February 13, 2013

Another 5 a.m. feed today.

A quiet day at IPR since a lot of folks have gone off to a Lion Sanctuary and to the Cradle of Humankind. Luckily, this meant I could have some quality time with Oma this afternoon. We groomed each other and life is good.

Tonight a bunch of us are heading out for dinner. Two of the short termers are leaving on Friday, plus another three next Tuesday and me the following Saturday so there are a lot of farewells coming up.

February 15, 2013

Roxy, our Fennec Fox, was finally able to move into her new enclosure yesterday, making way for a new monkey arrival. If you ever needed any explanation as to why monkeys should not be kept as pets, Brandy is the perfect example. A capuchin, Brandy was bought by her owners from a pet store and treated as an infant child. She was given her own room, fed sweets, and generally denied a monkey way of life. This is all very well (or not) and everyone thinks they have an adorable monkey-child.

Then the monkey reaches sexual maturity, and you no longer have a cute little child on your hands but an angry teenager. In the case of Brandy, who started attacking her female owner, their answer was to put her on a shorter and shorter leash in her room. Not surprisingly, she became all the more vicious. Finally, not knowing what else to do, the owners called IPR and gave an ultimatum: if you can’t take her, she’ll be euthanized.

Brandy arrived a few days ago. Neither monkey nor human, she is pissed, and who can blame her. I have to say, I take a much harsher view of her owners than most of the others here. The owners were crying when they dropped her off and have been back each day to visit. They were crying when they dropped her off and so the other volunteers and staff were talking about how much they obviously loved her.

Brandy

My take is much less sympathetic toward them: they have engaged in an ongoing act of cruelty, caused by their own vanity and stupidity. I would not buy a dog without doing some research into how best to raise one: diet, behavior, etc. The most basic research into monkeys would tell you that they should not be kept as pets. The owners didn’t buy her to be a monkey; they bought her to be a child, and sadly Brandy will probably never fully recover.

The Primate Rescue in Nicholasville, Kentucky, has many residents who were originally pets but confiscated by state officials. Some have had teeth and claws removed in an attempt to “calm” them; others are diabetic thanks to a lifelong diet of sweets. It is incredibly sad for the monkeys, and cruel on the part of humans.

Here’s hoping that the next stage of Brandy’s life is much happier than it has been so far.

February 16, 2013

Today, before it got too hot to enjoy my day off, I went on a very pleasant five mile walk, doing the loop around Hammanskraal. I had been hoping to see some springbok; Ethan saw them the other evening on his run. No springbok for me but plenty of ostrich (or should that be ostriches?) It was actually an interesting walk. A very long straight dirt road the entire way, but it gave me a chance to see some of the properties. One thing that struck me is the wariness about security. Every property is surrounded by locked gates, bars, electric fences, dogs, security signs, or some combination thereof. When Jo was away for a few nights last week, she asked Stevie and Josie over to stay to keep an eye on the place. We’ve also been warned against wandering out alone at night, having heard stories of machete-wielding men who roam the veld after dark, just looking for properties or people to rob, hence the seemingly extreme security measures around many properties.

These landowners seem to be primarily Afrikaans, the white South Africans of Dutch or British origin. Race is incredibly complicated here, with Afrikaaners, Afros (black), and coloreds (mixed race). Even twenty years of so after the end of apartheid, there is still a marked separation between the groups. Sadly, I’ve had little opportunity to really mix with any locals, other than Astrid and Manie at the bar, and the occasional hello with Gracie, Solomon, and Sydney, who work on site at IPR. It’s a shame as I would love the opportunity to sit down with some South Africans and have an open conversation about race relations here, but it seems an impolite or sensitive subject to raise with anyone.

February 18, 2013

The start of my last week at IPR and it kicked off with a bushfire and a new emergency arrival. Word of the bushfire came during lunchtime while I was doing obs on Brandy. Her new enclosure is under construction (I spent this afternoon painting the roof), but she and some of the others are quite disturbed by the noise. Suddenly Sue appeared, calling for Solomon and Sydney, the two men who work here full time. Just at the same time, Tom, Bren, and Toby all came back from the pool to let us know. Although not a large bushfire, it was rather close to the mona monkeys’ enclosure. Fortunately, eight people with beaters were able to put it out. Nevertheless, it does show how dry the ground and grass is; even with the heavy storms we’ve had on occasion, the ground is too hard and dry to absorb the moisture so it simply evaporates with the heat. Another interesting point was the lack of concern among the neighbors who just see the fires as “one of those things”. When you have a large number of vulnerable monkeys, the fire risk takes on a much more serious tone as even the smoke could do serious damage and evacuation would be a nightmare. Volunteers will probably be digging fire-breaks within the next few weeks as the season gets drier and the risk higher.

Chopping down the tree

We also had an emergency arrival this afternoon: a two-week-old bushbaby that is apparently quite ill. Some people brought her in after finding her and not knowing what to do. Our volunteer vet nurse, Emily, is keeping a close eye on her. If the bushbaby makes a full recovery, it will then go up to Polokwane where a friend of Sue’s has another young one (they do better in pairs).

Construction, fire, emergency patients – a busy day in all and more to come. I think a storm is blowing in and it’s been a few days since we last had a big one. This may put a dampener on the pool party currently taking place for those leaving tomorrow. On the other hand, they may just move the festivities into the bar….

P.S. One more event today that I almost forgot to mention was being able to observe Chino and Willow go rockstar in their sleeping quarters. Jax had cleaned out their room and thought we might like to see how crazy they go when they head back inside. Crazy doesn’t even begin to describe it; these two could put The Who to shame for smashing up a room. They leapt around, chasing each other, wrestling, pulling things over, smashing anything they could get their hands on. Capuchins are very cute and they thrive on destruction so this was a wonder to watch, not to mention another reminder as to why they should not be kept as pets.