UWEC Day 12

Start of the carnivores! - Lions

Bisa, one of the lionesses

Now that Hameed finally had a decent supply of drugs, we were able to start work on the large carnivores this week. He first wanted to start with the 3 lions: Kibonge (male), Bisa and Zara (lionesses). Today we worked on Bisa and that took quite a bit of time. Once Hameed darted her, she took a while to go down, but once she finally did go down, we all went in there and first got her on the scale to weigh her... Try lifting a 200kg lioness, not that easy. She needed of injections of antibiotic, dewormer,  and multivitamin. I tried to get a heart rate on her, but she was so big and overweight it was very difficult to hear anything. This was also my first time being so close and personal to an African Lion, and wow are they a lot bigger up close. Her paw was massive! So beautiful though. We were going to leave the other lions and leopard until tomorrow.

Massive paw! 

Dental check

Croc restraint take two:
Ok, so Pete wanted to try his muzzles once more with the UWEC crocs to see if they really can produce results. Other than it taking a while for Pete to get the crocs out of the pond, he was able to successfully slip on the muzzles without much force and they worked like a charm. They did not rip or slip. He put the muzzle on each croc in the exhibit with no problems. He was much happier about the success and felt like this could really go somewhere!

So relaxed

Work again on that old Ostrich:

Add caption

After lunch we had to go check out that ostrich again because she began limping. Once we got to the Kidepo exhibit, we found her sitting all by herself in a corner of the exhibit. Hameed wanted her restrained so that we could take a good look at her foot. Unfortunately this process what a little hectic and disorganized. There were too many people trying to help and put in their own opinion about what should be done. I think personally the experience overall was more stressful for the bird than not. We all took a feel of her foot and it felt quite hard. Hameed questioned whether it could have been an abscess rather than a tumour. So he took a scalpel blade and lanced one of the masses. A HUGE amount of pus began to ooze out. This made us lean more towards infection, however, tumours can present with pus and he was worried if we traumatized the wound too much that we could spread tumour cells to the rest of her body. Nonetheless, the other masses were lanced and opened to drain. The wounds were flushed and packed with a medicinal herb that was grown here at the zoo in the garden. We were going to reassess her in the morning if things weren't going as well as they should be for healing.

Health check on first Serval cat:

Cat is in the bag...

The last procedure of this long, but exciting day was working on one of the Serval cats in the vet hospital ward. These cats are not much bigger than say a Maine Coon cat, but just much more vicious... Barbara and one of the keepers went to just catch her in a net from her enclosure. I then gave her the injection to knock her down (through the net). We waited a bit until she became unresponsive. Then she was weighed and then we put her on the table. I was able to get blood first try from her (in general it is harder to get blood from cats, veins are so small). We gave her some antibiotics, dewormer and multivitamin. We then put her back in the net and I gave the reversal agent to wake her back up.

Hit the vein!

Day at the clinic finished!













Out for dinner at Annas Corner:
The German girls wanted to come visit the zoo today, and I was supposed to meet them and take them around. Clearly I had a really busy day, so once I was finished I met up with them at the chimp island exhibit. I proposed to them that I could probably get them a behind the scenes visit with the baby chimps. I just went to talk tot Helen, one of the keepers, and she was more than happy to let them come, especially since they were chimp researchers. After a fun visit, we decided to go out for dinner to Anna's Corner, up the road. Pete joined us as well. It's this nice little place run by an Italian lady. It was well known for its Pizza and coffee. I was very excited to have a real cup of coffee that I had not had in a long time. And the pizza that I ordered was delicious! We got into a really intense intellectual discussion about conservation issues that are realities in Africa and efforts people are making to mitigate them. Everyone had a really interesting point of view and it was great to share these ideas we all had with each other.

Trip to Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary

I finally managed to arrange my visit to Ngamba. I wanted to visit on the weekend so I would not miss anything happening at UWEC during the week. So I went to the office in Entebbe to sign some forms and arrange when I would be leaving and coming back. I was to leave some time Saturday and come back Monday afternoon. Perfect weekend trip. While I was being "interviewed" by the volunteer coordinator, he asked me what type of experience I wanted to get out of visiting Ngamba. Of course, if available I wanted to learn about some primate medicine, husbandry management and conservation efforts. He explained to me, as I expected, that the veterinary part was very hit and miss depending on what is going on. Unless there are planned health checks for all the chimps, the vets do not do much unless something comes up. Not a problem, I was just excited to finally get out there. By that point I was told by the reservations officer that I was leaving on Saturday afternoon with a group of tourists on a speed boat. 

Saturday morning came, around 9:00AM, when I received a phone call from Dr. Joshua Rukundo, the sanctuary manager, operations director, and one of the veterinarians, that there was a boat leaving very soon, if I was ready to go, that I could leave with him. I could have passed the early offer to go except that he had some actual vet work to do on a chimp... so I jumped out of bed and got ready faster than I could blink an eye as I Was NOT going to miss an opportunity like that. Joshua came and picked me up from my banda and we headed for the pier to board the speed boat. By speed boat, it took about 45min; by ferry it was about 3 hours -- for only 37km distance, glad we took a speed boat. It was finally nice to be on some water again, I was surely missing it!

Arriving at the island 

Once we finally arrived on the island, instead of getting a tour of the place, Joshua and I headed straight for the clinic. We were met by Dr. Titus Makundo, the island's resident veterinarian. He explained to us that Baluku, one of the adult males, got into a fight with another male and sustained a deep wound laceration on his arm that needed treatment. So Titus had him brought to a holding area where he could be darted. Once he went down, a few keepers carried him into the clinic. Baluku definitely had a deep wound that needed to be stitched up. Apparently these types of wounds are very common. Its the large canine teeth of the chimps that once they bite through the skin, and the chimp pulls away, a large tear occurs. While we all assessed the wound, I was in charge of monitoring this chimp; taking a heart rate, respiratory rate and temperature every 10 minutes, as he was not under general inhalant anesthetic. Titus worked on suturing up the wound. I must say, it is really like looking after a little human; their vital parameters are so similar to ours its amazing. After completion of the suturing, I bandaged him up, he was given the reversal agent and then put back into an isolated enclosure to recover. 

The clinic 

Joshua prepping the dart

Unfortunately, as I must say this now that I was not able to get any photos of the procedure, nor could I obtain any photos of a human being in direct contact with a chimp (like my baby chimp photos). This is the policy of the Chimpanzee Sanctuary & Wildlife Conservation Trust (CSWCT) that photos of this nature are not allowed so as not to promote the pet trade and that humans can safely interact so close with wild chimps. I totally agree with this. Any other photos were fine, even with people in them as long as there is a clear barrier between the human and the chimp.

After we cleaned up, Titus proceeded to give me a tour of the place. To put it in perspective of the size of this island: it was about 100 acres and the chimps have access to a forest of about 95 acres whereas the facility is on one tiny 5 acre tip of the island. I was given a proper tour of the hospital, the island shop, the staff quarters where I was staying, some grave-sites of chimps passed, and a bunch of plants that the chimps eat that act as natural remedies to ailments (from malaria, to upset stomach, to head pains!) Then the different holding facilities for the chimps. There were 2 main established groups here. The one main group is the one that has access to the forest all day, then there is a younger group that has a smaller outside area to use. This group was slowly to be integrated into the larger group, and it would take some time. All the chimps are brought into the main holding facility at night. I was going to get to see all the different feedings during my stay there.

Chimp graves

These are the skeletal remains of a female chimp killed
by this mantrap. With her fingers caught in its vicious
metal teeth, she dragged the 12kg trap along the ground
until she slowly and painfully died of starvation. Mantraps
such as this represents one of the biggest threats to
chimps in Uganda, claiming at least 6 lives per year.

 










I was also fortunate to meet 2 German girls who were doing chimp behavioural research for their PhD's. They came from the MAx Planck Institute for Human Cognitive & Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany. They were essentially studying evolutionary anthropology and comparing brain development of chimps to human children. Very interesting!!!

Over the next 2 days, I was able to observe these chimps, especially during the 6:30AM, 11:30AM, 2:30PM and 6:30PM feedings. The keepers also allowed me to help with the morning and afternoon feedings. It provided good enrichment for them. I also learned that one reason they encourage the chimps to come in for the night is to conserve the forest that they use. Chimps make a new nest every night and with 48 chimps doing that, the resources in the forest can be depleted quite quickly. It also helps with keeping a more constant forage supply in the forest for them. 

Back holding area, also leading to the forest

Back of the main holding facility

Back of the main holding facility

Front of the main holding facility

I got a chance to get to know the keepers really well and hang out with the German researchers during my stay. I will admit though, when there is nothing going on, it really did get boring there and you do feel really isolated from civilization. Those researchers were VERY excited to get a chance to get off the island on Monday, because it had been 3 weeks since they were on the main land...  

Afternoon feeding for visitors

Dinner time

So sophisticated 

Please can I have some more?

Wait your turn

So thoughtful

Beautiful island sunset

Finally, a bit of background:
Ngamba Island was purchased in 1998 by the CSWCT and was started as a sanctuary for orphaned and rescued chimpanzees. It has gone through major expansion since its inception and has done a lot of work to promote conservation of these endangered species. These chimps of course could never be released back into the wild, because they would not know how to survive, but they can serve a purpose for educational outreach to communities who live around them to encourage respect and protection of them. 

Their mission statement sums it up quite nicely: To promote the understanding, appreciation and conservation of chimpanzees and their habitats in particular and wildlife in general.

And their vision is one which I very much agree with: Africa's chimpanzee populations are appreciated and valued by the public, secure in their natural habitat, and no longer threatened. CSWCT is among the leaders in chimpanzee-focused environmental conservation, providing excellent care of rescued chimpanzees, contributing to public awareness and understanding of conservation issues, and engaging communities living alongside chimpanzee populations.

Trip to Kavumbe Zoo

Day trip to learn about some crocodile restraint:

The croc muzzles

Another project Pete was working on was designing a muzzle restraint device for handling large crocodilians. Most of these guys are much easier to handle once you have their dangerous mouth restrained. All the power a crocodile has on its bite are the jaw CLOSING muscles. But the muscles used to open its jaw are quite weak comparatively. So effectively keeping their jaw closed helps to restrain them and calm them down a lot. Normally, most people would use a wire snare to grasp onto the end of the jaw. This however, can cause problems if the person holding the snare tries to pull on it to manoeuvre the croc. The snare can begin to cut the skin around the jaw and cause a lot of stress, damage and pain for the croc. 

Demonstrated with ropes

Croc snared

Muzzle on

All restrained

She was pretty big...

The result

Pete thought a more humane way of handling them would also prove to be a lot safer for the handler. Bascially, the design of the muzzle is a cone shape that would fit snug around the mouth of the crocodile, also covering the eyes (reduces stress, because they cannot see what is going on) There would be two clasps on the end of the cone away from the croc's nose that would hook ropes to be used to pull the muzzle onto the mouth. Once on, the croc would be so much easier to handle. Pete chose to go to the Kavumbe Zoo, because their crocs were bigger than UWEC's, and he wanted to test the design on as large a croc as he could get. 






Results: The design of the device was fine. However, the flaw was in the make of the material. The muzzle was made of thick denim that was reinforced with a double stitch at the seams. But there was not much extra strength where the clasps punched through. So when Pete slipped the muzzle on, the pull that was needed to make sure it went on while fighting the thrashing head of the croc ripped the clasps right off the fabric. BUT, it still stayed on his head, which was a good thing. So only minor modifications needed to be made to the material. This was just a prototype and Pete wanted to try it in a controlled setting first, before trying it in the field. After the trial we headed back to UWEC, having to again pass through the crazy hustle and bustle of Kampala. That day especially, the air quality was extremely bad and I was really feeling it, but what can you do right?

UWEC Day 11

Today, Hameed, along with many other staff at UWEC had to attend a workshop on procurement procedures for the zoo. The process for obtaining things, whether it be drugs, food or equipment is a long and arduous process here in Uganda and the management wanted to make sure that everyone was up to speed to make sure things were done correctly. So, because of this there was not much for me to do in the hospital today. I took this opportunity to relax a bit and do some other things I needed to get done, like sorting photos and working on my blog. 

Pete, again invited me out for BBQ. This time he had roast chicken, along with pork, but he also had some roasted potatoes he wrapped in foil. They were really good! After dinner we decided to go out to town. First we headed to the Casino, because Pete was feeling lucky tonight with Roulette. It was a nice small place. After that we went to meet up with one of his friends who owns a restaurant in town. His name was Yoti. He was born in Rwanda, but his parents were from Belgium and Tanzania! We also got to meet some of his friends that were there with him: Maxim (Belgian living in Uganda) and Audrey (Ugandan going to school in Toronto!) and Maxim's sister Tra. All really nice people and around my age. After his restaurant closed we decided to head to another little bar called Red Rooster's which was a lot of fun. Good music, pool, beer and roast pork!. It was a pretty late night too... I took a bota-bota home around 3AM, only to find there was no security at the front gate anymore...hmm.. Well I just put my climbing skills to the test and hopped the 10 feet high gate. Success. It was an interesting walk back to my banda as well. The moon was really bright that night, so I could at least see where I was going. I had noticed as well that the chimps were making more noise than usual and seemed to be really exerting dominance aggression on each other. Anyway, I finally made it to my room and crashed, after finding out on my email that I had a job to come back to for the summer! That was a perfect end to this really fun night. 

Toronto Zoo, you better be ready for me when I get back! :)

UWEC Day 10

Another health check on a python:

We needed to perform another health check on a male African Rock python. Unfortunately he was in a lot worse condition than the one we did yesterday. His body condition was very poor, wasted muscle mass. He was not eating... He was very sick. We tried to get blood from him, but the challenge this time was not that he was not relaxed enough to get blood, it was because he was so anemic, there was barely any blood to get out of a vein. We treated him as much as we could. We actually had to bring him back to the hospital to keep him for observation because his prognosis was very guarded. Not many of of think he was going to make it after a period of time. He was a snake that was confiscated from a private owner and was already in an unhealthy condition, so it has been a battle for the keepers to try and bring him back to normal. 

Hameed still was not feeling 100%. He was trying to get over a flu, so we did not have much to do in the afternoon. 

After catching up on my blog in my banda for a while, Pete came and knocked on my door and invited me over to his banda (which was right beside mine) for some beer and BBQ! Finally, having some company over here was nice. There were also two girls from the UK who were travelling Uganda and doing a placement at some community hospitals for completing medical school. Pete had brought his own little rotisserie machine to put over the fire and he made some really good jerk pork! Afterwards we had all decided we wanted to go out for some drinks. So we went to the local club called the Trap. It was not really busy being only the middle of the week, but we still had a good time!

UWEC Day 9

First reptile health check:

Barbara showing me how to take blood

She was pretty big...

Today, we had to do some work on one of the African Rock Pythons. This was my first time really working with a big snake. She was about 4m long and 60kg, so quite a big snake. She was not doing that well, unthrifty. Other than giving her injections of antibiotics, multivitamins and dewormer, Barbara and Hameed were happy to use this opportunity to teach me how to take blood on a snake. First off, I knew it was already difficult to take blood from reptiles. Very different anatomy, usually hard to see blood vessels, so it is mostly going in blind somewhere and just knowing where the vessel should be. There were a couple of different locations that we could have used but the easiest place to start was the vein under the base of her tail. The problem that was encountered was that it took her a long time to relax. Therefore, with her muscles being so tense it constricted on the veins making it very difficult to take blood. I managed to get a little bit, enough for Barbara to do some lab work on it, but that was about it. I was able to practice though finding the right position and such. Because she was such a big snake another spot we could have gone if we REALLY needed blood was going right into her heart. It is not as scary as it sounds. It can be just a more reliable way of getting a large volume of blood. Once finished, Julius (the reptile keeper and my guide for my mini trip) put her back into her enclosure.

Antibiotics

Did get a little bit of blood

Quick assessment - Ostrich:
The keepers looking after the exhibit where the giraffe were, had noted to Hameed that the really old female ostrich with the tumour on her leg was limping more than usual. So Hameed, Barbara and I went in with the keepers for the morning feeding. We observed her and she was bright, alert and not lame at all. Although we did notice a fully fed tick on the underside of the tumour. But otherwise she was fine. For her to have received serious medical treatment for the tumour, like trying to remove it surgically, she would have needed to be immobillized and admitted to the hospital. For a bird that big, and considering how old she was, it was not worth it to put her through that. She has been tolerating the tumour for a number of years now, quite well.

New visitor (but old friend) to UWEC:
Julius had a good friend coming from the UK to stay at the zoo for a while to help the reptile keepers with restraint and immobilization. He name was Pete Prodromou (or Safari Pete). He does a lot of work helping communities deal with human-crocodile conflict, helping to relocate them where they would not be a danger. He also does a lot of education and outreach with other reptile species back in London, where he works. Really cool guy and a serious dare devil at that! He has been coming to Uganda for that past 6 years doing these croc projects as well. 

Safari Pete!