Hi all!
I have been working at a Safari Park in Thailand for some weeks now, bringing in volunteers from all over the world who have the skills needed to improve the lives of animals living here.
Currently we are updating 22 (13ft x 17ft) cages (some empty) containing 2 binturongs, 1 asiatic golden cat, 3 leopards, 6 macaques (1 x lion tailed, 4 x pig tailed and 1 x stump tailed) 2 white handed gibbons and 1 phayre's langur. All cages when we arrived had never been opened - the animals were brought in from the pet trade, dumped in these small concrete blocks, the door was locked and the only interaction was to feed them a handful of rice and 2 bananas a day thrown on the floor where the cockroaches would compete for the food. Truely shocking.
We have introduced new diets meeting their requirements (with the exception of the Phayre's langur - how do we find out what leaves are edible for her? - now on 600g of mixed fruit and 20g of carrot a day) and cleaned the years of urine build up that had accumulated on the concrete floors of all the cages. The volunteers are up at the binturong enclosure now fitting a 3ft deep permanent water feature and we need to be updating all cages.
As for materials, we have not been denied anything we have asked for.
But we really would like a team of experts that we can consult when we get stuck, especially with regards to the asiatic cat who has lost his front right paw due to being caught in a trap in the jungle and is getting very fat, very quickly.
We would also LOVE to see any enclosure designs that people may come up with. We have hundreds of acre of jungle to play with to get the animals outside and lots of volunteers with building, carpenting and welding skills arriving almost constantly to help.
Any advice re: training any of the animals (especially the binturongs) would be really useful.
We are all working for free, paying our own way so that the park has every reason to keep this project going. We work 6am until midnight, 7 days a week, but when the gibbons started to groom us, and the angry frustrated stump tail stopped shaking his cage every time someone walked past, it makes us realise that this is all worth it You can track our progress on www.facebook.com/safarivolunteer
Thanks in advance for your time
I have been working at a Safari Park in Thailand for some weeks now, bringing in volunteers from all over the world who have the skills needed to improve the lives of animals living here.
Currently we are updating 22 (13ft x 17ft) cages (some empty) containing 2 binturongs, 1 asiatic golden cat, 3 leopards, 6 macaques (1 x lion tailed, 4 x pig tailed and 1 x stump tailed) 2 white handed gibbons and 1 phayre's langur. All cages when we arrived had never been opened - the animals were brought in from the pet trade, dumped in these small concrete blocks, the door was locked and the only interaction was to feed them a handful of rice and 2 bananas a day thrown on the floor where the cockroaches would compete for the food. Truely shocking.
We have introduced new diets meeting their requirements (with the exception of the Phayre's langur - how do we find out what leaves are edible for her? - now on 600g of mixed fruit and 20g of carrot a day) and cleaned the years of urine build up that had accumulated on the concrete floors of all the cages. The volunteers are up at the binturong enclosure now fitting a 3ft deep permanent water feature and we need to be updating all cages.
As for materials, we have not been denied anything we have asked for.
But we really would like a team of experts that we can consult when we get stuck, especially with regards to the asiatic cat who has lost his front right paw due to being caught in a trap in the jungle and is getting very fat, very quickly.
We would also LOVE to see any enclosure designs that people may come up with. We have hundreds of acre of jungle to play with to get the animals outside and lots of volunteers with building, carpenting and welding skills arriving almost constantly to help.
Any advice re: training any of the animals (especially the binturongs) would be really useful.
We are all working for free, paying our own way so that the park has every reason to keep this project going. We work 6am until midnight, 7 days a week, but when the gibbons started to groom us, and the angry frustrated stump tail stopped shaking his cage every time someone walked past, it makes us realise that this is all worth it You can track our progress on www.facebook.com/safarivolunteer
Thanks in advance for your time
