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WVI has been partnering with West African Primate Conservation Action (WAPCA) since 2020, as they work towards being in a position to release a number of currently captive white-naped mangabeys into the wild.
Officially Endangered, there are an estimated 1000 wild white-naped mangabeys left. Where they were once widespread in Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Bukina Faso, they are now found only in increasingly isolated pockets of forest. Their decline over the last forty years is due largely to deforestation and hunting. When animals are confined to small islands of habitat, an outbreak of disease can quickly wipe out a population.
The Role of WVI
WVI is providing veterinary support to the project, including the initial production (in 2021) of a comprehensive Disease Risk Assessment (DRA) by our Veterinary Advisor, Dr Jane Hopper. Very little is currently known about what diseases affect mangabeys. The DRA is a living document, which will be used to guide each step towards reintroduction. This is vital in order to make sure the mangabeys would neither be likely to introduce new diseases at the release site, nor to contract them from existing wildlife.
Vet nurse Matthew Rendle provides on-going remote support to the Ghanaian veterinary and keeper team, while paying an annual in-person visit. During his visit in 2021, Matt took with him a bespoke clinical examination kit – essentially a repurposed ambulance parabag stuffed with useful equipment and supplies. Inside were collection kits for health screening, instruments for checking eyes, ears and mouths in order to identify any problems, and basic anaesthetic and first aid equipment – the use of which Matt was able to demonstrate to local veterinary staff.
The following year, he was able to provide the team at Accra Zoo with a bespoke post mortem kit, and comprehensive practical training in how to use it. It might not seem like the most romantic aspect of wildlife medicine, but it is a particularly vital one. Proper disease surveillance and risk assessment is crucial to any conservation effort that may involve reintroduction of a species back into the wild, and knowing exactly why individual animals have died is a vital part of that process.
Matt had the opportunity to demonstrate use of the kit on a recently deceased patas monkey while he was visiting; around 15 members of the zoo’s veterinary and keeper team joined him while he demonstrated how efficiently and quickly the procedure can be done, even when resources are limited. He was able to show everyone how to take blood, obtain a full range of tissue samples, and examine the gastrointestinal tract.
During the same visit, Matt Matthew and WAPCA Project Manager, Andrea Dempsey, went held a joint interactive training session on primate care for the whole Accra Zoo veterinary and keeper teams. This was a chance to cover a wide range of topics – geriatric care, signs of illness, administration of medication, ways of improving compliance, like training animals to accept certain medical procedures in return for rewards – which will help the zoo team improve the welfare of their captive primates, many of whom come to the zoo because they have been rescued from the illegal pet trade.
CPD Training in the UK
In 2023 we were able to bring local vets Dr Samuel Asumah and Dr Gilbert Gyebi, who both work with the mangabeys, to the UK for a fortnight of professional development training. They spent an intense two weeks shadowing vet teams at Paradise Wildlife Park, Twycross Zoo and Woburn Safari Park, as well as visiting the The Royal Veterinary College and having a chance to experience the London Vet Show.
Future Plans
In 2025, Matt will be returning to Ghana to carry out essential health screening for a group of captive mangabeys at the Kumasi site, which will mitigate against risks identified by the DRA. This will not only bring the animals a step closer to potential release, but will be an invaluable opportunity to continue to train and build the veterinary capacity of the local team. Fecal and blood samples will be collected, and dental assessments carried out. All findings will be documented and will be used to produce a SOP for future procedures. This will hopefully be published so that other NGO’s can use the format and/or content.
WAPCA’s Wider Role
WAPCA plays an important role in the local community and has been instrumental in setting up an initiative to produce organic coconut oil which has created an alternative source of income, helping empower local women. A system of Forest Wardens is also now in operation, to help control illegal poaching and protect the remaining habitat against biodiversity loss. Initiatives like these are vital components of a more holistic approach to conservation and ending the destruction of habitat, to the benefit of both wildlife and humans.
Your support helps rescue and rehabilitate endangered white-naped mangabeys, bringing them one step closer to life in the wild.
Make a difference and donate todayThe Story So Far
Training Vets. Saving Turtles
The Mediterranean is full of plastic. The turtles who live there eat it and get entangled in it. Like all marine turtle species, however, the Mediterranean’s turtles are threatened not just by plastic pollution, but also by more general habitat degradation and loss, as well as malicious attacks by fishermen. In addition, they risk being struck by boats – often carrying tourists – or being accidentally caught in fishing nets. This all results in a wide range of injuries to the heads, limbs and shells of turtles, in addition to the problems caused by ingested plastic which can block and damage their guts and even affect their buoyancy.
WVI is providing training, practical advice and support to two Mediterranean sealife rescue centres in Greece and Spain. The aim is to support advances in the treatment, survival and successful rehabilitation of the Mediterranean’s sick and injured turtles. The CRAM Foundation for the Conservation and Rehabilitation of Marine Animals is located in Barcelona, Spain and the ARCHELON Sea Turtle Rescue Centre is in Athens, Greece.
The visiting vet teams help train local staff and volunteers, who often have little previous knowledge of reptile medicine, in general turtle care, wound management, pain relief, anaesthesia, rehydration techniques, physiotherapy and effective nutrition. In addition, they demonstrate the taking and analysing of blood samples to aid diagnosis as well as how to correctly interpret X-rays.
By working together with local staff we can significantly improve the care and treatment of rescued turtles, in order to increase their chances of successful release back into the wild.
Our work with rescue centres in the Mediterranean follows on from our project with the Marine Conservation Society, Seychelles. We have been supporting the work of MCSS for several years, having initially helped them acquire X-ray and anaesthetic equipment. WVI provided training in the use of the equipment, and we continue to give support and expert opinion whenever they encounter an unusual or difficult case. The centre is running very smoothly now, but the X-ray machine is due for a service and we need to raise £1,000 in order to send specialists out to do this. Please click here if you would like to donate to help this happen
The Problem Today
The Need for Specialist Support
There is a huge need for training non-specialist vets, rehabilitators and volunteers who work with sick and injured turtles at CRAM and ARCHELON.
Turtles have a very unique and ancient biology, and live in habitats very different to those the centres can provide, leading to some very specific husbandry and veterinary needs.
Often the vets who work at the centres will not themselves be reptile experts but are likely to be small animal vets who are happy to help out. Much of the day-to-day medical care falls to centre managers who are more likely to be biologists by training. Resources for permanent reptile experts are usually scarce.
This is where WVI can help.
An estimated quarter of the turtles arriving at the ARCHELON Rescue Centre in Greece are suffering from plastic ingestion or the consequence of collisions with boats. Another quarter will be victims of entanglement, having become caught up in fishing gear or other debris, which sometimes results in amputations.
Remaining victims will typically have been injured through the deliberate actions of humans. There is a small section of the fishing community who feel they are in competition with turtles, which can damage their nets. They will attack turtles they feel threaten their catch, often leading to serious head wounds, which can even leave the brain exposed.
Although they may not show any clinical symptoms, all of the turtles coming into the centre will have plastics in their guts. Click here for more information on the problems that plastics cause.
There are a number of areas where WVI can help with clinical training and support, as well as advising on recuperative husbandry measures.For example, the level of UV that the turtles are exposed to needs to be relatively high and constant to avoid problems with calcification. The temperature of the tanks where the turtles are housed needs to be warm enough to allow them to metabolise properly. If it’s too cold, they can’t process food properly and it starts to rot in their guts, while drugs can’t be properly absorbed. Replicating a marine environment in terms of pressure and noise is difficult in a rehabilitation centre, particularly when it is advisable for head wounds to be kept out of the water initially.
If you’d like to know more about just how turtles are affected by plastic in our oceans you can read our background briefing document here.
What WVI is doing to help
By working in partnership to train and support the staff of two flagship turtle rescue centres in the Mediterranean, WVI is helping build local expert capacity. This in turn improves the welfare of turtles in the care of the centres, and significantly increases the likelihood of recovery and successful release back into the wild – ultimately improving the chances of survival for these threatened turtle species.
CRAM
Marine specialist vet Tania Monreal makes regular monthly visits to CRAM in Barcelona, where she provides expert veterinary training and advice to staff, students and volunteers. The centre is responsible for the rescue and rehabilitation of a high number of green turtles, which are typically victims of plastic pollution, toxic waste or accidental capture by fishing boats.
CRAM also cares for sea birds, dolphins and whales which have become stranded on the Catalan coast. The animals treated by CRAM are often suffering from severe injuries and illnesses, most of which are a result of human activity.
The centre has to deal with a huge range of difficult and challenging cases and Tania’s experience is invaluable in helping staff treat turtles and other animals successfully, gaining valuable practical knowledge in the process. Aside from giving on-the-job training, Tania is available to give advice remotely, and has already produced a series of ‘How To’ videos. She is also helping with the on-going development of protocols tailored to the particular needs and specifics of species, the available facilities and the experience of staff.
Turtles which are accidentally caught by fishing boats and brought abruptly to the surface can suffer from decompression sickness and CRAM now has a decompression chamber to help combat the problem, which can also be seen in dolphins.
Turtles can also drown. Although some species can stay underwater for many hours at a time, they do need to breathe. Drowning is most likely as a result of being caught in discarded fishing gear or other plastic waste and being unable to return to the surface. At CRAM drowned turtles are treated with acupuncture as well as more conventional techniques to remove fluid from the lungs.
ARCHELON
In 2019 marine specialist vet Tania Monreal and veterinary nurse Matt Rendle began making regular trips to train and advise the permanent staff of the ARCHELON Rescue Centre, as part of a new partnership between WVI and
ARCHELON The Sea Turtle Protection Society of Greece. The Rescue Centre is situated on the coast of the Aegean Sea, in Athens’ southern suburb of Glyfada.
Our work with ARCHELON is focused on providing several days of face-to-face training on a regular basis, augmented with on-going remote support, to the Rescue Centre team. By helping build the confidence of the local team in handling the more straightforward cases so that turtles can pass through the centre more quickly, we hope that support can then be reduced to providing help with just the more technically complex cases.
Turtles are very resilient and can survive serious injury. However without optimal care their recovery can be very slow and they don’t get returned to the sea as fast as they could.
As a specialist in the care, rehabilitation and conservation of marine and aquatic animals, Tania has been giving training on appropriate veterinary protocols and techniques. Matt has been sharing his expertise in wound care and healing, as well as in exotic anaesthesia.
Practical clinical training has focused on anaesthetic and resuscitation techniques This has included the correct use of an AMBU bag for victims of suspected drowning and how to use local anaesthetic when debriding wounds – cutting away dead or diseased tissue in order to promote healing. They have also helped volunteers learn how to take blood and test for possible infection, and shown staff how they can get better use out of their existing equipment.
A visit to a local medical centre has allowed Matt and Tania to demonstrate how to correctly X-ray a turtle and how to get the most from the resulting images. Matt has also been able to demonstrate how to give a turtle effective physiotherapy!
Diet is important in the recovery of malnourished and debilitated turtles. Matt and Tania have helped the centre improve the nutrient basis of the diet they offer through the use of supplements and Lafeber’s Emeraid Critical Care. Emeraid in particular offers a highly digestible and balanced source of nutrition, which includes fluids. It can be given to turtles after surgery as well as to severely depleted individuals when they arrive at the centre, and can be a major boost to recovery while requiring minimal effort to prepare.
All of this shared expertise goes towards ensuring that the loggerhead turtles coming into the centre are given the best care possible in order to speed up their recovery and increase their chances of successful release back into the wild.
What Progress isbeing made?
Since cooperation with WVI began in early 2019, turtles at the ARCHELON
rescue centre have benefited from better pain relief, improved nutrition and faster wound healing. This in turn is leading to quicker improvements in their overall health. The ARCHELON Rescue Centre is the only one of its kind in Greece and treats sick and injured turtles from around the country
ARCHELON has played a crucial role in the recovery of the Mediterranean’s loggerhead turtle population, which has gone from being Critically Endangered to being a species of Least Concern in the IUCN ratings for risk of extinction. (The rating for the global population of the loggerhead turtle is Vulnerable.)
ARCHELON estimates that, if it were to stop its current activities, the Mediterranean’s loggerhead turtles could become Near Threatened in as little as five years. It is generally acknowledged that the recovery of the population is entirely thanks to, and dependent on, intensive conservation work and WVI is committed to helping further these efforts to ensure the future of the loggerhead.
At CRAM in Barcelona, all the turtles released back into the Mediterranean are tagged and some have transmitters to allow their progress to be monitored. One turtle was successfully released despite having only three flippers, following amputation and a decade in captivity, and was then tracked passing through the strong currents of the Straits of Gibraltar before crossing the Atlantic. Ten months after release, signals were still being received from the turtle. This just proves how good husbandry, veterinary care and planning can mean even the most challenging of cases can be released with a good chance of survival. Read Tania’s paper which contains full details of this remarkable story here.
WVI’s work in the Mediterranean builds on our previous cooperation with the Marine Conservation Society of the Seychelles. Read more about this project
here. The MCSS rescue centre in Mahé is now very self-sufficient, although WVI veterinary specialists remain available to advise on particularly difficult or unusual cases.
Partners
This project would not be possible without the work our Partners in the Field do throughout the year nor the financial support we get from many organisations and individuals.
WVI would like to thank all of them:
Partners in the field
- CRAM Foundation for the Conservation and Rehabilitation of Marine Animals
- ARCHELON Sea Turtle Rescue Centre
- International Zoo Veterinary Group (IZVG)
Supporters
- Mary Skilton
