Little Langur Daphne has now survived her first week, and is as demanding as ever, during the day she quite happily goes 3 to 4 hours without demanding a bottle, and sleeps for just as long, but at night the main attraction is the attention so she forces herself awake and screams at no more than 2 hours intervals. Sometimes a quick cuddle and being tucked back in a blanket does send her to sleep without the need to warm bottles, as if Pixie sees she’s having one, no matter the time, he also forces himself awake to demand the same.
I have found a little more information on her circumstances and it seems her mother was killed in a road accident in Vasco, a large port town in the South of Goa, and she was taken to the local Animal Welfare group by a member of the public for First aid for her head injuries. They then contacted the forestry dept of Goa, who deal with wildlife, and the officer Sainath who attended has luckily worked with IAR before. As the forestry department has no facilities to care for a baby monkey, Sainath decided to take her home where his family cared for her, feeding her from a child’s bottle, until we were contacted and collected her. Had she not had this care she would certainly have died soon after being found.
She is making progress and now recognises her feed bottle, and ever knows the sound of the fridge opening, signalling a feed. She is also playing with her toys now and she can even lift herself up if you hold her hands. Fabricators will soon be starting a new monkey pen, in what used to be my prize winning garden this week, and this will free up the pen by the house and pool, which I hope that Pixie will find acceptable, if only for a hour or two a day to start with. The other night when getting up to feed Daphne yet again, I noticed what I thought was a piece of old rope on the bedroom floor and picked it up, when I turned on the light I saw it was in fact a freshly shed snake skin of about 2 feet long. A speedy check didn’t show the owner was still in the bedroom, so I hope, in its new coat, it’s moved on to greener pastures.
