The arrival of two released pet male macaques to our centre has caused chaos, and as yet they have not been caught. As ex-pets they have little fear of humans, and we had received many complaints from near by villages, as they assumed we had released them! The two males finally found the way here, drawn to us by the heady perfume of the females no doubt and once our girls were found, there is no chance of them moving on. Their constant presence has meant that our resident monkey’s walks have been severely restricted, and the babies who normally play freely in the garden without the need for leads have been unable to go out at all. After a few days the renegades decided all our captive females are theirs, and poor Preston was attacked when out for a walk. They dropped from the trees unseen by his handler and he received a deep puncture wound, which unfortunately hit an artery. He was lucky to survive the blood loss after an emergency dash to the vet. Three more of our males have received bites, not directly from the rebels, but through fights caused by them. Our priority is to trap them, and we have been offered a safe release site when they are caught.
Essa And Injured Preston Despite all the extra work they are causing, we have still managed to integrate all the baby Langurs together even though there are three males, the older two have accepted baby “Major” thankfully.
Young Civet Cat we also now have a young civet cat, which we hope to slow release; she was bought into the IAR centre as a baby, but is now off the bottle and needing to move on.
Over the last year we have lost three of our 15 cats, due to age, as they were original rescues from the time of our arrival in India. The first of the replacements was left in the cage we provide for unwanted pets, at our gate, on Christmas day. As an older kitten, of a common colour, and female her chances of finding a home were very slim. Jingle Bells, as we called her, then unfortunately went down with cat flu, but we are hoping she will recover soon, so she can join our resident cats.
The next candidate soon appeared, as I am always picking up the abandoned animals at the local fish market. An adult and pregnant female she had obviously only just been abandoned and was attempting to attract the attention of every passerby to her plight, by running to them and in cat talk, asking for help. This phase soon passes in dumped pets as they are chased off by both the humans and resident dogs. Dottie as we have called her was very happy to be picked up and settled straight into her new life, although she still has to be spayed. With such a friendly and optimistic nature we are pleased she hasn’t had to go through the usual horrors.
Dottie the Cat Ella, the clingy and protesting baby Langur has got a little better adjusted to living with Langurs, not humans, but progress is slow. As a baby she was very sick for some time with a stomach problem and required lots of extra care and attention, this at a critical time when she should have been growing more independent, and we feel this is why she is finding it more difficult to adjust. Ella, Evie and Dennis, the baby macaque, are all still dependent on bottle feeds and all require their human mum at night, but I am keen to get some undisturbed sleep as soon as humanely possible!
