Day 9
Day 9 and sadly only a few more days here. The first job of the morning was to give any required medication to the pangolins, including both oral medication and eye drops.
The animal we had surgically removed a two scales on a few days ago was due a bandage change and wound check. This was incredibly difficult as the animal was very stressed being restrained. It was defiantly the quickest bandage I have ever removed and replaced. Going forward this particular individual would need to be managed carefully with as minimal intervention as possible, to reduce stress but still facilitate wound healing.
I helped Huong analyse some routine faecal samples in house with faecal floatation and parasite identification. Then dispensing subsequent worming treatment where required.
I was off for the afternoon as I was heading back to the centre to join in the night feed and see the pangolins and carnivores active. Several of the volunteers and I spent the afternoon in the forest, visiting the tourist sites. We had a picnic (crisps and oreos) by the lake before heading to explore the forest on bikes. We had been waiting for butterfly season since we had arrived and today they emerged. It was beautiful, I have never seen so many butterflies.
Hannah and I also spent a bit of time in the primate centre looking round and I was lucky enough to be introduced to the two small langurs I had seen earlier in the week. I joined them for play time in the garden, they were busy exploring the shrubs and trees and chasing each other. Considering their traumatic start to life they were both developing their skills well and were not afraid to climb the trees to sample the leaves.
After a quick dinner it was back to SVW for the night feeding. Starting at 6pm with the civets and leopard cats, it was great to see them out and about and so active. We then drank some green tea and prepared the ants and silk worm pupae for the pangolins food. By 8 pm the pangolins were up and active, you could hear them sniffing and moving around, some even waiting by the door of their enclosures to be fed. A very lively and noisy creature compared to the one I was used to seeing in the day.
Unfortunately it wasn’t only the pangolins that were active and out and about, my fear of spiders became well known as there were some very large and super-fast moving ones. Made even scarier as my only source of light was a tiny head torch!!
The animal we had surgically removed a two scales on a few days ago was due a bandage change and wound check. This was incredibly difficult as the animal was very stressed being restrained. It was defiantly the quickest bandage I have ever removed and replaced. Going forward this particular individual would need to be managed carefully with as minimal intervention as possible, to reduce stress but still facilitate wound healing.
I helped Huong analyse some routine faecal samples in house with faecal floatation and parasite identification. Then dispensing subsequent worming treatment where required.
I was off for the afternoon as I was heading back to the centre to join in the night feed and see the pangolins and carnivores active. Several of the volunteers and I spent the afternoon in the forest, visiting the tourist sites. We had a picnic (crisps and oreos) by the lake before heading to explore the forest on bikes. We had been waiting for butterfly season since we had arrived and today they emerged. It was beautiful, I have never seen so many butterflies.
Hannah and I also spent a bit of time in the primate centre looking round and I was lucky enough to be introduced to the two small langurs I had seen earlier in the week. I joined them for play time in the garden, they were busy exploring the shrubs and trees and chasing each other. Considering their traumatic start to life they were both developing their skills well and were not afraid to climb the trees to sample the leaves.
After a quick dinner it was back to SVW for the night feeding. Starting at 6pm with the civets and leopard cats, it was great to see them out and about and so active. We then drank some green tea and prepared the ants and silk worm pupae for the pangolins food. By 8 pm the pangolins were up and active, you could hear them sniffing and moving around, some even waiting by the door of their enclosures to be fed. A very lively and noisy creature compared to the one I was used to seeing in the day.
Unfortunately it wasn’t only the pangolins that were active and out and about, my fear of spiders became well known as there were some very large and super-fast moving ones. Made even scarier as my only source of light was a tiny head torch!!
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