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The building begins…

by | Dec 11, 2011 | Belize 2011/12, Expeditions

It’s been a full week here in Belize and after decimating carefully managing the environment to clear around an acre of land for the new primate enclosures. But it hasn’t all been hard work:

On Friday we had a day off travelling to Lamanai, an ancient Mayan city with the highest Mayan temple in Belize which is suitably named the ‘High Temple’. This was our first day outside of our jungle home since we arrived. On our trip we encountered three crocodiles, a wide variety of birds and bats, howler monkeys and two spider monkeys which were, unbeknownst to us, illegally placed there and are going to be the first monkeys in the new enclosure we’re building.

Clearing the area for the monkeys took a good few days and the site we were working on was a Mayan ruin itself although we haven’t found anything but a few pieces of pottery. Building the cage has finally begun, the idea is that it’s around four times the volume of the cage it’s replacing.

Adrian and Zach

Project underway

by | Dec 7, 2011 | Belize 2011/12

Hi all. Just coming to the end of our 3rd full day here already. Spent Monday cleaning down our new home and moved in. We are staying in the original hut built by HSX on their first visit here back in 94(ish). Some great construction, it’s still standing strong. Found lots of mice, scorpions, bats and other crawlies but hopefully they have moved out now!

Tuesday was great, we were shown the Manati here (Twiggy) and the 10 monkeys in various cages. Was good to hear more detail about what we will be working on and what help we can be. As soon as we have the pre-release enclosure set up some of the howlers will be introduced to it, as they progress to full release next year.

Today the bulk of the work started; clearing jungle for the new cages and painting the hut white. I’m sure everyone will sleep well!

Apologies for the lack of pics, my camera phone has died so can’t upload via wifi. Will try to transfer some from a camera next time.

Ian

Wildtracks – our new home

by | Dec 5, 2011 | Belize 2011/12

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So after a very long day travelling (up at 4am, arrived 830pm) we reached Wildtracks. Below is the view from our back garden this morning, not bad huh?

Everyone in good spirits and looking forward to setting up our camping area today.