AUTUMN & LILY - THE GROUND PANGOLINS
This month we are donating to Umoya Khulula Wildlife Centre in Africa.
Thank you to everyone who came on our most recent adventures! Its because of you that we are able to support such an amazing organisation and endangered wild animal.
Umoya Khulula Wildlife Centre is a non-profit rehabilitation centre for native South African wildlife. Their aim is to protect and conserve wild animals and release them back into the wild where possible.
!!!! DISCLAIMER: THESE PANGOLINS ARE NOT HOUSED ON SITE. THEY ARE KEPT AT AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION !!!!
Autumn The Ground Pangolin
Here Umoya Khulula Wildlife Centre tell us about Autumn and Lily….
“Autumn came into us after being seized from a sting operation to retrieve her. When she arrived she was in very poor condition. She was emaciated and dehydrated and we believe she had wire snare wrapped around her chest. We believe this is either how they caught Autumn or how they kept her from escaping. The wire snare had cut into the skin and her wounds were quite deep. After taking blood samples and x-rays we also saw that she was pregnant.
She received critical medical care for the first 3 days before she was strong enough to start on her rehabilitation journey - this consisted of a strong course of antibiotics as she had the beginnings of phenomena, fluids and she was tube-fed small amounts of a high protein diet. Once her blood tests were stable she was then ready to be allowed to go out and forage for herself.”
“Pangolins are nocturnal mammals and feed on primarily ants and termites. Autumn foraged for several hours every night until she was full and then would be taken back into her undisclosed location where she could rest and sleep.
It took 3 months of intensive work to get Autumn ready for release. Once we were happy that she was maintaining her weight, which was 14.5kg we then looked for a safe release site. We fitted her with telemetry and satellite tags so we could monitor her post release. We monitor all the pangolins for up to a year after release to make sure they are thriving. This is very important as sometimes the pangolins can crash when they are in the field.
Autumn took like a duck to water in her new surroundings and has been doing very well, we feared that she might have lost the baby due to all the stress that she had obtained through her ordeal, but a few weeks ago we caught her and her baby on a trail camera. She had been hiding the little one for a few months, very good mummy indeed.
We will carry on monitoring Autumn and her pup for the next 3 months to see how she is doing.”
Lily The Ground Pangolin
”Lily the pangolin has been one of the worst cases that I have seen. She was also confiscated for the illegal wildlife trade and she had been through an ordeal to say the least.
We believe that she had gone without food for 2 weeks prior to her rescue. The fact she was alive was a miracle in itself. She was skin and bones and as you can imagine very dehydrated. This frail poor pangolin was also in the early stages of pregnancy and somehow the baby was also still alive.
After she was given the all clear from the hospital she came into our care during the days and stayed overnight at an undisclosed location. She was such a nervous pangolin and would just try and run away from us at every opportunity she got. I mean can we blame her; all she had seen was torture and brutality from humans. It took a few weeks before she settled in and started to trust us a little more. She then started eating very well and started gaining weight. It was amazing to see this shell of a pangolin blossom into this healthy girl.”
“Lily stayed with us during daytimes for 4 months so we could get her in tip top condition for release. Once we were ready we picked a release site and fitted her with her tags. After a few days at the release site we could see that she was not happy. She wasn’t’ feeding well at all and she was “missioning” as far as she could. We made the choice to move her to a different release site. Once she was in the new release site she settled in immediately. Munching lot of ants and finding old aardvark dens to burrow in.
We have had no sign of her pup yet but we are hoping every day that we might get a glimpse of the little one.”
Read more about Umoya Khulula Wildlife Centre to join their Facebook page