Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital, is a unique city. What other cities in the world have a 180 hectare nature sanctuary with pristine woodland habitat at their core, giving safe haven to hyenas, bushpigs, monkeys and antelopes?
But not all animals in Malawi are so fortunate. As one of the poorest countries in the world, many of Malawi’s residents are forced to hunt for bushmeat, badly depleting wildlife populations in many of the national parks and other protected areas. If the animal that has been poached has a baby, rather than adding selling it for meat, poachers can often make a lot more money if the baby is caught and sold as a pet. The illegal pet trade is a huge problem in Malawi and animals that end up being sold often spend their entire life on a chain or a short tether, never having the chance to taste true freedom.
Set at the core of Lilongwe’s nature sanctuary, the Malawi Wildlife Centre Project rehabilitates the victims of the illegal pet trade and then wherever possible, releases them back into the wild so they can live out their lives as nature intended. The project also has a commitment to education, teaching local people about conservation and wildlife, animal care, as well as addressing livelihood issues in order to try to tackle the problems that force people into poaching and the illegal pet trade in the first place.
All of the animals at the Centre receive the highest possible standards of care. As a volunteer you can get involved with the feeding and caring of the animals, the construction of huge enclosures for them to live, the delivery of educations sessions to local children, the removal of invasive plant species and their replacement with indigenous ones, the cutting of trails through the forest, learning about the areas native birds, plants and animals and much more. One of the animals that you might get to work with is Lucky:
Lucky’s Story (a yellow baboon)
Lucky first came to our attention in July 2007 when we received a call from a concerned tourist who had seen a young baboon for sale in Salima Market, 100km east of Lilongwe. We immediately went to investigate and soon found the illegal vendor with Lucky on a 3m chain; the same one he had been tied to for the last 3 years. Lucky's mother had been killed for bushmeat and her tiny orphaned baby, who was too small to be worth eating, had been sold into the illegal pet trade.
Back at the Wildlife Centre, when the time came to release him into his new enclosure that we realised that the chain around his middle had clearly never been loosened. During the three years that Lucky had been tethered, he had done a lot of growing and his flesh had engulfed the chain, leaving the most horrific wound.
One of the team involved in the rescue said that in 12 years of working with primates rescued from the illegal pet trade, he had never seen such a horrendous case of mistreatment.
With much care and attention, Lucky has made a complete recovery and has been successfully integrated into one of the Centre's two baboon troops which are scheduled for release back into the wild in 2008.
You can combine this project with our Southern Africa Explorer
We also offer this project to GAP volunteers click here for more detail