This past week three of the LFP staff in Java went out to help at Cikananga Wildlife Centre. It seems that the storm has passed and the worst is over. No animals died whilst we were there and instead we had babies being born. After hearing the sad stories that volunteers Charlotte and Josie returned with it was wonderful to come in and see a one day old loris- what a cute ball of fluff!
Cikananga is a beautiful centre with large enclosures for their animals, but taking on 78 new animals stretches any centre’s available space. There were animals sleeping in transport boxes out of dire need. It was therefore paramount that we help in building new enclosures to move some of these lorises into more suitable and spacious homes. Our tracker and wonderful carpenter Adin got to boss us around all weekend whilst we helped build new enclosures.
Keeper Yoko is new to caring for lorises and our tracker Aconk was wonderful at explaining things we have learnt from the wild. For example, we have recently discovered that our lorises love sleeping in thick bamboo/foliage and therefore we refurbished the enclosures to include lots of bamboo arranged close together so the lorises can ball up in it!
Aconk also suggested that on cold nights or nights with full moons to place more foliage in the enclosures so that the lorises can hide in it. This is something we have observed in the wild as well. A very interesting idea he came up with was to put the water for drinking in flowers instead of drinking cups. Lorises drink water from flowers normally and it is defiantly worth trying to see if it will help these cuties drink more, especially as they are given their vitamins dissolved in water. It was wonderful that he was using his knowledge of wild loris behaviour and thinking of ways in which it could be applied to captive lorises.
Seeing lorises up close like we did at the centre is a far cry from the 20m distance we normally adhere when performing observations. For all of us it was a very good learning experience seeing the lorises up close and personal. Additionally, we all helped with the animal husbandry. For the trackers it was the first time to prepare food, feed animals and clean enclosures. For Aconk the highlight of the stay at Cikananga was feeding the lorises.
Helping rescue centres like Cikananga is paramount in the attempt to combat the illegal wildlife trade. Without a place to house the confiscated animals, many authorities will not perform confiscations. However, caring for so many new animals with injuries and infants is no easy task. It requires many hours of dedication, money and lots of sweat and tears. Thankfully, the lorises are healing of their wounds and many are ready to be moved from the clinic to the quarantine. Let’s hope that good news continues to come from Cikananga and please continue to support them to help care for all these nocturnal cuties.