We take you out and about with premier primate rehabber Silke at Bambelela.
This week
This week at Bambelala, the team grew rather concerned over Liberty, one of the babies living free as part of Nkawuka’s rehabilitated troop. The team noticed an injury to Liberty’s arm, seemingly appearing to be an open fracture wound. Upon further inspection, the injury was a deep slice to her arm, resulting in some muscle damage but fortunately no fractured bones. After vaccinating her and cleaning the wound, Liberty was already recovering after just a couple of days.
Situations such as these highlight how important it is for the team to pay recurring visits to the rehabilitated troops, as well as having cameras to monitor the situations in each troop, which of course is only attainable by the funds provided so generously from donations.
All seemed well elsewhere in the troop, and routine checks of the site illustrated that it was still providing sufficient amounts of water for the monkeys.


In other news this week, the team rescued, relocated and integrated a roaming male, Maikaikai, into one of the troops. This boy, as is the case with many other monkeys, was found roaming near lodges in an attempt to gain food. The team have rescued so many roaming vervets that they were able to form a troop for them, known as the Khumbula Troop. By supporting Bambelela, you will enable the team to provide alternative feeding platforms, so that monkeys such as Maikaikai learn they do not need to stay near people in order to find food, but can instead live safely in the freedom of nature.


Towards the end of the week things took a dramatic turn, as the team received a worrying call from the Klein Kariba Resort. One of their monkeys had been electrocuted at their transformer. She was quickly trapped and transported to the patient cage at Bambelela where she was rehydrated and treated for the burns on her hands and feet. At just under 3 years old, this little girl will need a long course of medications to prevent infections, and hopefully with the overwhelming care provided by the team, she will survive.
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