FOUR’S A HANDFUL

LILONGWE WILDLIFE CENTRE NEWS: Here’s Monster, one of our four vervet orphans who have been causing havoc here over Christmas! Monster, Eddie, Sprout and Dexter were all rescued from roadside sellers in separate incidences over the past 2 months. All were taken from their mothers when they were very young and have needed round the clock hands-on care from our volunteers, first bottle feeding and then introducing them to solid food, and in between a lot of playing and cuddling!Monster has been the first one to be taken in by a monkey surrogate mum, here shown with Target. Thsi week Target has also just taken on Sprout and Eddie should get a new mum (Tutsi) on Monday, all being well. Our integrations specialist Victoria has been working alongside the volunteers to assist with the rather delicate process of introductions – it’s important that the orphans are ready to move on and are not too stressed by the process, and that the surrogate mother doesn’t reject them. Luckily Target has been a great foster mum for a couple of years now but we need to spread the load, so we’re hoping that Tutsi will be just as accommodating!Dexter is still too young, he came in at just a couple of weeks old and was very skinny and undernourished and a little traumatised…and he’s a real handful as a result! We limit human contact to an absolute minimum until they can be taken in by a monkey mum to give them the best chance of a normal future, but in the first few months its very hard work – big thanks to our recent vols who have done a great job. As a result we’re confident all four of these little darlings will make it into a bigger troop and back into the wild where they belong.