November was a relatively quiet month at Esperanza Verde with a lot of new volunteers arriving at the beginning of this month. No new animals came in so we could focus on our resident animals and transitioning our most recent group of animals out of quarantine.

Unfortunately this month we had to say goodbye to one of our dear animals, Tawaki, one of the younger male woolly monkeys.

 

Monkeys

At the end of last month Tommi (young male squirrel monkey), Aritha, Inka, Benito and Tagu (2 female and 2 male tamarins) were released into semi-captivity. To begin with they slowly explored the area, slept in their release cage at night and slowly began to interact with the wild Saddleback Tamarin group. The majority of them seem to have joined the wild group with the exception of Aritha (older female). In the matriarchal Tamarin groups it is often females that find it harder to integrate. Fortunately the wild group didn’t attack her, however she is far more interested in humans than other Tamarins. This behaviour isn’t uncommon in primates that have spent long periods of time as pets. Our no-touch policy seems to be working though and Aritha has started to spend more time in the trees with the Woolly monkeys.

Luna and Otis (female and male night monkeys) were ready to live outside and so we started opening the door of their cage at night. At first they found their new release cage, which is specifically designed for Night Monkeys, quite scary. However, after a few days they wanted to go out as early as five in the afternoon. They are exploring outside at night and return to sleep in their cage in the morning.

At the beginning of this month Tawaki (juvenile male woolly monkey) was grabbed by one of our peccaries whilst stealing food from their enclosure. Despite two rounds of surgery to try and save him, he died during the night. This was a blow to everyone at Esperanza Verde and Tawaki will be deeply missed.

After this the peccaries were moved into their old enclosure again as we didn’t have any incidents in this enclosure. We have adjusted our feeding routine, volunteer training and procedures to try and ensure this doesn’t happen again. In all these years of rehabilitation we have never had this experience between these two species. There were many influences that might have caused it to happen, e.g. the large woolly males disappearance (Willow and Kamari), the death of Quintisha (oldest female peccary) or the change of enclosure. We just hope that, with all the adjustments we now have made, it will never happen again.

Never a dull moment when capuchin monkeys are around. Notorious duo Kres and Khali smashed the window of our Almacen (food storage) with a stone. Our volunteers caught them testing all types of food. Although we were not happy with them sneaking in to the Almacen, it shows once again how intelligent capuchin monkeys are.

Martin (young woolly monkey) from the clinic joined Moyo and Loki (male woolly monkeys), after which they all were released from the La Sapa enclosure. This was very recently, and for the first day all went well. Loki enjoyed being outside again, jumping around and re-establishing his position amongst the outside females and youngsters. Moyo and Martin took some time in coming out, but then enjoyed being in the trees getting in touch with the others and stayed close to the La Sapa enclosure the whole day.

 

SUST Animal Orphan Hospital

After some good care at the family’s house for a couple of days the crab-eating raccoons Rumani and Mokwai are back in the clinic. They get milk four times a day and are slowly starting to eat some solid food as well.
Natasha, (young Pallas’s mastiff bat) that was found by Kayla near her school, is still doing great. She finally learned to drink her milk from a lid instead of a pipet and she is very popular amongst our volunteers. When Natasha first arrived, she weighed only three grams. Now she’s grown to an impressive eight grams. Next step is to get her to eat some flies.
Martin, a young Woolly monkey, was moved out to stay with the big boys in La Sapa the male woolly monkeys Loki, Monano and Moyo. Loki immediately took care of him and the others also seem to have accepted him straight away. Martin still needs milk twice a day and with Loki protecting him, it’s a very challenging job for the volunteers giving it to him.
Monano and Tushko were admitted shortly to the clinic for feces sampling and deworming treatment, after which both were both immediately released.

The group of yellow footed tortoises that came in a few months ago, passed their quarantine period and joined the others in the reptile enclosure. Before releasing them, we had to make sure they are able to get out of the pond in the enclosure when necessary. Our volunteers let all tortoises do a swimming exam by letting them walk out the edge of the pond three times. Fortunately all of them passed.

One of the tortoises, Optimus, misses a front leg and lost some weight. We kept him for observation in the garden at the clinic, and after a week he had already gained weight. He moves well enough, so we hope we can shortly move him in with the others in the reptile enclosure.

Alyak (the yellow spotted river turtle), was doing well and was moved together with two others, which were passing their quarantine in the MOMO-enclosures, to the new quarantine for reptiles (named Aguatena and financing was possible thanks to Herpetol Switzerland) next to the new (under construction) quarantine.

 

Construction

The number of animals at Esperanza Verde is always increasing and that means that more animals are being fed. In order to make it easier to prepare food, the bodega is being improved bit by bit. Douwe started with making new shelves for herbs and vegetables.

Recently the water level rose so much that all the bricks could easily be moved from the other side (our work shed in Bello Horizonte) to our side. Additionally we could move a lot of sand for the concrete floor of the quarantine (Jaap van de Graaf donation), as we could get very close by canoe to the site. We always try to profit from these situations, as the other option would be to carry all by hand. The rolls of mesh for the Elmo enclosure (Lush funded) have also been brought to the site.
Work is being done at both constructions simultaneously. When it rains, we mostly work at the quarantine (as there is a roof) and when it doesn’t at the Elmo-enclosure. Again it shows how dependent we are here on the climate.

 

Volunteers

At the beginning of the month, all volunteers were invited at the family’s house where they enjoyed a delicious meal Kayla prepared.
Since last week, volunteer Niels is teaching English to the children at the secondary school in Bello Horizonte. Niels is a professional English teacher and will work at the school twice a week. We are happy to also help out in the local community.

Rainy season has begun! This month brought us a lot of rain and the river rose quickly. Drains were cleaned out by the volunteers to make sure all the water could drain away. There has been a lot of volunteer changeover with some of our long term volunteers leaving, but there are always new faces to take their place! The clinic had been quite empty for a while but has been getting busier over the last few days. The building of the quarantine made a lot of progress and the new turtle enclosure in front of it as well. The new volunteer group visited the big Regalia waterfall where they had a blast and Martin (a young male Woolly monkey) arrived in the clinic. Last but not least: after a five week stay in the Netherlands and the celebration of Marlon’s ninth birthday, Olivia and Marlon are home again.

 

Monkeys

Ramon (young Howler monkey) is getting more independent every day and explores the area of Esperanza Verde on his own nowadays. From this week on, the Ramon person won’t babysit him constantly anymore but will help out with other jobs with monkey checks throughout the day. This also means he can sneak off to the monkey tables every now and then to steal some juicy fruit. Ramon loves to join us on the leaf walks so he can grab some of his own leaves.

 

Suly and Tushko (youngest woolly monkeys) were both doing great outside. They played together while becoming friends with the other monkeys. However, after some weeks, Suly missed a couple rounds of milk and was found on the ground a day later by a volunteer. She was in a poor state and had a high fever. She spent the night at the ‘intensive care’ at the family’s house, but died during the night. Necropsy did not give any clarity on why she died so suddenly. The volunteers had a hard time on Sully passing away and she will be deeply missed with her beautiful big black eyes and her rare red fur.

 

Katinka (female young spider monkey) left her cage last month and is doing great outside! On her first days she was already going on adventures on her own ignoring all the other monkeys.

 

After two weeks she started making friends with the baby woollies, Ramon (howler monkey), Cumala and Camu (spidermonkeys mother and son) who got re-released successfully last month too. Katinka sleeps in the Pepe cage together with Darwin (male howler monkey) and Tushko, the young woolly. The first couple of nights, they didn’t manage to sleep in the same box, however, after a few nights they became friends and started sleeping together in one box. At night, Katinka, Tushko and Darwin cuddle up with the three of them in one box. Which is adorable to watch.

More good news, this month we had the honour to welcome a new-born Capuchin monkey into the family. Nikita (female Capuchin outside) had a little one which means we can brainstorm on a new name again.

 

Tommi (Black capped squirrel monkey) and the Andean saddleback tamarins, Tagu, Benito (males), Aritha and Inka (females) were moved from the clinic to the Arana cage earlier this month and seemed to like their bigger enclosure a lot. In the last week of October, we released them. While Tommi already likes to wander around on his own the tamarins take some more time to get used to their free life and sometimes come back to sleep in their cage at night.

 

Other Mammals

Ruena (tayra) couldn’t be happier because this month she turned into an official tour! This means that volunteers are taking her on a long walks twice a day so she can get used to life outside the cage. She really seems to enjoy it and is getting so independent that she sometimes finishes her walks by herself. Leading our volunteers on a search through the jungle to find her again. We have also provided her with some new environmental enrichment like a rattle with a bottle, stones on a rope and perfume that is sprayed on certain places in her cage. Tayra’s are known for scent marking their territory so this enrichment really fitted her.

 

Last week Kiko (male kinkajou) was spotted again! Our kinkajous have an open cage so they can decide by themselves whether they go out or stay in their cage. Kiko was nowhere to be seen for some time but now we know he’s fine.

 

Unfortunately, we have to end our ‘other mammals-section’ with some sad news. Roknar (young male Red brocket dear) who was living with the family passed away. Thinking he was getting better, this was some hard news to accept.

 

SUST Animal Orphan Hospital

Rafiki (Blue-and-yellow-macaw) is still in the clinic, where he was treated for an infected wound. He is no longer receiving medicine and is improving a lot, slowly gaining more strength and weight.
After a long visit of two white-winged parakeets in the clinic, our ‘concern-cage’ was suddenly empty at the end of this month. For one bird it turned out better than for the other. One was doing so well it moved to Tupak-cage to join the other parakeets. The other one (white whinged parakeet) had a fracture at the top of one leg. Despite our best efforts the parakeet did not survive it.
The empty ‘concern-cage’ did not stay empty for long.

 

Our litter of new opossums have been receiving a lot of care and attention. Unfortunately, being so young, some fell ill and although antibiotics were administered, the treatment was not in time enough to save them all. Two survived, and they are now finally gaining weight as well as strength, living in a small enclosure where they have room to climb and explore.

 

Natasha (young Pallas’s mastiff bat) has grown more than twice her original size already. She is getting some hairs on her back and she is drinking a lot of milk. She is spreading her wings more often, washes herself a lot and even ate some little insects. Such an achievement!

 

New arrivals

This month Kayla brought us some new treasures from the Village of Bello Horizonte.

Let’s start with Dorian (a dusky headed parakeet). This parakeet was the pet of someone in Kayla’s class; the parakeet was biting everyone, so they wanted to get rid of him. Dorian was named by a volunteer and he is currently housed in the clinic.

 

Second, we have Martin (young male woolly monkey, estimated 9/10 months). He was spotted in a garden a couple of times by volunteers who went to Curimana. Kayla managed to get in contact with the owners and convinced them to bring him over. He is a bit nervous and not really used to people and we’d like to keep it that way. After a few of weeks in quarantine he will go to an outside enclosure before he will be released to the outside group. Lastly, we have another opossum, which is a family member of the other two we have, but twice the size (as ours had some problems). The person who gave us the opossums kept one herself and it was roaming freely at her house. Her family did not want the ‘pet’ anymore so she gave the opossums to Esperanza Verde too. It now lives in a big cage in the clinic.

 

Just in time to make it for this update, two young male crab-eating racoons arrived, now named Mokwai and Rumani. Their mother was killed by a dog, and the litter of 5 pups was taken by the dog’s owner. As she has cows she provided them with fresh cow milk, which they drank well, but their body was not used to this kind of milk, so 3 died. She then decided to leave them with our cook in Bello Horizonte, so she could bring them to us. They are for now under intensive care at the manager house. They are not out of the woods yet, as they still are coping with bad diarrhoea and a lot of fleas. The fleas have been taking care of, and they are under treatment for the diarrhoea. They drink milk eagerly, but will have to adjust to the milk replacer and food we can provide for them. This is often a difficult transition for young babies, as their own mothers milk would of course be the best.

 

Volunteers

Most of our volunteer group visited the big Regalia waterfall. Because of the heavy rain fall the night before the river was very high and the waterfall very strong. It was a beautiful experience and a lovely day. Of course a group picture was taken at the big tree.

 

Construction

This month, a lot of volunteers helped with the construction of the quarantine and the new addition, a quarantine enclosure especially for turtles/tortoises. This is particularly important as their slower metabolism means their quarantine period is longer. Lots of great progress is being made!

 

Extra

Kayla and her classmates are busy joining a competition powered by Samsung from which the winning team will obtain a ‘digital’-room in their school with laptops, tablets and a whiteboard. Kayla and her team worked out the idea of a garbage-free village and made a movie about it. They already got to semi-finals and now we are awaiting the outcome for the finals. The last five schools will be invited to explain and present their project to a jury in Lima. We will keep you posted. You can find a video in which Kayla is presenting their project, on Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq0dwR7rz5g

September had been relatively quiet, up until the end of the month. A monkey, two baby bats and 5 baby opossums have been the only new arrivals this month which makes a nice change from the 88 that arrived last month. Olivia and Marlon went to the Netherlands at the beginning of the month and are expected to return in the middle of October. Many animals have moved out of the SUST hospital and a number of animals have been released.

Towards the end of the month we did have a bad day which started out with finding out that Kaya, one of our beloved howler monkeys passed away and an hour later Douwe found Rafiki, one of the blue and yellow macaws wounded on the floor of the aviary. We always try and expect the unexpected.

Monkeys

Kaya, young, female howler monkey moved to the manager house where she received round the clock special care. Her state was fluctuating but we could see a steady improvement in her as she spent a lot of time with the woollies, mainly Chiquita and Lupa who kept her company every day. Her friend Darwin, our other howler monkey around the same age, also frequently came to visit her. However, even all the extra care and attention couldn’t save her. She passed away and we are unsure why exactly. She was a favourite of many of our volunteers and is deeply missed. We all admired her fighting spirit in the last month and enjoyed seeing her out and about with the other monkeys towards the end of her life.

Then we recently also had some changes to the Spider monkey group. Yanay, Cumala, and Cumala’s son Camu, were released from the Rimaq enclosure where they spent about a month and a half together with our two males Rimaq and Lucio. The females were placed in the enclosure as both were in heat and started showing too much interest in people. Both Rimaq and Lucio were very happy to have some company and all of us enjoyed seeing the spider monkeys together as a group. Before their release we tried introducing new spider monkey baby Katinka to Yanay, in hopes that she would carry her and look after her. Unfortunately neither of them seemed very interested in each other and so Yanay was released with Cumala and Camu. It is also very nice seeing the spider monkeys outside again and on the first day Cumala could be heard making her typical happy noises.

Monano and Loki, our biggest male woolly monkeys, have now spent some time with our newer adult woolly monkey Moyo in the La Sapa enclosure. They seem to enjoy each other’s company and they will be released to join our outside group of monkeys as soon as possible. Unfortunately all of them have developed a skin condition, especially in their faces, but also on limbs and tails. They will now stay enclosed as we don’t want it to spread to the outside monkeys. Giving them their medication is a challenge every day as our team tries to come up with new ways to offer them their medicine to try and trick them into taking it as it does not taste very nice. So far it has worked out and we hope their condition improves soon.

Suly, Tushko (female and male woolly monkeys) and Katinka (female young spider monkey) have finally made the big step to leave the Araña enclosure to get to know the outside baby and adult monkeys. This is always an exciting time where we pay close attention to see how they respond to being outside and to see who they make friends with. They have been doing great; they are integrating and making friends, for example with Talisha, one of our youngest female woolly monkeys and with Ramon (young male howler monkey). Katinka is the only one of the three who has not yet learnt how to sleep in the trees. She seemed to prefer the sleeping box of Yara (the volunteers’ dog). Poor Yara! In the last week she has been spending the nights with her friend Darwin in the Pepe enclosure, where she has her very own box in a tree to sleep in.

Birds

Koru, our purple gallinule is now beautifully purple. Our team takes extra care to make sure we spot him every day. This has become a bit more challenging as he no longer responds to his name now that all the parrots have taken to calling his name frequently throughout the day. However, all seems well and Koru can often be spotted taking a bath in the pond or going up on the feeding tables.

SUST Animal Orphan Hospital

Our new arrivals from last month, Inka, Aritha and Tommi, two female saddleback tamarins and one male squirrel monkey were doing very well and could leave the clinic. They were introduced to our other two tamarins, Tagu and Benito, in the Lucia enclosure. They all really enjoy their new, bigger group and still work on sharing given crickets fairly among each other. Our older released tamarin Shambito returned recently when the tamarins moved out of the clinic. He returned with two other tamarins and all three wild ones are frequently spotted around the Lucia enclosure. We are hoping the young ones may join their group once they are released.

Ramon, our baby howler monkey, has changed “parents’’ and moved house over the last month. After Ian and Lauren left, our returning, long-term volunteers Carlotta and George moved into the guest house to look after Ramon and he took this change into his stride. He has become even more independent and is still as playful as ever. He is steadily improving his climbing skills and keeps surprising us with how far he can jump now! He loves swinging on lianas and playfully attacking much bigger woolly monkeys. At the end of this month Ramon moved into the Cabaña with our assistant manager Laura as Carlotta and George returned home.

Legolas, our white-winged parakeet who is under intensive care with a broken leg, has improved a lot over the past couple of weeks. Because he has regained almost full use of his left foot we decided to let him join the other parakeets in the Tupak enclosure. Back with his old companions he is as happy as ever, still greeting us with his excited nodding but also blending in nicely with his kind.

Our group of Parrots from the SUST animal orphan hospital, Zonia, an orange-winged amazon, Tupara and Teslo, mealy parrots, as well as Thesia, a white-eyed parakeet were finally ready to move to a bigger enclosure and meet some more birds. They are now in the Igor enclosure, enjoying the space and their new group. We are very happy it worked out well, even though we will also miss having them in the hospital with us. Especially Zonia who was a joy to have around and a favourite of everyone as she picked up different tunes, whistles and words very quickly and was always excited to see us. You can still hear her happily singing and calling out though, teaching the other new orange-winged amazons Ulisho and Roshca. She quickly made friends with a new song!

Rafiki, adult blue and yellow macaw, who’s been with us since 2014, has had a nasty fall in the aviary. Douwe found him screaming, laying on his back on the ground and immediately took him to the SUST hospital. It is still very early to say what his internal injuries might be but so far he has been active and eating which are hopeful signs.

Alyak, yellow spotted river turtle, which arrived with the big group of animals in August, is still not well enough to join the other turtles. We are currently treating the wound on her right hind leg and are hoping she will improve. We make sure that she is eating well every day and keep a close eye on her.

New arrivals

Sarah, an adult female howler monkey. One story of a monkey moved our whole team deeply. In the beginning of September two local men brought us a wild, adult, female howler monkey. They had to watch as hunters tried to shoot her out of the tree to get to her and to her baby. Her baby managed to escape and stayed with its family group but she was severely injured and brought to Esperanza Verde. She had multiple wounds that needed treating and many bullets were removed. She stayed in the SUST animal hospital under intensive care but unfortunately she died on her fifth night with us. The necropsy afterwards showed that we could not have saved her.
We were all touched by how strong she was despite what happened to her and how long she kept on fighting. We decided to name her Sarah after Sarah Hardy, a primatologist who studied social behaviour, particularly the role of woman and mothers in evolution. Sarah showed all of us how important and vital our work here is.

Two baby insectivorous bats. Kayla brought home two baby insectivorous bats which were found on the ground at her school. Both were not even a week old when they arrived but once they learnt how to drink milk from a tiny pipet they seemed healthy. Unfortunately one of the bats died after a week. The other baby, called Natasha, is doing very well. It is sometimes hard to feed her milk because she is so active, crawling around and spreading her wings.

5 Common Opossums. These babies were handed over by a woman in the village to Kayla. After the mother was killed, the woman took care of them for some days before handing them over. They are for now under Kayla’s care in the manager’s house.

Volunteers

Our volunteer group always is under steady changes. At the end of September we had to say goodbye to our long-term-volunteer and veterinarian Lisa, who did an amazing job as our veterinarian and in the management of the centre. She stayed for six months in total and will be deeply missed. Returning volunteer Jessie, as well as returning long term volunteers Carlotta and George are also going back home. They are leaving space for a new volunteer group under our assistant manager Laura. Everyone is enjoying the warm dry season and we’ve been spending our evenings playing games or going on night walks, to spot nocturnal animals. Douwe took all volunteers on a night walk and during the day Machico led a group of volunteers through the jungle on a tough hike, where he showed them many different plants and trees and explained about their different uses.

Construction

There is always construction going on in Esperanza Verde, always stairs, cages, taps, houses, paths or bridges to be fixed. Machico, and Geiler from the village, Douwe as well as volunteers have been keeping our entire infrastructure together beautifully. And they still managed to make progress in our bigger projects!

The quarantine for example is starting to take form. Many bricks arrived and the workers aided by the volunteers have spent every spare minute carrying them from the river to the quarantine. Other materials, such as mesh for the new Elmo enclosure have also arrived which means that Douwe and the team can soon start laying the finishing touches on that new enclosure. This enclosure will be similar to the big Rimaq enclosure, which houses our spider monkeys.

There is never a dull moment in the jungle. With a lot of new arrivals and lots of changes to enclosures and volunteers this month has been especially exciting.
With our new assistant manager Laura arriving, Lisa stepped down to do more veterinary practice and Carlotta filled her shoes as head volunteer.

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Monkeys

Moyo (male adult woolly monkey), has been moved to La Sapa enclosure where he will have a lot more space to move around and practice climbing. Monano has also been enclosed with Moyo to help him get used to other monkeys and to hopefully teach him how to behave more naturally. The hope is still that Moyo will be able to join the rest of the monkeys in the trees but as he has been a pet for so long, it will be a long hard journey.

Our outside monkeys are doing well in lieu of recent events. The capuchin group are doing really well especially with Maku as the alpha-male. It is an impressive sight to see him commanding his group. The woollies are doing well and are now often around Moyo and Monano’s enclosure chatting and playing with them.

Benito and Tagu, the two male tamarins, have been moved to Lucia enclosure with the hopes to release them soon and with the re-emergence of Shambito one of our released Tamarins we are hopeful they will be accepted into this group. However with the arrival of 2 new female tamarins (among other animals, more on that later) their release has been delayed to allow all 4 to hopefully be released together.

Kaya, our female howler monkey, fell ill. Howler monkeys are one of the most difficult animals to keep healthy, mainly because of their complicated diet and digestive system. With the loss of Wallace and shortly after, Cesar, we are beginning to get desperate on how to help her in the best way. She is still hanging in there, and is under Douwe and Olivia’s care in the manager house. She has good and bad days, but has been losing a lot of weight. Her buddy Darwin, our juvenile young male howler, is now on his own at night, but enjoys the company of the woollies and Ramon (baby howler male) during the day. He even came to visit Kaya once at the manager house. At the moment her condition seems stable, so we hope from here we can get her up and going again.

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Other Mammals

Ringo and Rabito have been doing very well together in Pepito cage. The fence between there 2 enclosures has been closed off to allow for other animals to use the Xena enclosure so they are now in Pepito enclosure together.

Doquino, has been moved from La Sapa enclosure into Pepito enclosure where he is happily living out in a more spacious enclosure with our 2 Red brocket deer Ringo and Rabito. All 3 seem to get along really well and are often seen wandering their enclosure together.

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SUST Animal Orphan Hospital

Soraya, after a long time the decision was made to let Soraya go. After losing her leg she began eating her own tail which was then shortened to stop infection. The decision was made after she could no longer walk and her quality of life was severely affected. There was a great deal of stress for her every day when receiving treatment and in all liklihood she would never be able to climb trees properly again. We are all very sad to not see her in her box sleeping during the day or eating her porridge mix at night.

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New Arrivals

Tushko, a new baby woolly monkey arrived and with his distinctly Elvis looking side burns he is quickly becoming a new favourite of many of the volunteers. He arrived from the zoo in Pucallpa where he was being bullied by jealous female woolly monkeys. He is already very independent and it is looking very hopeful for him to join the outdoor monkeys along with Suly.

Roknar, a new infant red brocket deer came with Tushko and 2 Orange winged amazons. Roknar is now living at the manager house with Olivia and Douwe and the kids. He is still young so he is being bottle fed milk but he enjoys his time playing around the manager house with the rabbits and ducks that live there.

Ulisho and Roshca are 2 orange winged amazons were confiscated and as many birds from the trade their wing feathers were cut. After spending their quarantine period in the SUST animal hospital and the arrival of all the new animals, they were moved to the Igor enclosure with the other non-flying parrots and parakeets. When they have their new feathers in some months they can join the parrots in the aviary.
There was a particularly busy when Douwe came home from Pucallpa a day early and in the dead of night, with a large variety of resciued animals, 88 in total:

Katinka is a baby spider monkey who is a real character, she is very attached to humans but she is spending her time with Tushko and Suly in the SUST animal hospital and we are trying to get her to be less human oriented. She also has a habit of sleeping on the floor which we are trying to discourage by putting a hot water bottle in her sleeping box to try to get her to sleep there more, which is working.

Tommi, Aritha and Inka, 1 squirrel monkey and 2 tamarins, all came with strings wrapped around there waist, all were extremely scared at first. However now they all enjoy causing mischief while people are trying to clean their enclosure. Tommi (male squirrel monkey) is still juvenile. Aritha is an adult tamarin and Inka is still a youngster.

43 parakeets arrived, all packed together in small cages. We received 5 cobalt winged parakeets, 4 Tui parakeets and 34 white winged parakeets. Some died in the first 10 days due to the malnutrition and bad condition in which they arrived. For these the treatment with antibiotics unfortunately was already too late. Most parakeets were moved after 10 days, for the rest of their quarantine period, into the outside cage Tupak, so they are more comfortable and receive sunlight. Some are under more intensive care still in the clinic in a smaller cage, and one special one, with a broken leg, has been treated and named Legolas, by Lisa, our veterinarian.

Zonia, Tupara, Teslo and Thesia, are a few larger parrots that live in the operation room of the SUST animal hospital because of a lack of room for all the animals that came in. Zonia is a very tame orange winged amazon who loves the attention of the people who are cleaning the enclosure. Tupara and Teslo are new mealy parrots and Thesia is a white eyed parakeet they all spend most of their time avoiding people.

Yellow spotted river turtles, we received a lot of turtles varying in size. Almost all were released by the volunteers into the nearby river and 4 turtles were kept behind. 3 of the biggest turtles are now being kept in Momo enclosure where they surprisingly spend most of their time in the shade of the trees rather than in their pond. The last turtle is being kept just outside the clinic because of a hole in her shell and a deep wound in her leg. Geiler made her a nice enclosure with a pond for her and a shaded area.

Yellow footed tortoises, 8 tortoises arrived as well after an examination they were all put in Momo cage along with the 3 turtles.
Among all the arrivals there was also a three toed sloth. After a health check he was released. He was caught out of the wild only a day ago, taken before people would kill him. Douwe took it down to the river with all the volunteers and family at the end of the night for it to be released.

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Volunteers

This month Douwe, Geiler and 3 volunteers were over in the village fixing bikes for the kids. It is a government sponsored programme to help more children that live in rural areas to get to school. They received the bikes about a year ago so most of the bikes were in need of a fix up. It took 2 days but almost all of the 23 bikes managed to get fixed with only 2 beyond repair.
Even though it has been a super busy month here at Esperanza Verde spirits are still high and the volunteers even found time to visit Regalia the large waterfall. It was a great day out that everyone really enjoyed.

It’s been a tough month here at Esperanza Verde. We’ve had to say goodbye to some of our older animals but also welcomed new additions to our family.

We had several visitors during this month. Ad Boom and Jan Plaisier from the Foundation Jaap van de Graaf came to visit us to see our project and the start of the quarantine which they are financing.
Lauren and Iain came over from England to give us a hand with everything, and Silvia Canelos (from amaZOOnico) and her boyfriend Leonard came to visit and helped us with new arrival baby Ramon (male howler monkey).
With enough volunteers here and Lauren and Iain back again, the family got a chance for a quick holiday in Pucallpa.

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Monkeys

Talisha, female woolly monkey, was released together with Nakoya and Samara (female woolly monkeys). She has been regularly carried by Loki (male woolly monkey) and is playing a lot with the rest of the woollies, as well as with Darwin and Kaya (male and female howler monkeys). In the first nights we brought her in to stay with Darwin and Kaya, but soon she got adjusted and she is now staying outside with the others.
Samara, female woolly monkey, has been fully recovered and was happy to be outside again. Unfortunately, we lost her closest friends in the woolly monkey group – Pashko and Nakoya (male and female) were both bitten by the peccaries while they were trying to steal food from the peccary enclosure and we were unable to save them. The way the peccaries are being given there food has now changed to make sure that this kind of accident will not happen again. After a short period of being a bit of a loner, Samara now is hanging out more with Chiquita and Lupa (female woolly monkeys).
Cesar, one of our male howler monkeys had been sick on and off for a long time. Recently his condition became worse, he was very ill for over a month and was staying for intensive care at at Douwe and Olivia’s. He became unresponsive and after 24 hours we made the tough decision to help him go.
Luna and Otis (female and male night monkeys) were moved to a more suitable cage for their release, the Roko cage, from which we released Sira (female night monkey now living outside) almost two years ago. After some time adjusting they we will let them explore life outside at Esperanza Verde.

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Other Mammals

Ruena our female tayra has had a tiring month as Douwe has been teaching a few volunteers to walk her. The walks have been very successful and she loves finding new smells and discovering new fruits from jungle. She is learning the ropes of being a wild Tayra and we hope that these walks will hone her skills for life in the jungle. As she explores, the trees and rotting wood provide her with many climbing experiences as well as natural enrichment.

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Birds

Our non-flying parakeets have been moved to a new enclosure. The Igor enclosure is slightly more isolated than our other enclosures and will give them a more natural setting as they continue their rehabilitation. They have already been visited by some of our already released white eyed parakeets (Aratinga Leucophthalma). This was a really positive experience for both the birds and people as this shows that our work is having a continued effect on local wildlife. It’s always nice to have some of our released animals drop in from time to time.

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SUST Animal Orphan Hospital

Benito and Tagu, our two saddleback Tamarins continue to do well. When the SUST Hospital was built, we had dividing doors placed between cages to allow for controlled introduction of similar species. This seemed an excellent opportunity to use this system as introducing Tamarins is often a stressful experience. Fortunately Tagu and Benito have quickly taken to each other and have become good friends. Tagu has become more relaxed and Benito has become less tame as Tagu teaches him the ropes of being a wild Tamarin.

Soraya our Amazonian dwarf porcupine has been moved out of the SUST animal hospital and moved to an outside enclosure to help with her recovery. She seems to be enjoying her outside enclosure, moving around a lot chewing on the wood inside her enclosure and the volunteers are enjoying making new enrichment for her.

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New arrivals

Suly is a new female woolly monkey who was brought to us by a woman from the village. She recognized that she was unable to care for the monkey properly and had wanted to sell her, but was encouraged by some of the locals to bring Suly to Esperanza Verde. This is a really encouraging sign that attitudes toward wildlife conservation are improving in the local community. While she has spent time with humans, she is showing a few wild characteristics such as sleeping on branches rather than in one of our sleeping boxes. We have high hopes for her and look forward to introducing her to released woolly group.

Ramon, our newest baby howler monkey, has been doing great. He spends the night with Lauren and Iain and his days with the volunteers. He is a very playful and happy young monkey who particularly likes men with beards. He has already started to play in the trees and spends his day eating wild leaves and playing outside. He always has someone with him to take care of him as he is still too young to be outside alone. He regularly spends time inside the Howler enclosure so that he gets a chance to get used to Darwin and Kaya. Howler monkeys are particularly susceptible to depression, so when they are this young they are one of the few animals that receive human contact here at Esperanza Verde as our hands off policy would, in this instance, be detrimental to the animal. Fortunately Ramon is already becoming more independent by the day.

Moyo is a new male woolly monkey who was brought to us by a local Peruvian woman from the nearby town of Curimana. He is 4 years old but currently very submissive. He spent his quarantine period in the SUST animal hospital where he was received a lot of attention from some of our released woolly females. He was then moved to one of our re-introduction enclosures where he is developing a friendship with Maruja and Tawaki.

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Volunteers

Enrichment is a very important part of working with animals. During her time here, Rachel one of our volunteers created enrichment manual to help new volunteers to understand the requirements of certain animals. This manual has been instrumental in the improvements in enrichment for the animals with loads of toys and activities to help the animals practice the skills they will need when they are released back into the wild. These enrichments range from foraging activities, behavioural enrichment, or sometimes just moving parts of the enclosure around to give different jumping and play opportunities. It’s always important to keep our enclosed animals mentally and physically stimulated, no matter how long they spend with us here at Esperanza Verde.
Some children and adults from the local village of Bello Horizonte were given a tour by Douwe. Showing the animals that are around Esperanza Verde and educating them on their behaviour and why they need to be kept wild.
The construction of the quarantine building is coming along at quite a pace with so many volunteers here to lend a hand. The cement pillars have been poured, and the ever popular job of digging the septic tank hole completed. Of course it wouldn’t be a real Esperanza Verde construction project without sandbags. Our volunteers have been working extra hard to pile up over 200 bags of sand ready to make the floor once the roof is on. The wood for the roof beams arrived this week so the next stages of the construction are ready to begin, once everything has been carried up from the port.

It has been another busy month here in Esperanza Verde, with funny, loving, as well as very sad stories.

 

Monkeys

Nakoya and Kamari went missing near the start of the month; Geiler and Machico were out most mornings looking for them both in the surrounding area to no avail. After a couple of weeks one of the local neighbors said that they had seen 2 Woolly monkeys around his house so with a full party of four (Douwe, Olivia, Machico and Geiler) they went to their land. No sign unfortunately of the monkeys. The next day the neighbor came by to tell us he had managed to capture one so Douwe and Geiler went and managed to bring back Nakoya, a bit skinnier than when she left but overall in good health. Kamari has not been seen since we hope the best for him, but as monkey meat is still one of the favorite meat sources locally we do not have high hopes. Nakoya is now recovering in Pepe enclosure.
Wallace our oldest male howler monkey, who was with us for about 1,5 year, recently passed away. He was found by one of our volunteers, Douwe performed an examination but no clear cause of death was identified. He had been very healthy so we assume he either died from a fall or perhaps from a snake bite. We will miss him a lot; he was our first successful effort of raising a howler monkey.

 

Other Mammals

Ringo the male red brocket deer that has been living around the family house was also moved this month to Xena enclosure which borders Rabito´s, another red brocket deer. The hope is that they will become friends so that they can be moved in together at a later date.
Quintisha, the oldest female collared peccary, died after being ill for some time. She has been with us for nearly five years, arriving when she was about a year old. Necropsy showed a probable tumor in her nose. Timo, Kohana (the male and other female peccary) and all of us will miss her calm and kind character. She was always excited for a scratch whenever we walked past.

 

Birds

Once again the white winged parakeets have been moved to another cage in order to separate flying birds and non-flying birds. Also Chipi, the ruddy ground dove was moved with them as well as Singas and Pichu, the two white eyed parakeets. This time it seems that all parakeets were either unable to fly or too tame to be released so they have just been moved to the new Tupak cage where they will stay for now. This will allow the Igor cage, our non-release bird cage, to be disinfected properly. Even with some recent shortages of volunteers we have still found time to make some enrichment for these birds so that they don’t get bored in their new cage.

 

SUST Animal Orphan Hospital

Talisha a new young female woolly monkey who was recently brought to us from one of the local villagers. She spent a few weeks up in the clinic receiving milk and learning the ropes of being a wild monkey and not a pet. After a few weeks she was moved down into Pepe cage along with Nakoya to try to help them to bond and to give Talisha a bit more contact with our outside monkeys and less with humans. At first she didn’t like this and kept trying to follow volunteers out of the cage and sometimes clinging to them while giving her milk but now she is settling nicely. Hopefully she will be released soon and can join more of her own kind in the trees.
Samara one of the female juvenile woolly monkeys was recently wounded on her right arm. Olivia heard her scream in the late afternoon at the peccary cage, and found her with her right arm hanging. She was probably trying to steal food from the peccaries and Timo or Kohana did not take that well. Thanks to the expertise of Olivia, Douwe and Lisa (Vet), Samara is now making a recovery in Pepe cage with Talisha and Nakoya. Although she has trouble moving her arm we are hopeful she will make a full recovery.
Soraya our Amazonian dwarf porcupine is still recovering from her recent amputation of her foot. Her wound gets cleaned and bandaged daily. She is able to move around with her leg which is a good sign, but for now will stay in the clinic till the wound has fully healed.
Icarus, the new ruddy ground dove was taken to the Tupak cage at the time of moving all parakeets, and Chipi the resident ground dove. They quickly formed a nice couple.

 

New Arrivals

Our new arrivals are Benito and Tagu, two male saddle back tamarins. Tagu an adult male and Benito a baby tamarin were recently brought in. Tagu arrived first and about 2 weeks later Benito arrived. We tried introducing them to see if they would bond but Benito was too scared and it was decide they would not share a cage. Benito stays in a small cage and is enjoying the enrichment that is put in daily; he is a very active and playful monkey. Tagu is very scared of us humans, but loves the grasshoppers in the bottle which is delivered to him every day.

 

Volunteers

Keeping good relations with the local village is very important here at Esperanza Verde and with Ines a Spanish volunteer it seemed like a good time to give a fresh face a go at helping to educate the village in animal welfare. She was received very well by the local school and was invited back to give another talk. This is very good news for the local village and Esperanza Verde as hopefully this will encourage more people to stop hunting endangered animals or keeping them as pets. Lisa our head volunteer and vet has also been castrating local cats and dogs. Lots of people were bringing their pets forward which is very good news.

With 13 volunteers at the project there is plenty of time for extra jobs. The head volunteer moved into her own place (the cabin) recently, after a successful ‘housewarming’. There has also been plenty of time for enrichment projects and construction jobs. Some recent examples of enrichment are: a puzzle box for Ruena (female tayra), a football for the spider monkeys and a construction with sticks that encourages the birds to work to get the seeds hidden inside. Everyday some of the volunteers are on construction duties. These volunteers help Douwe and the local workers with whichever construction is currently the priority. This can range from cutting iron tubes to fit their purpose, to carrying sandbags to where they are needed. Most of the volunteers have also had the opportunity to go on a jungle walk with Machico, where he demonstrates his immense knowledge about plants and trees.
Unfortunately, at this moment Machico has had to take some time off due to a personal loss. Our thoughts are with him at this difficult time.

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Constructions

Preparations for the construction of the new quarantine area have begun. The area has been cleared, sand is being collected, and the materials have been ordered. We hope to lay the foundations soon.

Simultaneously a new space has been cleared out for another enclosure, thanks to the donation of Lush Cosmetics. In the last year they have already financed the reptile pond, the TUPAK-release cage and the deer enclosure. This new enclosure will be named after Elmo, one of the sloths, that has been successfully released back into the wild. At Esperanza Verde we often encounter incredibly smart animal behavior, which makes us believe that the animals are very aware of their surroundings! Sure enough, as soon as we started clearing out space for the ´Elmo´ enclosure, Elmo showed up high in one of the trees, almost as if he knew what was going on! This enclosure will be similar to the big spider monkey cage (Rimaq).
A project that was recently finished is the beautiful painting of Asan (blue-yellow-macaw) on the storage building wall. Although it was sometimes difficult to paint with monkeys around (they like to get their fur painted blue and green!) it has turned out to be a great success. Everyone at Esperanza Verde really appreciates the new sight, a big thanks to Janick from Switzerland!

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Monkeys

Rimaq, one of our enclosed male adult spider monkeys, was found to have a small cut on his hand. The treatment of this minor injury has been going very well. In the mean time, one of our volunteers who has experience with training monkeys in her job (Rachel Henson from Monkey World in UK) is teaching both the spider monkeys to respond to a ‘clicker’ and introducing them to positive reinforcement training.

Luna and Otis, the young female and male night monkeys are doing very well. Recently, we decided to stop feeding Otis milk separately. Before, we always fed Otis milk from a baby-pet-bottle. But since he seems old enough now, we´ve tried to start feeding him from a bowl. This has worked out very well. We are excited to see how fast these monkeys are becoming independent. It won’t be long before we can let them out to join Sira (our adult female night monkey).

As for the howlers, Darwin and Kaya, have also been doing very well. Cesar, however is looking somewhat less healthy. He does not drink as much milk as his companions and sometimes refuses to eat. Some poo samples were investigated but unfortunately the reasons for this strange behavior remain unclear. He was looking very skinny so we have to carefully watch how much he is eating and how he is behaving. After some treatment he does seem to be a bit more active and he has started eating a cereal mix with extra proteins instead of his regular milk.

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Other Mammals

Due to all the construction work going on it has been hard to find time to continue the walks with Ruena (female juvenile tayra). We have managed to squeeze a few walks in and hope to do more of it soon. Luckily, we have enough volunteers who can keep her busy with enrichment projects, like the puzzle box mentioned earlier.

Quintisha (female adult collared peccary) was doing better with the antibiotic treatment. First she stopped breathing heavily and then she bled a bit from her nose only occasionally. The decision was made to stop giving her antibiotics, but after a few days the bleeding returned. Shortly afterwards, the heavy breathing also worsened and she was anesthetized to perform a better investigation into her nose. Unfortunately the cause of the bleeding was not found. Antibiotic treatment has been restarted and she has been moved to another cage temporarily to be able to treat her better.

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Birds

Koru, the purple gallinule bird who was recently introduced to the aviary, seems to be delighted to be there. He is eating more and more from the food we give him, but has also been spotted eating insects from the ground often. Due to volunteers calling for him, some of the parrots have developed the habit of yelling Koru as well, making it easier for us to find him. With some great roommates like these, it seems all the more likely that he will gain a permanent spot in the aviary, “Pichu” cage.

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Reptiles

For a long time the yellow footed tortoises have been roaming around their residence freely. Even though they all seem as healthy as ever, we decided to organize a tortoise hunt to enable us to count them, weigh them and give them a general health check. Only Pinto and Aramis, the two smallest ones, were missing, but due to the size of the enclosure it is not surprising that we could not find them! We suspect they might be hiding somewhere. This was also a great opportunity for us to refresh the data we have about the tortoises and we found all of them in good health during the inspection.

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SUST Animal Orphan Hospital

Unfortunately there is some sad news regarding Ronya, the baby brown capuchin monkey. She was enjoying going on the leaf walks and was becoming more and more trusting, also towards new volunteers. Sadly, she got spooked by something on a leaf walk and decided to run off on her own. Despite the combined efforts of volunteers she knew dearly, she did not come down from the tree she climbed into and spent the next nights outside. For a while we hoped she was rescued by the local capuchin group, but she has not been seen since. Although we always hope for the best, we do fear the worst as would not make it on her own, being so small.

Ermina, the scarlet macaw, has had a successful recovery period. She has received an identity chip from Lisa, our veterinarian. The spot where her beak was repaired seems to be holding up well and her appetite has been good. Therefore she has been transferred back to the aviary cage again. She spent some time in the front cage at first, and shortly after we put her back into the big aviary with all the other birds. So far, this transfer has gone smoothly and we have not yet spotted any aggressive behavior towards her.

A new mammal we received is a male agouti, Doquino, who was raised as a pet. He was given up into our care as he was becoming too big and started stealing eggs. He spent a few days in the clinic. As this is an animal which enjoys digging for its food, being on a cement floor is not the nicest. So after a health check we moved him in to the empty, more spacious, La Sapa enclosure. With some adequate enrichment and shelter, it is now a nice home for Doquino.

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New Arrivals at the Hospital

In the hospital but only for a short stay was a pygmy-anteater, captured by some people from Bello Horizonte who were cutting down a tree. Although she has an adorable arrival that made the volunteers go “aww”, she could be quite aggressive. After inspecting her we concluded she was healthy and so we decided to release her into the wild again almost immediately. Sometimes this is for the best as we never want to risk acclimatizing a wild animal to people. But her capture didn’t seem to bother her and she climbed up the tree slowly but surely, enjoying her regained freedom.

A more permanent cage has been made for two ruddy ground doves that were brought here by one of the workers. Their mother was in a fight with a duck which was trying to get to the young birds. The doves are in between nestlings and fledglings, which is why they still need to learn how to peck food from the ground. Birds as young as these get cold easily and so it is important to provide them with sufficient warmth during the night. Unfortunately, one of the doves did not survive. The other dove, Icarus, is doing very well. The question still remains as to whether we will be able to release it, or if it will be too tame to survive in the wild.

Life in the jungle is getting even cozier than usual ! With a large number of volunteers now it means we have more time for enrichment and other projects. We also started new wall painting at the Almacén (the food storage room), which will be done in the upcoming weeks. Some early preparations have also been made for a few new construction projects, which we hope to be able to tell you more about in the not too distant future.

In addition, we started the month with an enrichment competition between all the volunteers, divided into two teams. Team A made an enrichment game with peanuts for the Aviary cage and team B created a hanging playing obstacle with leaf food packages for Ruena, our tayra. Though it was a friendly competition, there can only be one winner. Our esteemed and objective judges, Olivia and Douwe, eventually gave team B the prize. The prize consisted of the most valuable product one can find at Esperanza Verde: chocolate sweets!

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Monkeys

Tawaki, our male baby woolly monkey, is still being trained to sleep in the safety of the trees instead of on the ground. So far, he is making slow process.
Mica, one of the adult female brown capuchins, received treatment for botflies (who lay eggs under the skin of different animals), however the larvae were already gone when we cleaned out the skin on her side.

Samara, an older female woolly monkey was treated for P. Elegans, a species of parasites in the intestines which caused her to lose fur on her legs.

Luna and Otis, two Night Monkeys are still doing well in the outside Lucia cage. They are not big enough yet to be released, but we hope it wont be too long. Luna has not been gaining any weight over the past couple of weeks, so for now we have to keep a close eye on her.

The howler monkeys, Darwin, Kaya and Caeser, have also been making small steps toward release. They are staying outside of their cage during lunch time and even during the night more and more. Caeser and Kaya especially are often unwilling to come down when we call them, which is the first sign of them becoming independent.

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Other Mammals

Douwe has started to do the first walks outside with Ruena, a Tayra. She is kept in an enclosure currently and desperately needs the enrichment! Tayra’s are a species that would normally maintain relatively large home ranges, with areas of up to 24km2 having been recorded. Her enthusiasm is definitely not contained by the fact that she is being walked on a leash. She is exploring her surroundings with lots of interest and excitement.
Recently we had a sudden medical situation with one of the peccaries: Quintisha appeared to bleed from her nose and was breathing very heavily. We are not entirely sure what she is suffering from, as it is difficult to inspect her properly and we can only observe from the outside and often from a distance. We think she has some type of infection in her nose. She has been receiving antibiotics, first orally but later by injections with darts as she was not swallowing the oral medication. She is doing a little better, but is still under close observation.

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SUST Animal Orphan Hospital

Ronya is still going on leaf walks with the volunteers every day, and she has started to climb a little. She is still quite nervous and very attached to the volunteers, but she does show more and more interest in the outside world. She is also learning to adjust to male volunteers, as it has often been difficult for male volunteers to hold her or even feed her. Slowly though, our guys have started to win her trust.

Ermina, one of the macaws, has been bullied a lot by the other birds over the past couple of weeks, especially by the other two macaws, Ruiz and Mabu. At one point, we had to remove her from the Aviary cage and take her into one of the cages in the clinic. She had an impressive puncture wound on her beak, received by one of the macaws. The damage was repaired as well as possible and she received antibiotics. She is currently doing very well in the clinic, while regaining her strength and enjoying her own space and all of the extra attention.

Koru, the purple gallinule bird which arrived in February, has been doing very well. So well in fact that he or she was introduced to the Aviary, the big bird cage. As far as we can tell, he has been having the time of his life, chasing down insects, hiding in the bushes and taking lots of baths in the pond. If he keeps doing great, he will stay in the Aviary permanently, as he would be too tame to survive in the outside world.

Lots of work with fewer volunteers means that the main focus of the project turns to feeding and taking care of the animals. Since we were joined by several new volunteers, more time is available for the important extra tasks, such as enrichment for the animals, constructions or maintenance. This month we also had the pleasure of being visited by Philipp Zerbe, the president of the international EV-association and veterinarian, his parents and his brother Adrian (also former volunteer of EV).

Monkeys

Tawaki and Naka, the baby male and female woolly monkeys, are now staying outside for the whole night. Naka does not have any problems with this, but Tawaki needs a little bit more time to get used to it. He is now in a training period to teach him to sleep in the trees and not on the floor.
Mayantu also stays outside for the whole day and night. She likes to be carried by Kress, another female capuchin, who is only a bit bigger, and also hangs out with Macu, the wild male capuchin.

Luna and Otis, the baby night monkeys, are living together in the Lucia cage now. Luna is already drinking out of a bowl, but Otis is still drinking his milk out of the bottle.

Other Mammals

Lulu, the two-toed sloth, who was released some time ago, recently made an appearance and was weighed. As her weight was low, we made the decision to take her into the clinic for observation. Sadly and very suddenly she passed away. She was at Esperanza Verde for 1,5 years, and we will all miss her a lot.

On the positive side, Elmo, the other two-toed sloth who was released years ago, showed up to check if any food was available for him. Last time we saw him was almost a year ago! He looked healthy and left a day later.
Ruena is doing fine and we hope to start the training for her future release soon. Until then, we try to keep her busy with enrichment to prevent her from getting bored.

 

SUST Animal Orphan Hospital

Philipp Zerbe, who has been part of the EV-family now for years now, recently visited us for a few weeks. We got a lot of work done thank to him as he likes to keep us all busy! Sitting still is not one of his best qualities but we love him for it! Thank you Philipp and Susy Utzinger for all the material you donated to our clinic.
Tara, the family dog, needed a castration, so who better to do this than our most trusted veterinarian, Philipp! Philipp and Douwe went to the village to deparasite several dogs, and gave our volunteers some training in hygiene and enrichment for animals. The volunteers also joined Philipp on several of his night walks. Thank you Philipp, for always being there for us. You are the best!
Ronya, the baby capuchin, is growing bigger and bigger. Last month, she was moved to a bigger enclosure inside the clinic. Every day, she is taken on the leaf walk with a volunteer. During our walks we try to stimulate her to climb in the trees. Although still a bit afraid, she does her best and is starting to climb the trees more often.

Koru, the purple gallinule bird which arrived last month, is growing really fast. However, he is still not as big as his feet suggest he should be. He already has his adult feathers and wings and he is sleeping on top of the branches in his cage. Soon we will have to decide where we will bring him, as releasing is not an option anymore for such a tame bird.