangerous for the family and had injured a young girl with his horns, so it was time for him to move on. This is fairly typical situation with wild animals reared in a human household.

 
Micky was extremely wary of the situation as I had darted him two days earlier with a different combination…a combination that failed miserably!  Eventually the drugs were administered and two hours later he had made a full recovery and was ready to enjoy his new enclosure…and his new female Christie!!  A successful morning by all accounts…and the start of a beautiful relationship. 

Both duikers will be released as a pair, back to the wild, later on in the year where they will be monitored by our team…at least until we are confident that are ready to be left alone.

My name is Tracey and I am the new Marketing Manager for the Lilongwe Wildlife Centre. I arrived in Lilongwe in January this year, having previously lived in Romania, Ukraine, UK and South Africa. I have always wanted to work with animals and this is a brilliant opportunity for me to finally do a job I can see the point of – helping the wildlife of Malawi. So much better than your normal 9 -5, that’s for sure! My job is to raise awareness of the Wildlife Centre locally and internationally and the work we do for the animals, and at the same time to raise much needed funds for the Centre via donations (Please see our donation page as well as the Wildlife Direct donation option to the right!), corporate sponsorships, individual sponsorships, our adoption scheme and our Friends of the Wildlife Centre scheme

For more information on Lilongwe Wildlife Centre and the People and Wildlife Centre pilot visit http://www.bornfree.org.uk/campaigns/paw-centres/lilongwe-wildlife-centre/