The nursery is still very much bustling with babies! I am happy to say that the team has been working hard to release any animals that have grown strong enough to venture into the wild, including a beautiful spotted wood owl! She came to us a few weeks ago from the illegal pet trade, not yet having gotten it’s adult feathers, the keepers fed her and cared for her until she was big enough to go her own way in the forest of Phnom Tamao.
Of course, as for many of the species released, the keepers have been leaving out supplementary feed on various platforms to help those released to transition from being under their care to being independent in the wild. These have been particularly popular with my noisy neighbours, the recently released parakeets!
Meanwhile the released ferret badgers have decided to stay close to home, still sleeping occasionally on top of their old enclosure! For them perhaps it is going to be a slow transition but we have no doubt that one day soon they will no longer need to rely on the keepers and familiar surroundings to survive and will start to venture further into the forest!
Still sporting the baby blue eyes, our little leopard cat is winning over the hearts of the keepers, but she’s not afraid to show her wild side either, often playing in her enclosure and pouncing at passing staff! She has been moved into a larger crate now and has much more room to explore, with some added balls for her to practice her pouncing with!
Our one and only ungulates at the nursery is our young muntjac deer! She is incredibly cute! Having arrived a couple of months ago she has been cared for around the clock, with regular milk feeds and love! Now she has ventured onto solid food too and loves to frolic around in the long grass that’s been thriving in the recent rains here!
I did mention in my last update that we had some very special rescues being cared for in another part of the park. People think that they are even more vulnerable than the other babies, which is why they get super special treatment in the elephant section rather than alongside the other babies. Well now with the help of WWF we have had a third douc langur join us! This one is another female and unfortunately had to have the end of her tail removed as it was so badly damaged. Other than this she is settling in well alongside her new siblings under the doting care of our elephant keepers! I do hope they continue to grow stronger and stronger!
