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Published: January 5th 2006
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Tommy & my ear
Tommy was sucking on my ear for about an hour-he thought it was a teat-he fell to sleep! Basically I wanted to use this page to display the photos and tell you a bit about my time at CROW. I arrived in durban on the17th November from Cape town, and this is where I spent 6 weeks-5 of them volunteering at a wildlife rehabilitation centre for animals in Yellowood Park,Durban. The centre was fantastic-it consisted of a clinic,which housed the office, vet clinic,animal quiet room,baby room for baby birds which was heated,other young birds which were kept in cages before being released to a larger enclosure,and a few monkeys at various times that were badly injured or who had undergone surgery and needed a close eye kept on them.
Then the was a Mammal block building, an intensive care building, an aviary -all which consisted of 10 enclosures. A few completely outdoor enclosures. about 6 large open blocks with grass,logs and as close as possible to a normal paddock, then many enclosures for baboons and monkeys. Oh and also smaller outside cages for geese,crocodiles and tortises! so that gives you an idea anyway-And to take care of all of this there was only 1 vet,4 animal care nurses,5 ground staff (who were zulu ladies and fed the monkeys
Tommy & I
this was the first baby monkey while I was @ CROW-little Tommy and did the cleaning),a groundsmanager, an office lady,but only in the afternoons & a few volunteers.
I lived in a house right next door to the centre so it was good that I didn't have to get transport.
A typical day for me would start getting up about 7am and being down @ CROW by 8am. From 8am- 10am cleaning out the cages of the clinic animals-(mostly birds),and feeding them then helping prepare food for the remainder of the animals on the premises. We would chop up numerous fruit and veggies, chop chickens(yes i know-disgusting),scramble eggs, fish,meat,and bird seed. Following that we would do various things which might include going on animal rescues somewhere,renovating enclosures and moving animals,building and repairing enclosures,disinfecting enclosures when animals had been released. Lunch for an hour then prepare afternoon feeds! do a bit more work and usually finish around 4pm depending on how busy it was-sometimes it was earlier,sometimes later. On the premises,while i was there,there were at a guess close to 400 animals
150 birds of varying kinds from a pelican to pidgeons, to kite to hadidas!
100 Monkeys
50 Baboons
3 young black-backed jackels and 2 adults
goodness knows how many
tortises-maybe 50??some babies
5 baby mongoose
5 duikers-2 blue-2 grey
2 crocodiles-about 3 months old i think
1 weasel
3 cane rats
owls and 2 vultures
egyptian geese-about 20 and also babies
stalks (the bird) and I'm sure some that i've forgotten.
During my time there there were some interesting animals bought in including a lace monitor lizzard which I unfortunately didn't get a picture of-it had been run over by a car and it jaw was crushed and head a bit mangled-it was transferred to a reptile specialist; a marmozette,which is a very small monkey with really fluffy ears,a pregnant monkey who we think may have fallen from a tree-she was not well at all-the baby had died it turns out-as a result from the fall maybe 3-4 days before and toxins were being released around her body and she was very lethargic-once the dead baby was extracted she went into the quiet room for a few days and ended up surviving!
and....baby monkeys! I looked after 6 in total ranging from about a week old to 6 weeks. these babies are just like humans! They needed feeding every few hours-bottle milk and soft fruits, they would
monkey enclosure
I helped with the redesign of the monkey enclosures inside wee & poo on you-and in the end you just get use to the fact you will not be clean while looking after them! At night they would sleep in the volunteer house in their baskets/like picnic baskets with blankets and during the day they would come to work and i would carry then around in a small woollen pouch on my chest. They would scream if you left them! And had all different cries for when they were hungry,anxious,scared etc-it was such an amazing experience-so if you want to go to Africa and do volunteer work I would definately recommend CROW-it was amazing and I will hopefully go there again in the not too distant future!
During my days off I took the chance to go 4WD into Lesotho for the day(check the map to see where it is) & up to the highest pub in africa. We got to visit one of the hut's people live in up the top and tasted some freshly baked bread-it was amazing-very similar to damper.
Christmas time I spent in a beachside unit in Durban with my b'f Cleo,who I met while I was in Durban,Vicky a chick from my
Grey duiker
this was one of the grey duikers-the blue duikers are about 1/2 the size with darker fur safari and cleos sister and friend-it was a pretty chilled out day relaxing,drinking,listening to music and eating!!
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