WFFT Week 3

Dum Dum the baby gibbon

This week has been very eventful, there has been SOOOO many animal escapes, quite unbelievable! All but one have been macaque escapes, they are very intelligent animals. When you place them in the side enclosure to clean out their cages, they pick up the lock or carabina clip and turn it over in their hands, you can see their minds ticking over about the best way to open them. One macaque has to have his cage padlocked because he figured out how to get the carabina clip off...very crafty!

Had a scary experience... I was standing there with Liz and the volunteer co-ordinator, Emma, watching the two baby sunbears meeting each other face to face for the first time, it was very touching. Then, all of a sudden, the whole field of long-tail macaques next to the bear cage came wandering out of their gate, one of the Thai staff had locked the padlock and closed the gate, but had accidentally left the key in the lock Of course macaques, being the inquisitive and highly intelligent creatures they are, figured out how to unlock the padlock with the key and all came out for a look around. There was the alpha male, followed by two other males, then 6 females. They were no harm to us, but it was quite scary because they are 4-5 times stronger than a human, and if they are angry, can rip out your jugular with their long teeth!! Thankfully they went straight back into their field once the Thai keeper came along.

Another event at the Centre was one of our Leopard Cats went missing. I was in charge of feeding Nocturnals the night before, so was quite distressed it could have been let out because of me. Emma assured me it was not my fault...and that a python had got into their cage during the night and strangled and ate the male cat of the pair, then couldn't get back out of the cage again. The Thai staff removed it early in the morning but the volunteers who went in to clean the cage later that morning thought it had escaped. Unfortunately I was at the hospital later in the day and the python decided to regurgitate the poor cat, not a pleasant sight. On a more pleasant note, we went to Hua Hin twice this week, once on Thursday for Maria's leaving do, of course we also visited the Night Markets.

Hua Hin Night markets

On Saturday we went again for the Jazz Festival on the beach, which was amazing!!! Afterwards we went to Wave Bar which is a HUGE club with a predominantly Thai patronage, which has live a Thai band and lots of dancing. We got to sit in the VIP area and they poured our drinks, was the best night out ever!

Huan Hin Jazz Festival

Fun at Wave Bar