Born Free

Category: Born Free Ethiopia | Date: Jun 23 2009 | By: bornfree

Yet again, I apologise for the delay between Blogs. I wish I could do more than 20 things at once….

The rains have started here in Ethiopia. These are only short downpours, not the daily torrential downpour we can expect later this month and for the next two or so months. However, once or twice a week the skies darken, the prayer calls from the churches and mosques are drowned first by rumbling thunder and then the noise of rain on corrugated tin roofs.

Born Free Foundation Ethiopia (BFFE) was recently asked to care for an elderly eagle owl called Cody. The owl is thought to be over 30 years old and was originally looked after by an Italian Doctor and his wife who lived in Addis for many years and had a menagerie in their compound. Legend has it they had an orphaned hyena along with several monkeys and Cody. When the Doctor left Addis, the owl was taken in by the Italian Embassy and then by an Italian Diplomat. When his posting in Addis Ababa ended, the owl was cared for by an American veterinarian and his wife. They, in turn, have now completed their posting in Addis, so BFFE were asked to look after the owl and its aviary until such time that it can be re-housed at the new Wildlife Centre where it can live out the rest of its life.

In 2006, the American veterinarian skilfully removed a tumour from the owl’s wing, but the necessary partial amputation of one wing means Cody does not fly well.

On Monday, 18 May 2009, Cody was brought to the BFFE compound where he was kept in an old aviary while his own aviary in the American couples’ compound was carefully numbered and then dismantled. The old aviary was then renovated and reassembled in the BFFE compound.

On Tuesday 16 June, Cody was moved to his renovated home.

Cody eats between a quarter and a half of chicken each day. The quarter of chicken is given to him with bones and feathers attached. Cody is so habituated to humans he makes an affectionate crooning noise whenever anyone approaches his aviary. He also loves to be stroked on his forehead, above his large and ever-watchful eyes.

Cody’s aviary is in the middle of the temporary enclosure for the three giant tortoises that are being cared for by BFFE until they, too, can be moved to the new Wildlife Rescue Centre. We have positioned several wooden poles (one wrapped in rope) inside the aviary in addition to the metal spans so the owl can always find a place to perch either in the shade or in a breeze or sheltered from the wind depending on the weather. Cody has already selected his favourite of the poles that give him the best view of the tortoises. In true owl fashion his head swivels dramatically around whenever a tortoise moves around the aviary.

Caring for all the rescued animals at Born Free Foundation Ethiopia costs money, so we would be very grateful for your support. Every donation helps, for example Cody costs £2 per day to feed and the lions £10 per day each.

Good progress with the site for the Wildlife Rescue, Conservation and Education Centre by the way. News in my next Blog…

Tags: Born Free, Eagle owl, ethiopia, raptor, wildlife rescue

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Category: Born Free, Born Free Ethiopia | Date: Oct 10 2008 | By: bornfree

Thanks for all the comments and donations following the previous Blogs.

Apologies for the delay in updating this Blog site. I’ve been in England for a month at a series of project planning meetings with Born Free. Although the Born Free team offer support from UK and USA, I am on my own out here in Ethiopia and sometimes the difficulty of this job and physical distance from family and friends do make one feel very alone. For those aspiring wildlife conservationists out there, make sure you are incredibly self-motivated and take a break every so often to catch up with family and friends.

This week’s Blog is all about a cheetah called Sheba. The name Sheba reminds most people of the Queen of Sheba, but in fact the cub is male. Sheba being the Amharic word for lame.

Back in 2006, I had just arrived in Ethiopia to work for another wildlife organisation in Omo National Park in the southwest of the country. While at meetings in Addis I heard about a young orphaned cheetah cub that was being looked after by an American veterinarian and his wife. The cub had been confiscated from an animal trader. Cheetah have long been used for hunting in the Middle East where they are hand raised and then taken out wearing a hood similar to those used in falconry. At a given moment the hood is removed and the cheetah sprints off to catch the antelope or other ‘prey’. Even today, despite cheetah being endangered and their removal from Ethiopia against the law, cubs are taken from the wild and smuggled out of Ethiopia through Somalia and into the Gulf states to be kept for hunting.

Cheetah that are hand raised can become habituated to humans (I prefer not to use the word tame as they are wild animals). Please don’t get the idea that a cheetah would make a good pet! Firstly, they are threatened enough in the wild, and secondly, despite getting used to humans they are wild animals and should not be kept in captivity.

I have spent several years working with Dr Laurie Marker, the founder and CEO of the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia. I’m by no means a cheetah expert, but have helped hand raise orphan cubs and helped develop the Cheetah Conservation Fund environmental education programme and set up an innovative business as a conservation tool. (For more information Google ‘Bushblok’).

Back to the six-month old Sheba.

X rays showed that one of the cubs’ rear legs had been broken in the past and had mended badly. Not only was the cub very lame, the cub was also young and inexperienced and chances of surviving in the wild were slim. In the wild, even healthy cheetah cubs with attentive mothers are often killed by hyena, leopard or lion.

As I have mentioned in a previous Blog, the Ethiopia Wildlife Conservation Authority would like to stop the illegal trade in Ethiopian wildlife, but need the Born Free Wildlife Centre to be built so that confiscated, orphaned, or injured animals can be cared for. Wherever possible treated animals would be released back into the wild, but in the case of severely injured animals like Sheba there is no other option than lifetime care in a spacious and naturalistic enclosure. Since we had not yet built the Centre, and the cub was growing too big for the veterinarian’s garden, a temporary home needed to be found – and found fast. The Ethiopian Government forbids wildlife from being taken out of the country, so it was decided that the cub should be kept in an enclosure in Omo National Park where I could take responsibility for him.

In January 2007, I lifted the very good-natured Sheba into a large dog travel crate with his favourite blanket and set off in my 4 x 4 to start the three day journey to Omo National Park. Amazingly, Sheba did not seem to mind the car journey at all and purred noisily while watching the Ethiopian countryside go by. (Cheetah are the only big cat that purr, and boy is that purr loud!)

After a full day’s drive I decided to stay at a guest lodge in the town of Arba Minch, but they did not allow pets, let alone cheetah. Covering the dog crate with a blanket, I smuggled the cheetah into my thatched room.

It was important that the cub could stretch his legs after the day’s drive, so I had no alternative but to let him out in the room. Sheba stalked around sniffing everything inquisitively. His first hotel room! Sheba ate and drank as on a normal day, but I couldn’t bear the idea of shutting him back in the crate again for the night when he would be in the crate for the whole next day, so I put his blanket on the floor. I’m sure more from exhaustion than good behaviour, Sheba immediately walked over to the blanket, lay down and rolled onto his back. I admit to being relieved. I had wondered if Sheba might chirp all night. Young cheetah when unhappy or calling their mothers chirp like a bird. It’s an extraordinary sound, not like a cat at all.

Having descended from the hills of Addis into the Rift Valley, I was now in a malaria zone, so I covered my bed with the mosquito net provided and slipped under the top bed sheet. The temperature at 10 pm was still close to 85 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius), so no blanket was needed!

I lay and fell asleep quickly – a combination of the soothing noise of Sheba purring from his blanket and the day’s exhausting drive. Driving on Ethiopian roads requires a healthy mixture of patience and anticipation. At any time you may need to avoid or stop for camels, people, donkey carts, cows, goats, sheep or – the most dangerous of all – kamikaze trucks or buses.

At about 1.30 am I dreamed my cheek was being rubbed by warm, wet sandpaper that smelled of raw meat while a revving lawnmower was being inserted into my ear. You guessed it. Sheba had snuck under the mosquito net and was lying alongside me on the bed sheet, licking my face and purring right into my ear.

Despite the flickering doubt that it might not be the wisest thing to let a six month cheetah I hardly knew sleep alongside me, I was so exhausted I simply stroked Sheba’s head. The purring quietened and then stopped. Sheba was asleep and taking up far too much of the bed!

I fell asleep myself and woke several hours later to find the whole sheet, the mattress and myself covered in warm cheetah urine. Disgusting! Obviously, Sheba was not house trained… I washed out the sheets and mattress the best I could and smuggled Sheba back into the 4 x 4. No one knew a cheetah had spent the night there, but I had to apologise to the hotel for the state of the bed. One of the most embarrassing moments of my life must be checking out of that hotel and apologising for ‘having an accident’ in the night.

Sheba spent a year and a half in Omo National Park. Some of the photos show how happy he was.

Sadly, the organisation I was working for decided to leave Ethiopia and I was asked to look after Sheba at the new Wildlife Centre. The only problem being that the Centre is not built yet! The Ethiopian air charter company, Abyssinia Airlines generously agreed to fly Sheba up to Addis, and now Sheba has a temporary home at the Presidential Palace. Yet another reason why it is so important to get the Centre built and construct a new spacious permanent home for this special cat.

Sheba now spends most days on top of his grassy bunker sleeping quarters watching cows and calves in a neighbouring field.

Please do help if you can.

The Wildlife Rescue, Conservation and Education Centre will cost around UK£ 1 million (US$ 2 million) to build and equip, and it will cost around UK£ 250,000 (US$ 500,000) per year to fund the Centre and its conservation and education programmes.

We must get Sheba and other wildlife in captivity in Ethiopia into spacious enclosures as soon as we can.

And if anyone wants to help pay for the care of Sheba, he costs £6 (US$12) per day to keep.

Please donate here in the BF Ethiopia donation box to the right.

More news in a few days,

James

Tags: Born Free, captivity, cheetah, education, ethiopia, wildlife rescue

8 responses so far

Category: Born Free, Lilongwe Wildlife Centre | Date: Jul 07 2008 | By: bornfree

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/

Tags: community, conservation, duiker, Malawi, monkey, People & Wildlife, wildlife rescue

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