After spending much needed time working on improving the standards of the sanctuary for the monkeys, we can now begin to work on integrations of monkeys into social groups. It is always an exciting time - to see a once solitary monkey become part of a social group. For the next few months this will be one of our goals, to get as many monkeys as possible into natural enclosures.

We are struggling to achieve another goal of building a new enclosure for the orphaned baby vervets to move into as they get bigger and have continued the appeal from Christmas to help build them an enclosure. We are looking for 100 sponsors of $100 to help us accomplish our goal in time for the next baby season, when we will need Disneyland for more new arrivals. This new enclosure will ensure that more monkeys can be integrated into the troop as they arrive and will be 1-2 hectares in size. More can be read further down the newsletter about how you can help.

We say goodbye to Sarah Hamilton (our vet nurse) this month as she returns home to UK and would like to thank her for her hard work in sickbay with meds, tb testing, vasectomies and much more.

Thanks to the work of all our volunteer vets and vet nurse Sarah, we can now say we have 7 non-breeding troops of vervets along with all introduction cages. In total, 52 of our male vervets have been vasectomised. This has been a huge operation for all involved and we hope to complete more later this year if we can find another volunteer vet.

Ian Sheridan this month also returned back to UK after his visa expired. Ian helped look after bottom section for nearly a year. We thank Ian for the help he has given and will be known as the super monkey catcher! Meanwhile Joanna Brake has been busy getting to know the monkeys down there and learning all their names.

Eugenie Dadachpour, Melissa Cann, Monica Monteiro, Ante Heimer

Highbrow

A big day for Highbrow was on 27th February when after a long period of sickness, he finally returned back to Skunkey D to see his old friends Jake & Pixie. Being such a character, he will be greatly missed in sickbay but is back where he belongs. As soon as he entered the cage, he did a big dominance display to the Skunkey troop and his females as if to say 'don't mess with me, I'm back!' For those of you who helped look after him, I'm sure you will remember his ginger tea and hard boiled eggs that he looked forward to!

Skunkey G - Elf, Armstrong, Thandi & Lola

Whilst Skunkey G was being made babyproof ready for Lola & Thandi to move back in, Elf and Armstrong moved to sickbay temporarily until their cage was fixed up. The day came to trap Thandi to move her and her adopted baby Lola back to their introduction cage at Skunkey. However Thandi thought it would be much more fun to run around sickbay for the afternoon - as soon as we opened the door each time, we had the same problem. Eventually we resorted to drastic measures by making a new small door on the outside gate of her cage and placing the trap cage over it so that she could enter without us having to put the large trap cage in her sickbay cage. All are now back together in their new babyproof cage on new ground at Skunkey G and at least it means we have a cage in sickbay for escape artists!

Angela, who is in sickbay temporarily whilst her cage is being moved, also decided to have a run around sickbay twice in one day! She undid the pins of her cage, talking as she did it - never underestimate a vervet - you always have to be on your toes!

Santa & Rohan

Rohan (one of the 4 boys) and Santa (an adult male bandit) have been moved into two introduction cages on the side of Koko with the hope to be able to integrate them into Koko Troop in the future.

The plan for the next few weeks is to return the rest of the monkeys in sickbay back to their troops - these include Sad Eyes who will join Skinnie & Mini in Goliath C, and Frenchie & Shasta who will go in an introduction cage on the side of their old troop Engeltjie. Once these monkeys are moved, sickbay will be clear once again and we will be able to spring clean as well as re-paint the floors and give it a rest.

Other updates

Sebastian also returned to Engeltjie troop & Bernadette returned back to her troop in Skrow.

Thank you to all our volunteers who contributed in returning these monkeys to full health.

Skrow Enclosure

Tweedledee, Tweedledum and Opal who used to live in introduction cages on the old Engeltjie enclosure have all moved into Skrow, they recently spent their first night sleeping outside and are now all fully integrated members of the troop. Opal has tended to keep to himself and both he and Tripod, (the alpha male of Skrow with one arm) are avoiding conflict with each other.

James Enclosure

Scat (18 yr old male), Nigella, Nigel & baby Skittles all went out into the James enclosure this month with Seeay, Litchie and Juno. This was an immediate success and they didn't even come in at night so were successfully fully integrated from Day 1. At one point, when it was time for Scat to have his supplements, 18 yr old Seeay tried to take them but little Nigel stood up with his arms outstretched in front of Scat to defend him - this was a wonderful sight to see.

Disneyland

Remember Scritch from the last newsletter - the juvenile who suffered from concussion? Well he is now part of the social group within Disneyland. On entering Disneyland - initially only with Mistletoe & Hoppy (the other 2 juveniles), he wasn't quite sure what to do. Mistletoe tested him a few times by tapping him on the head to see his reaction before accepting him. As soon as Scritch's human company left (Dave & Dan), Hoppy ran over and started welcoming Scritch into their social group.

On the 12th March, the babies slept out in Disneyland overnight by themselves for the first time with Hoppy, Mistletoe & Scritch. At first they were unsure where to sleep and were initially frightened especially Forest who is confused at the best of times! The next morning, all were tired but playing well and getting used to their new routine of becoming real monkeys.

Engeltjie Troop

Chico & Jana returned to their old troop Engeltjie after being away for more than a year - again it was an immediate success. Jana had been pacing up and down the fence just waiting to get out. Some of you may remember Chico & Jana were temporarily moved to an introduction cage up at Goliath after being in sickbay for a period of time, whilst they and their troop returned to full health. Chico was the boss when they were up at Goliath and Jana had a hard time getting food. As soon as they moved back down near their old troop, Jana came to life and had no fear of Chico anymore - she had support from her allies in the troop and paced up and down persistently until the day we let them both out. Chico went out and just sat there a little bewildered and Jana went out calling for everyone and immediately hugged one of the juniors. Chico eventually started to play with the males in the troop and assert his dominance.

I’ve been asked to write an article for the newsletter introducing myself and why I’ve come back to the VMF. Perhaps the easiest way to start is to talk about my first visit in 2008. I spent most of my childhood wanting to work with animals, and would watch every documentary, film, news reel I could get hold of about wildlife in Africa and the Amazon, but as often happens, I lost my way a little and ended up 27 years old, working in a job that
was completely different to what I had dreamed of doing.

I decided it was time for a change, and to get a taste of the kind of work that I’d always wanted to do, so I took a 3 month sabbatical and arrived at the VMF in the middle of September 2008. It was quite a radical change, going from an office job to living in a tent and spending my day working with monkeys, but it was a wonderful change and it was after my first week at the VMF that I realised 3 months was not going to be long enough! I spent most of my time in 2008 working with the juniors in SAAV enclosure, then with the monkeys on Top Section (mainly Goliath). By the end of my stay here I had fallen in love with Africa and the monkeys, and had made some very close friends. Getting into my hire car and driving away from the Foundation was one of the saddest days of my life, but I knew I would be back.

After 13 months in the UK saving every penny I could and relentlessly pestering Josie about coming back, I think her and Dave realised the only way to get me to give them 5 minutes peace was to offer me a staff position as a voluntary Primate Keeper, working with the monkeys on Top Section! I’d like to say a big thank you to Dave and Josie for giving me the opportunity to come back here as a staff member, it’s a huge privilege to be here and help with all the hard work we’re doing for the monkeys.

I’ve been here for two months now and most of my time is spent in Quarantine, Disneyland and on Top Section. It’s wonderful to see the monkeys I got to know well in 2008 many of whom seem to remember me well. A lot has changed here and the benefits for the monkeys, workers and volunteers are evident all around the foundation. There’s a lot of hard work to do and the dedication of everyone here is amazing. Seeing Ian carrying trap cages around Bottom Section for the vasectomy programme in the burning sun on his day off, sums up the attitude that keeps the VMF going!

I’ve had some amazing experiences already in the short time that I’ve been back. Walking past Minky’s cage one day at Camelot, he suddenly started alarm calling madly into a tree I was about to walk under. I froze on the spot, looking around and a huge cobra dropped out of the tree exactly where I would’ve been stood if Minky hadn’t warned me!

I’d like to say a thank you to all the volunteers who I’ve met out here, and I hope I’ll be seeing some of you out here again before too long!

Dan's also a bit of a photographer as you will see from his photos and is helping us take photos for our adoptions.

Much has happened on top section since Dan arrived including all the Royal introduction cages being re-done with new pipes and sand. ET (Block C4) has moved to Gismo B so he can get some peace and quiet away from Friend (female) & Michael (jnr) who used to pick on him at feeding time with the hope to integrate him into Gismo Troop. Tink & Schnapps have returned to Gismo Troop, the structure in Gismo troop had fallen down so has been re-built.

During 2009 I spent 5 weeks working at a Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre in Hoedspruit South Africa which was the most amazing time of my life until now. With a new found love and interest in wildlife conservation and a lifelong passion for Primates I decided to find a project that would combine the two. When I found out that the Vervet Monkey Foundation were looking for new voluntary staff members to look after the different sections I decided to apply and crossed my fingers that I would be lucky enough to be given such a rare opportunity. When Dave and Josie offered me the position of voluntary Primate Keeper I was quick to accept it and within a few weeks had arrived at the VMF ready to start work and get involved.

I have been lucky enough to be given my own section to be responsible for at the VMF which is the bottom section monkeys including Skunkey Troop, Skrow Troop and Robert Troop. Getting to know all the monkeys has been great, I am still learning something new about them every day and working out all their different personalities and behaviors. I will be staying at the VMF for up to 3 years and am excited about all the projects that we have set for the bottom section monkeys most of which will be integrating the monkeys in the intro cages in to the troops. Though I have only been at the VMF a few weeks now I have already learnt so much and have fallen in love with place already.

This month, Angela & Pepper have been continuously fighting through the cage with Jasmine & Co, creating more injuries to each other's hands. After putting chickenwire with shade netting over the top and doing everything possible to keep them seperate, the fight goes on, with them tearing the shade netting down to get to each other! Pepper got a nasty wound on the back of her hand, so we had no other option than to take the cage apart and rebuiid 2 seperate ones! (If only monkeys knew money doesn't grow on trees!)

Guy Timmis was our first contributor and Carmin Lepitzki was our first $100 sponsor. Thank you to all those who have contributed so far, great things can be achieved with your help.

We need another 98 people to be able to build the 1-2 hectare enclosure which the orphans will go in and also other monkeys integrated into this troop in the future. Alternatively, you can donate any amount and we will e-mail you to say how many square metres you have donated towards.

If you sacrifice something to help the monkeys eg: a night out, a new CD, cigarettes, alcohol, new clothes etc so you can afford to donate - please e-mail us to let us know as this will encourage others to do the same and we will also publish it in our next newsletter.

Please help Precious, Mamba, Ash, Forest, Chane, Jessie, Skollie, Phylis, Mistletoe, Hoppy & Scritch be released into a natural enclosure - their future depends on you guys.

Click on our fundarising page for more info and for the link to our blog to keep updated with the progress.

Click here to view the VMF Fundraising page

We are asking every person who has a blog or facebook to upload the chip in button by clicking 'grab this' underneath the chip in on Josie's or one of your other VMF friend's facebook profile. Alternatively, you can click copy on the widget above to embed the code to your web page or blog.

If you prefer to do a sponsored event to raise money - please e-mail info@vervet.za.org for a sponsorship form. Alternatively you can collect items for us by requesting our latest wish list. Hospitals and vets sometimes have expired items that we can use that would otherwise be disposed of.

Did you know it costs approx R2000 (£180), 200 Euros or $270 a day to feed our 500 vervets??? That's approx R60,000 (£5400), 6000 Euros or $8000 a month?

We were lucky enough to have the pleasure of Brandi Wren (Ph.D student, dept of Anthropology from Purdue University) and husband Shawn (primatologist) at the VMF this month to help with behaviour training and data collection methods for our voluntary staff. We are hoping with Brandi's help to put together an ethogram of behaviours that we can use for observations for specific purposes eg best ways to monitor feeding behaviour, social hierarchy within the groups etc. We thank Brandi & Shawn for such a productive and informative day ad look forward to their next visit.

On 16th  Feb – we had a visit from Els, from Moroccan primate conservation. Els is hoping to start up her own sanctuary for Moroccan primates so her and a colleague spent some time visiting a few sanctuaries to get some ideas.

Donations & Thank you's March 2010:

Wendy Morgan - $100 – towards new enclosure
Espen Thomassen - £10
Kelly Schmitz – for recommending us to fellow vet students
Oxygen for life – donated courier costs and cellpet products
John O’Brien – recommended a friend to volunteer
Ruthie Cassidy – donated $50 in memory of Mark Von Bucher
Rose Lewis Cole – sent 5 bunny bottles
Sandra Vind – recommended friends to volunteer
Cubecart – donated version 4 of their online shop

Nicola Carthy, Mario Trombetta, Jessika Nyman, Antonio Giuliano, Laura Ravaschio, Alice Ravaschio, Sarah Hamilton, Rob Tuppen, Romani-Jo De Morgan, Elwood Inigo Dethridge, Rebecca Edwards, Angie Fitzgerald, Ian Sheridan.