Bye bye Bonnie!  This week we say goodbye to Bonnie Raphael, wildlife vet from the Bronx Zoo. Bonnie leaves us after a month of dedicated work to health check all our gibbons, and to teach us and our animal care friends at Save Vietnams Wildlife and the Turtle Conservation Center. We all learnt so much from Bonnie and look forward to her return in August! During the gibbon health checks we took the opportunity make essential renovations to our gibbon enclosures, making them safer for both our animals and keepers!

Learning together, Last week, staff from the EPRC attended a presentation and discussion on biosecurity at Hanoi Zoo. The presentation was given by Bonnie Raphael and hosted by Hanoi Zoo and Animals Asia foundation. It was a great opportunity to learn about disease control in captive animal management and discuss issues with colleagues from many different facilities in the Hanoi area.

Education: Testing the “Young Conservationists” program with keepers’ kids – Celebrating World Wildlife Day 2017. Soon we will hold the first primate education day for 2017 for schools in the National Park buffer zone. We have changed the program this year with advice from our professional volunteer from Russia, Ms Tatiana Ivannikova. Tanya has experience in environmental education throughout the world. First up we held a workshop with staff who will teach the children. Ms Phuong, Mr Dung and Ms Hanh took part in the work shop and then had the afternoon to practice with the children of EPRC staff. The aim was to connect the children to our primates, give them an understanding of the threats facing the primates of Vietnam and provide actions the kids can make to help protect them. This is also our local event to celebrate World Wildlife Day 2017. At the end of the workshop, EPRC founder, Mr Tilo Nadler, Director – Ms Sonya Prosser, and Head Keeper – Ms Elke Schwierz, gathered around with the excited kids to create some signboards giving their voice out to the world.  After 6 weeks at the EPRC, Tanya has left to her Moscow, Russia. Thank you Tanya for your great work and we hope to see you again soon! 

Newborn babies: 3 new Hatinh babies, In 2 days 8^th and 9^th of March, we’ve got 3 new Hatinh babies: one from Cuc on the 8^th and two others from Mai and Mia on the following day.  When in comes to Hatinh langur, the EPRC is the only rescue center in the world where individuals of this Critically Endangered species are kept and bred in captivity. With the latest offspring, there have been so far 4 Hatinh langurs born in the EPRC this year. 

New confiscation:  A Slow Loris kept in a bird cage in Hanoi - Last week we confiscated a slow loris being kept illegally before surrendered to us by an individual in Hanoi. through this confiscation, we want to again remind everyone that loris is not right to be a pet, since these arboreal, nocturnal animals require a large portion of insects in their diet and need to move for about 2 kilometers every night, which makes it noisy for those who keep it. When being threatened, loris can also be poisonous.