With our U.K trip approaching, weaning the still dependant Langur babies, Ella and Evie was becoming a big concern. During the day they have been staying happily with the other youngsters in their pen and although I have been leaving them out till 9 pm, each evening they have still been desperate to come back in to their mum and a bed for the night.
With only a week till we leave, a well timed breakthrough! Last night at 9pm, instead of rushing to the door to escape to their soft bed, they remained snuggled up with their sleeping friends and didn’t want to move, so they have just spent their first independent night voluntarily. This is of course a natural step but couldn’t have been better timed. In the wild , at around a year old, they would be spending less time with their mums and wanting more independence, so it’s a big relief all round that they have taken this step, as both are now just over a year old. They will of course be getting a few bottles of milk each day and coming out with all the others for walks in the garden, and they still love to be brushed and groomed too, as do Puck and Phooka.
Tom With Tufty, The Bonnet Macaque Tom, a long term Primate Trust volunteer, will be staying here and taking on the responsibility for the animals in our absence, although we are only an email away if advise is needed.
After the perfect timing with the baby langurs, not such good timing with yet more kittens, but what could I do, faced with such a deserving case for a good home, and our cat numbers still below the maximum capacity of 16!
Nugget, the kitten thrown off a motor bike at our gate and then nearly drowned by Sasha, is still here with no new home yet on offer. He has now been joined by Tash and Bingo.
Tash is a dark tortoise shell, about 5 weeks old, with a cream moustache. At the Mapusa fish market, even with the provision of cages for people to dump there unwanted pets, they often get just left in the fish market section still. The fish sellers were telling me of a small kitten they had seen dumped that morning.
Bingo and Tash despite spending a good half hour going round all the places they normally run to and hide, the rubbish piles, heaps of empty crates and such places, there was no sign, so I finally had to give up, my car being full of the monkeys fruit and vegetables and their meal time due. The fish market is always busy, crowded and very noisy and as I fought my way to the exit, striding through the throng of people I spotted tiny little Tash, a surprising and very brave response to her situation! She was obviously determined she was going to get home to her mum, despite everything. Realistically she would not do well in the lottery to be offered a new home at the I.A.R centre, being not just under age, 5 or so weeks and needing extra care, but frankly, scrawny and plain, so I took her home.
Rufus having a stretch as very young kittens don’t do as well on there own as they do with a companion, when a lone kitten of about the same age was left in our gate cage the next morning, I put them together. Bingo is ginger and white and both are doing well at the moment, and are great friends of course. The “wild” ginger tom, Rufus, that I had trapped here, as predicted is staying around and is now quite relaxed and friendly with humans, but still barely tolerated by our adult cats.
Cat with problems with back legs another cat rescue at the market when I found a 5 month old kitten tied to railings with a shoelace. Once untied it could be seen that his back legs were not working properly and although he has had several trips to the vets at the I.A.R centre for tests and treatment, to date there is little improvement, and it seems to be that we just have to wait and see how much he recovers from his injuries over the next few weeks. I had a local home lined up for a kitten of this age, sex and colour [ tabby and white] but they have of course now lost interest in having him, as he will probably always have a limp even if he improves.
I hope that Tom will be keeping you posted on all these new rescues, as well as the monkeys of course! Up to our return in July.
