A few weeks ago Jeffrey, Doinks, Nemo, Mowgli and a few of the others decided enough was enough and jumped over into the Junior camp, clearly undeterred by the electric wires on the fences. Consequently, Bloomie and Kayla leaped straight out of their camp to escape the conflict leaving the rest of the Junior troop to defend themselves.
Fortunately most of the Wildlife Coordinators were nearby unwinding after a long day with a cold beer, sitting by the staff accommodation which is next to these baboon camps. Quickly alerted to the noise and commotion, Jo, Flo, Keith, as well as Lucy and Gemma, ran to the scene and fortunately Johannes and Solomon, 2 of our expert baboon handlers, were also nearby. Jo and Keith tried to distract the majority of the Senior baboons with food on the far side of the camp whilst Johannes and Solomon went in and opened the small gate between the two camps for the Seniors to return obediently to their camp. As most baboons are never obedient, the process took quite a long time but eventually they went back in.
However, in the meantime the gang riot mentality of the troop meant a few of them turned on each other and poor Maria held tightly onto the electric fence, wanting to get out and was so fearful that she didn't want to let go and took the shocks. We have quite a high voltage on our baboon camp as they can be very dangerous if something were to happen. This meant poor Maria was severely affected by the shocks and it caused her to bleed.
Marlice, who had joined the event at this stage, screamed over to one of the workers to turn the electricity off and we quickly rescued her and took her immediately into the clinic. We were desperately worried as Maria was now fitting and close to death. Marlice kept her close to her, hugging her and keeping her cold with wet towels to try and reduce the fitting. All we could give her was a sugary drink and some banana as she needed a shot of Valium, a muscle relaxer, so we drove her straight to Windhoek Animal Hospital. Johannes and Flo took her in and she received the medicine she needed.Thankfully she recovered from the horrific experience.
When they returned we were very concerned about Maria's recovery so we kept her in a large transport cage for a few days for a bit of R&R. We were also concerned how the other big baboons would react to her when we put her back into her camp, considering it was them who attacked her in the first place. Johannes and Marlice took the troop of 15 baboons out for a long walk whilst Keith and some helpers brought Maria's cage into the empty camp and let her come out. When the troop came back from their walk and saw Maria she was of course the focus of attention, but thankfully in a friendly way. Since then, she has settled back in well and we have decided to build a new camp for the Senior baboons further away which will be double the size, in the hope that the two troops will live more peacefully.
Maria's not the only one of our big baboons to be in need of medical attention recently. Nemo has suffered from an incredibly serious bacteria and bladder infection which was life-threatening. Cila, N/a'an ku se's General Manager who hand raised Nemo from a baby, noticed he was looking very lethargic and tired, he wasn't running around much and had lost quite a bit of weight. Nemo is Cila's precious baby so she wasted no time taking him to Windhoek Animal Hospital, where they darted and sedated him and took several blood and urine samples.
It would take a few days for the test results to come through so they gave him a vitamin injection and put him on an IV fluid drip to rehydrate him as well as giving us some antibiotics for him. We then took him back to N/a'an ku se and kept a close eye on him. We kept him out of the camp and he stayed on Cila's stoop for his recovery where it is peaceful.
A few days later we received the results of the urine test which showed that he had a severe bacterial infection. Thankfully, it is treatable and we have put him on a 12 day course of Augmentin, an antibiotic, which we hide in yoghurt to feed him.
We have also noticed that Jeffrey has developed a bit of a bald patch on his back which we are keeping a close eye on. It could be a case of eczema but we shall keep you posted if it continues to spread.
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