Update on our Intrepid Trio of Monkeys

Hi everyone, this email is just in from Sylvain, from his last trip to Calabar! July, Nko and Bebi are still doing great 58 days post release - read on.

"They are remaining a tight group, and seem to have settled in the same area they started. The past few weeks they have not moved too much as there are plenty of fruits in the area they originally settled. For the past week they have explored further in the several point locations they visited previously, apparently searching for other trees or fruiting trees they haven;t visited much before. The location and type of fruiting trees is of course constantly changing, and one of species that was laden with fruits last month will soon have no fruits left, but there is still another species which bears a lot of fruits per tree. The days they don't eat much fruit they spend moving in the lower layers of the forest, as well as spending a good deal of time foraging on insects in forest gaps -very often places where a fallen tree has recently opened the forest.

The relative size of the home range has not increased since last time, except one day where they came ventured further to the west, but quickly returned at the end of the day to one of their usual sleeping site.

One new development is that all three have contracted an infection of a parasite called a 'tumbu fly' - this is when a very tiny fly larvae burrows into the skin and grows there into quite a large grub after a few weeks, and is then expelled -they can be quite painful, particularly if infected by many. They have been treated to prevent further infection and are doing well now.

We didn't see other monkeys in the vicinity of ours for a long while, but just last week, I observbed an adolescent male red-eared very close to the crown of the tree where our trio were. They didn't see him until he moved - then July simply loud called without moving, and the red-eared male fled making short calls. The next morning at 600 am, other red-eared guenons were very close to the group. July and Nko then chased them, July making threat booms and hack calls. It's on one of their regular resting places, with two closed fruiting trees. It is difficult to know however if the others fled due to the monas' territorial behaviour, or to the human presence, or both. For example when the young red-eared started to move away he saw me and Nko saw him more or less at the same time, and typical of the behaviour of formerly hunted species which are shy of humans. These interactions are anyway very interesting, and the evolution along the time of these interactions will be full of information."

cheers, Sylvain

This is interesting, as often mona, red eared and putty nosed guenons will form mixed feeding groups in the wild - will our monas do this in future or are they preventing interaction- or are the red eareds too afraid of our human observers to stick around? It is hard to say at the moment for sure, but time will tell! Stay tuned for further updates on our trio.

A routine emerges for our Trio of monkeys

Here is a second installment from Sylvain on our trio's adventures in the forest:

"Their days are divided in several parts with a time allocated to foraging and feeding activities between 6 and about 10 to 11 am. The two females, Nko (pictured below foraging on the forest floor) and Bebe spend this time foraging for arthropods on leaves and widely dispersed fruits from vines, climbers and small trees from the understorey, while the male remains in the high crown, which often is bearing a lot of high energy fruits. This strategic position in the top of the forest is likely vigilance and territorial behaviour, and seems to allow him to look at the surroundings for specific fruiting trees, and possibly for potential intruders or even predators. The latter part of the morning and the early afternoon are spent in all together in the lower layers. They are much closer together during this time, and spend a long time on social grooming and resting in sunny open places, especially by the July and Nko, while the youngest female, Bebe, continues to forage, mostly on insects close by. From 2 to 5 pm, the females start to move again in the lower canopy where there are many lianas, while July stands resting and looking around in higher positions. The females move slowly in this forest strata, their movements mostly determined by their foraging activity. A second resting and socializing session is often observed around 4 pm, and now Bebe is also included. The late evening is devoted to fast movements in the emergent trees of the forest by all 3 members of the group, accompanied by foraging and storage of fruits into the cheek pouches. They usually stop moving around 6 pm after the sun sets on upper larger branches of emergent trees.

These first weeks in their new place show an encouraging pattern of how the monas adjust to their new environmental and social pressures. They have already met other primates species (putty-nose (Cercopithecus nictitans) and red-eared (Cercopithecus erythrotis) guenons). This included mixed-species groups, putty-nose all-male groups and a solitary red-eared male. Theses interactions so far have been mainly territorial - loud hack calls and display by the males of each group once visual contact has been established. On only one occasion have they been observed interacting with other primates: a solitary male red-eared was observed very close to the monas, eating on fruits that they had foraged on earlier. July, the large male leader of our trio, was observed chasing this male from fruiting crown twice, until the latter flees out of sight.
And finally, last but not least an exciting observation-- mating between July and the youngest female, Bebi. We really look forward to knowing if this group is able to breed and then increase the group size, genetic pool and social links between the individuals.
To conclude, although all these described patterns are for the moment anecdotal and general observations, as it is to early to assess any kind of statistically significant trends and patterns, it presents a motivating and encouraging picture of the adaptation and/or acclimatization of the released group to their reintroduction in a natural habitat."

Update on our Trio

Zena here again - I thought you would like to hear about how our trio is fairing in the forest. Well, they are becoming gradually accustomed to their environment - foraging well, and July is making loud calls as the leading male should, and often acting as a sentry-- the two females sticking for the most part very close together. They have suffered no mishaps when moving around the forest--- apart from the smaller and younger Bebi who has fallen twice in the first week - once free falling 20 metres to the ground! She jumped from a large tree to a liana and missed, and landed in soft mud on the ground seemingly none the worse for her fall. Perhaps lucky...

We have just received the following update from Sylvaine, who made a quick trip to Calabar recently and who has been following the released group since the 1st of November 2007 - and we are happy to hear that Bebi has not fallen since. Read on to find out how they are all doing!

From Sylvaine...
" We have always succeeded to find them early every morning on the same location where they have been left the last evening. The radio collar systems are still well functioning. The monas stay together as a bonded group, and there is no trend to a group split or individual emigration.
The day of the release, led by the male July, the group reached a place in the forest which they started to explore first. This place is a mixture between swamp liana forest (note - causing many hours with soaking feet for the observers!) and elevated forest on drier ground with some emergent trees up to 50m tall. The grid system previously marked out allows us to report the location of the group easily. So far, the relative estimated size of their home-range is between 1.5 and 2 ha, but it has taken them 3 weeks to range this far. They have progressively extended their home range, exploring mainly on a west-east line of about 100m and then extending to a north-south direction of 200m to the west and 100m to the east. In the past week, we have observed that the group has visited 4 extreme points of their home-range in a single day, starting from their usual sleeping site (a fruiting tree named 'Kubn' in one of the local languages, Agoi, which has currently many ripe fruits), stopping at 3 different places on tall fruiting trees ('Kubn' and 'Tese-esang' trees) and returning quickly in the late evening to where they began their morning. It was the first time they seemed to have visited all the known locations with rich source of food in their current home-range in a single day... ..They travel all the usual ways to move from one point to another, using lianas in the low canopy, where fruits are not as readily found, but many insects, larvae, cocoons and others arthropods, and moving more rapidly in the upper layer in the late evening, where there are large crowned very tall trees, before finally reaching an high place to spend the night. It is a very exciting and remarkable time and we look forward each day to what it will bring next - if not to the 500 am wake up!"

Stay tuned for second installment to come from Sylvaine

Free in the Forest

Hi all, Zena here. I have just returned from a manic 3 weeks in Nigeria and I wanted to share the experience of finally being able to release 3 mona monkeys (for those of you who know - July (see right - image captured from video), Nko and Bebi), all rescued orphans, into protected community forest.

The culmination of 12 years of highs and lows, impossible to summarize in a few words... I am very happy to say some of my family from Canada were there to witness the event (nephews Mathew and Nathan - their first time to Africa!), as well as former volunteer Jennifer (Schell) Snell. Chief Owai, (village head) and Chief Etan (clan head) of Iko Esai were also there, and the research assistants and keepers from Iko Esai who have been looking after them and observing them since they moved to Rhoko site in 2004. Other personalities from Iko Esai were also there, including Pastor Ankpor, as well as Etan from Cross River Broadcasting Corporation to record everything on film, and the Forestry Commission.

It was a finger biting week, as the official final letter of permission only was in our hands on Tuesday morning, the original scheduled day for the release! However, the night before we had discovered one of the radio collars placed on them 2 weeks before (July's - very key as the adult male!) was no longer working. AARRRGGHH. A call to Calabar and yet another postponement was necessary, and our vet Uche traveled up from Calabar on Tuesday evening in order to sedate July and change his collar - yes, luckily we had a spare! All went smoothly and new collar was working. And the release was now set for the Thursday November 1st.

Yet more nail biting, as our dignitaries coming from Calabar were over an hour late....yes, they got stuck on the road in! At 500pm they rolled up, just as I was writing a note that we would have to go ahead without them, as we wanted to give the monkeys time before dark to explore the outside environment and find a good place to sleep for the night. So after a brief introduction on what would happen and how to behave, we trooped off to the site of the release enclosure in middle of the protected forest.

One more drama on the day... Nko, a very experienced and intelligent female was first out (although looking a bit suspiciously at the suddenly opened door), followed closely by Bebi who stuck to her side throughout. However, July was very suspicious and paced back and forth for several minutes, probably thinking we wanted to catch him up again and having none of it. We all moved back even further out of sight to reassure him, but he still wasn't sure. Then Nko and Bebi went back to the door and seemed to encourage him, calling to him. He suddenly stopped pacing, looked... and then bolted through the door and down the Buttress trail with the females right behind him, and the research assistants hot on their heels. Suddenly it was over and they were all out of sight! Interviews by television followed immediately - I am afraid I have no idea what I said, but I was assured by others that it made sense. And then, only as we were on the way back to camp to entertain our visitors with pounded yam and melon soup did it hit me, and tears of relief and excitement came. Na wow. What a day.

Stay tuned here for stories about the trio's adventures, as they are being followed dawn to dusk by volunteer Sylvaine Lemoine and our three research assistants, Ayitu, Usor and Etan. And hopefully some pictures - it was so dim in the forest, and so exciting, that no one got any still photos! But a short film can be seen provided by Jenn- check out the news item on the website.

Also stay tuned to meet Claire, who will introduce herself when she is back from a well deserved leave in the UK.

First Release

The first release of monkeys into the forest took place recently! Watch this space for an update and for more frequent news...

Website Launched!

Well after many hours of work, and feedback from friends and trustees, the new website is now public, replacing the old one as of late last night! We hope you enjoy it, and would welcome additional feedback - we will be adding more features and information over the next few weeks, so send us your ideas!

Also, stay tuned to this Blog, for regular chat about 'A day in the life of CERCOPAN'. Soon Deputy Director Claire Coulson and others will be making regular contributions directly from Calabar, where we now have a fast internet connection in our office (yes, Calabar is certainly changing!).

Cheers, Zena and Dave from Sloley

The New Website!

OK, the website is up and running in test mode. Can you all have a look through the site and let us know what you think? We are updating pages daily (well, hourly actually), so all comment is welcome.

We are planning to delete the old website on Wednesday 3rd October and launch the new one; in the meantime, I will be flying to Duxford to see some big helicopter trade show, and Zena will be dealing with Jonathan, the electrician, who is coming to move the meters around in our kitchen!

Cheers, Dave