Limbe Wildlife Centre -- the Batek Story, 2002

by Ateh Wilson and Jane Dewar, March 20, 2002

Akiba's story - Akiba arrived at Limbe in July of 2001. While her previous history is unknown it's clear she was a victim of the bushmeat trade. Today she is happily esconced in the family group at Limbe where Pitchou and the others have warmly accepted her. 

Photo Credits, left to right: 1st three photos by David Lucas, including Nyango carrying Akiba. Far right photo by Tony Chassar shows Pitchou in background watching over Akiba.

Limbe Wildlife Centre Revisited, 2001

by Jane Dewar, written 30 June/05 July 2001

May/June 2001:  As mentioned in the 24Jun01 News Update “Summer of Changes”, I spent almost a month in Cameroon, the primary goal of which was to see how the LWC was doing since my last visit two years earlier.   There were many changes and a lot of improvements, too numerous to mention here, but it was clear that the money we donated and helped raise was making a wonderful difference in the lives of the humans and animals alike.  Steuart needed to see firsthand just how his hard-earned money was being put to good use, so he came with me and was duly impressed by the enthusiasm and efforts of the Cameroonian staff.  His time was limited, since he had to return to GH to supervise construction, but I spent an extra two weeks, visiting the LWC daily from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. with no breaks and loving every minute of it!

The biggest change for me was the absence of gorilla Evindi, the Romeo of gorillas mentioned in my first report.  Evindi had succumbed to a mysterious illness – perhaps meningitis – about six weeks before I visited, and many of the zoo’s animals and humans were fighting high fevers and mysterious ailments.  While most recovered, Mr. Joseph Abang, LWC’s longest employee, died shortly after Evindi – a huge loss to the staff, since he’d been at the LWC for 19 years – longer than anyone else.  Mr. Abang’s son, Felix, is now working at Limbe continuing his father’s dream of seeing Limbe become a world-class conservation center.  Many of my old friends were still there, and new keepers had joined the staff, which remains one of the best I’ve seen.  Gorilla keepers Wilson, Jonathan and Bama were still there, although Wilson had been moved to Education Officer – an important job he is excelling in and Jonathan’s duties include helping with the chimpanzees now too.  Bama still lives for “his” gorillas, who all adore him too.

Nyango, “The Queen” looked the same, but she was far friendlier this time around.  Perhaps my daily treats and parties were a factor, but even Bama admitted he was surprised to see how friendly she was towards me, including stroking my face and hair gently when I’d give her her evening milk, as she and Chella settled into their night quarters.  Nyango’s DNA has been tested and she’s definitely a Cross River gorilla – one of the newest sub-species to be identified for gorillas (gorilla gorilla diehli) and the only confirmed one in captivity.  With less than 250 estimated to be still in the wild, Nyango, like her eastern lowland (gorilla gorilla graueri) cousins, may be the last of her kind on this planet – a thought than makes my heart sink with sadness.  Her right eye seems definitely blind now – the result of a wound inflicted by a zoo visitor years ago when Nyango was the only gorilla there and she would run around with her keepers, not being confined to a cage or enclosure.  This visit she was down-right silly, playful and as happy as any gorilla I remember seeing, purring and singing when she got treats, sounding like someone humming a high-pitched, off-key tune.  She was showing signs of maturing sexually too – at 11 years old, she’s more than ready to breed – but so far her attempts at getting Chella to do the right thing have failed, as the two spend most of their times play wrestling and chasing each other.

Pitchou “The Princess” and Star of Limbe was the most changed – she was huge!  Her face and demeanor hadn’t changed, but she was as large (if not larger) than Benito and Emma, who are older than her by a year or so.  Pitchou would cough (a sign of aggression or warning in “gorilla” language) whenever treats were being handed out, warning the others to stay away to be sure she got her fair share.  She would play with each of the 5 other gorillas in the sweetest one-on-one play bouts, but the funniest and most surprising thing for me was watching Pitchou while Nyango and Chella were rough-housing.  Pitchou would follow the two older/bigger gorillas and whenever they got too cozy, she’d jump in between them, very much like young gorillas do when they try to stop adult gorillas from having sex.  But besides this running of interference between Nyango and Chella, Pitchou was bottom-slapping!  This is something some gorillas do as part of their sexual behaviors, often directed at humans or another gorilla.  At first I didn’t believe I was seeing it right, but it happened so often and my video tape confirmed there was no doubt our baby Pitchou was already vying for Chella’s affections!  Again, Mr. Goofy a.k.a. Chella doesn’t seem to know what’s expected of him … yet.  Time will tell. The photo on the left shows the oldest and youngest gorillas, Nyango and Pitchou.  The photo on the right shows Chella's impish nature interfering with a photo op of Pitchou and her beloved Bama.

Chella, “The Robin Williams of Gorillas” or my Bella, had grown like most young teenaged boys do – from little boy to skinny young man, although he’s only about 9 years old now.  His droopy eyes and goofy demeanor hadn’t changed, but his confidence that one day he’d be the boss had matured.  When Bama went in to clean the enclosure and turned off the hot wires, I’d stick my hand inside with my palm upwards and say to Chella “Give me five!” … Not realizing the hotwire wasn’t turned off, he’d hesitantly approach me and quickly and lightly smack my hand with his fist, until he was sure touching my hand wouldn’t give him a shock.  Once he was sure that was the case, he’d repeatedly slap my hand with all his might and I could hear him chuckling as he did it, thinking the clapping sound our two hands made was the funniest noise he’d ever heard!  Another time I was chewing bubble gum and he was fascinated, so I leaned in and blew a bubble from my side of the hotwire (which was on!).  He stared spellbound and then suddenly, with great dexterity he stuck his index finger in between the hot wire and popped the bubble, garnering a miniscule bit of gum in the process, which he stretched and treasured forever afterwards, as the other gorillas tried to steal the speck away from him.  I swear some days when I left the zoo my cheeks were sore from laughing or smiling at him and the other gorillas so much!

Jumbo “The Little Mermaid” is my vote for the leader of the group one day, since she’s one of the brightest gorillas I’ve met.  She took on Evindi’s old role of following me everywhere, and making sure I was her best friend at all times, but especially when treats were being handed out.  She’d surprise and amaze me by reaching up and grabbing food out of Nyango and Chella’s mouths, so quickly they didn’t realize what had happened!  Most of my photographs have Jumbo in them, since she was my shadow.  One day the trousers I wore started to rip along the seams – they were cheap and so I was going to just throw them away instead of trying to sew them up. But then I thought I’d bring them the next day (after washing them in my hotel room sink) and toss them in for the gorillas to play with.  Bama and I watched hysterically as Jumbo fought Nyango and Chella for them, and soon the trousers were in several pieces and each of the six gorillas had a piece, which they carried around for days, like Linus and his blanket.  Naturally, Jumbo took her piece and dunked it in the pool or brought it to the water tap to soak it, scrubbing around her or washing her hair with the wet rag (see photo left).  One day the children and I gathered the discarded pieces of cloth (photo right), washed them, then smeared peanut butter and cookie crumbs on one side, and tied the pieces into knots, before tossing them back in for the gorillas as treats.  I’d made 7 treats, figuring Chella, who was pretty skinny and could have used the extra calories being the growing boy he was could have 2 treats, but Jumbo had other ideas and ended up with two!

Emma “Miss Demure” looked the same and when Steuart first saw her standing upright, he laughed and said she looked like she was doing a caricature of herself, since he’d seen so many photos of her standing bipedally from my last visit.  But Emma was no longer the quiet, shy, introverted little girl I remembered.  She would rough-house and play with everyone else, but her favorite playmate was Pitchou and the two of them would stroll around the enclosure in tandem, literally hanging onto each other like best buddies (photo right: Emma/Pitchou).  While Nyango continued her habit of charging around and smashing the mesh as part of displays of annoyance, I was surprised to see Emma doing the same thing – only she wasn’t angry, she was just showing off and having fun!  While Emma and Nyango had discovered R&R (regurgitation and reingestion, a stereotypical behavior not uncommon in captive gorillas, but not seen in the wild), Emma no longer sat alone, sucking on her arm or rocking and she seemed much more confident as an important part of the group.

Benito, or “Gary Cooper of Gorillas” was still a shy, introspective little gorilla, but he’d also spend a lot of time challenging Chella, who dwarfed him but still played gently like a great big brother would play with his kid brother.  Benito would alternate between being a strutting mini-silverback playing with Chella to being a crying little baby gorilla, pouting and whimpering whenever I left the gorilla enclosure to visit the chimpanzees or other animals at the zoo (see photo on the left).  One night after I gave everyone their evening milk, Benito was crying so loud, I had to return to tell him it would be ok.  He was reassured and I was able to leave, but it occurred to me night time needed to be something more than the end of a fun day with Auntie Jane and all my treats and fun games.  So Bama enthusiastically took on the challenge of making their night quarters something to look forward to, cutting down fresh elephant grass, banana leaves, wild ginger, etc. and filling the night rooms with them sprinkled with ground nuts, special treats (cereal, fruit, favorite vegetables, etc) in addition to their evening meal.  Benito would still whimper if I left him during the day, but at night, he’d be too busy finding all sorts of treats Bama and I would hide for them.

This visit I also took the time to make a point of learning the names of the other animals at the LWC too, including the baboons, mandrills, drills (photo left), chimpanzees and monkeys (photo right).  With over 80 animals, that’s a lot of names, but I think I got most of them down, and even though I still confuse a mona monkey with a preuss guenon at least now I can tell a red capped mangebey from an agile mangabey and know the difference between a spot nose and a putty nose monkey!  There were more chimpanzees there this time – 26 versus the 19 that were there in 1999.  I think I knew at least 20 of them by sight instantly, with another 4 who I could tell who was who if they were side by side and another 2 who constantly confused me.  The only animals I couldn’t identify individually were the drills – with 13 of them in their newly expanded, lush enclosure, I could only tell Tommy from Tarzan and everyone else looked the same to me (ok, except Koko and Jest, the youngsters, who were like Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dum, doing everything together and bouncing off the walls!).  But I decided to leave that for another visit.

The chimpanzees were also enjoying their newly expanded enclosure, which was being built in 1999.  It was great seeing them running, climbing and playing together. Photo left shows Loko with newcomer Jackson. The mandrills just got a larger enclosure too, as the 3 of them now have access to the drill’s old enclosure, modified for their use.  The baboons will soon have a lovely, lush and large enclosure (we brought over some of the fencing supplies to finish this, thanks to excess luggage allowance granted by Air France!), and the next step is re-doing and expanding the monkey cages, since overcrowding is causing fights and injuries.  But the biggest challenge the LWC will face will be the growing gorillas, who could easily smash their way out of their current night quarters if they ever figured out how flimsy the building really is.  Plans are in the offing for expanding the gorilla enclosure and fortifying the night quarters and it can’t be done too soon.  Thankfully, the personalities of the gorillas are such that they’re pretty easy-going, but changing hormones and testosterone could well change that sooner rather than later!  

All photos by Jane Dewar (or with Bama's help!).

Update to My Update:  I’d written the previous report in late June, waiting for Steuart to have time to add it with photos to our website.   By the beginning of July, I learned that the Yaoundé Zoo was getting 2 baby gorillas, including a 3 week old, and Limbe was getting one baby gorilla, reinforcing the fact that the bushmeat trade is alive and well in West/Central Africa, even if that means its victims are not …Now, more than ever, we need to let our voices heard...  Click here for the story.