2009 March | Lola Ya Bonobo

Ahhh!

Category: the sanctuary | Date: Mar 31 2009 | By: lolayabonobo

The keepers found a gabon viper in the bonobo forest! Gabon vipers are the dragons of sub-Saharan Africa. Two horns perch between the nose, and beneath the pale eyes are two geometric brown stripes, flowing outwards like river deltas. They have the longest fangs and spew the most venom of any poisonous snake.

If these fangs find you, the initial symptoms are intense pain and blistering around the bite. Your tongue and eyelids swell, you go into convulsions, you may defecate or urinate uncontrollably before you lose consciousness. You start to haemorrhage in your lungs, intestine, and urinary tract. Eventually, the venom erodes the muscles around the heart and you die of a heart attack.

Can you believe it?? brian says he’s sad because he likes snakes but personally i’m glad it’s dead. don’t want to mess around with even the chance it would find me, or the bonobos!

Tags: gabon viper in forest

6 responses so far

Food for Sex

Category: bonobos | Date: Mar 31 2009 | By: lolayabonobo

someone in the comments asked me what we were doing in congo and now i’m pleased to introduce our new study: food for sex. it’s no secret that whenever there is food around, bonobos have sex. to ease the tension, and to stop fighting - in chimps - the dominant gets the food and if anyone else tries to take it, he beats them up. in bonobo, there seems to be a more egalitarian way of doing it and when there’s food around, especially EXPENSIVE food, like green apples flown in from south africa at $100 a box, they go crazy. everyone has sex, so everyone seems to get a little bit.

but what’s never been shown in an experiment before is whether they EXCHANGE food for sex. so yeah, they have sex, but will they give food in exchange for it?

Tags: bonobo sex, food for sex, sex for food

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Flu

Category: bonobos, the sanctuary | Date: Mar 30 2009 | By: lolayabonobo

Thank you to Carole Riley, Natacha Santos, Andrew Francis, Angelita Fair …

And a very BIG thank you to Jason Comeaux, who donated $400.

Thanks to our Wildlife Direct donors:
Maciej G.
Theresa S.
Corinna M.
Kit C
Ji-ln L.
Sherri S.
Dina C.
Wanda H.
Robin D.

No one died today, (thank god) but Lukuru has a snotty nose, which is the first sign of it. Please please pleeeeeese don’t let it spread through the nursery!

Tags: flu at the sanctuary, lukuru, thank you donors

6 responses so far

Lola in Trouble

Category: bonobos, the sanctuary | Date: Mar 28 2009 | By: lolayabonobo

I have some sad news. Kindu was found dead in the forest. This flu epidemic is absolutely horrible. Claudine thinks it was the terrible virus that ran through Kinshasa. There is no fever. Antiobiotics don’t do anything. The bonobos have severe respiratory infections and then they can’t breath for 3 days then they die. It’s 6 bonobos in a month now, including Mimi and her baby.

I know we’re doing a release drive but at the moment we desperately need funds for Lola. Because of the financial crisis, we have a shortfall this year for the sanctuary. Anything you can spare would help so much.

The flu virus has hit group 2 and there are 10 bonobos sick. I can’t take anyone else dying!!! I miss mimi so much. Then mixa, Mimi’s baby, Kisantu’s baby, Lodja. I haven’t had time to process any of it. Claudine told me this morning about the shortfall in the budget and i couldn’t believe it. Please send anything you can.

I just hope it doesn’t spread to the nursery or group 3. If Lomela or Kata or Lukuru or any one of the babies gets sick i think i’ll go crazy!

xxV.

Sweet Kindu

Tags: bonobos dying of flu, flu at the sanctuary, kindu

9 responses so far

Tough Day

Category: bonobos, the sanctuary | Date: Mar 27 2009 | By: lolayabonobo

we had a really sad day today. Mixa, a little boy from group 1 died today. He was the most special little bonobo, Brian’s favourite. He was always laughing and happy. And he would run up and down the fence line wanting to play. he loved to splash around in the water. we don’t really know what happened, we found him drowned in the lake. he might have fallen into the deep part, he might have been sick, we’ve been having the most terrible cold epidemic and the bonobos are taking it hard. it’s emergency mode here, just tying to get from one day to the next … all the staff are really sad. with mimi’s baby, mimi, and now mixa.

Mixa

then i got this message which really cheered me up …

Dear Vanessa,

I don’t know if you remember me, Marie? I am the 11-years-old girl who sponsor Masisi. Yesterday, I looked the news of Lola ya Bonobo on the Web site, and I read that Masisi was very healthy. I was so happy to learn those great news! Last month, at school, we had to prepare an oral presentation on a foundation or an organisme that we love. I did it on Lola ya Bonobo and I showed some pictures of Masisi to my friends. They fell in love with her. Every day, they ask me “How is Masisi? Is she growing up?”

I just wanted to have some news. If you want to answer me, please send your e-mail to boyoma1 at hotmail.com.

Thank you to take care of the cute little Masisi. Transmit her my greetings(can we say this in english?!),

Marie Haroon

Tags: fan mail, masisi, Mixa's death

5 responses so far

Thanks for the Donations!

Category: release project | Date: Mar 26 2009 | By: lolayabonobo

hey! we made it to past $1000 for the release! thanks to the generous donations of Sarah Chancel ($100) John and Bretta Fox ($200). John came to our board meeting last year and gave us some great ideas for taking bonobos into U.S. classrooms and we’re currently working on a lesson plan now.

So all in all we’re up to $1135!!

Aiming for $20,000 by the end of july, so we’re 1/20th of the way there!

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to donate to the bonoboo release. Just use the donations widget on this page.

Tags: release project

No responses yet

Interview!

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 25 2009 | By: lolayabonobo

Hey, here’s an interview you might be interested in on Paw Talk:

http://www.paw-talk.net/blog/19-general/1809-plight-of-the-bonobos.html

Paw-Talk is a forum and blog for pet enthusiasts and animal lovers interested in discussing the latest news, events, issues, tips, and personal experiences about their pets and animals. I think it’s awesome they’re branching out to educated people about endangered species, starting with bonobos!

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Semendwa’s Baby

Category: bonobos, release project | Date: Mar 23 2009 | By: lolayabonobo

it’s a boy! semendwa has had another baby - Leki, which means ‘the first little brother’ because no other babies have a little brother except leki’s sister, elikia. isn’t he darling? i couldn’t get a very good face shot, but i assure you his little wrinkly face is just too too cute!

it’s important for the bonobos at lola to have babies, because we are hoping that mothers with infants will provide the focal groups for the bonobos who are being released. in the wild, the group centres around mother and infant pairs, so we hope this will encourage the group to stick together. Also, if the bonobos are going to be wild, they need to know how to raise babies, and now semendwa has had excellent practise!!

we’ve just got in all our donations from wildlife direct, so we’ll be giving you an update on our progress for fund raising for the release.

if you haven’t already, don’t forget to donate over at the donations widget on the right. See it, over there?

Tags: leki, release project, semendwa's baby

2 responses so far

Boyoma

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 19 2009 | By: lolayabonobo

Lomela was nowhere in sight but i did get a glimpse of the nose picking monster - boyoma. although he struck me as kind of grown up. He shared food with baby moyi, he ate his papaya with minimum mess, and there was barely a booger in sight! i was almost sad … maybe it was too hot.

Boyoma with baby Moyi