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Newsletter - Chapter 4

Summer 2009

Index
- New Comers
- Saying Goodbye
- Projects
- Funny Tales From the Fortress!
- Funky Facts
- Jungle Jokes
- Summary Letter

New Comers,

Atahualpa
Atahualpa was brought to the animal sanctuary as her owner was going travelling for an extended period of time. She is a 7 foot long, very friendly boa constrictor! She has settled in very well at the animal sanctuary and has begun meeting new people at the children’s' parties we go to!

Billy and Yosi
Billy and Yosi were 5 months old when they were brought to the sanctuary. Originally bought as a gift, their owner was unable to house them correctly as she lived in a flat. After getting a little too big (and a bit too nibbly!) to live in a flat, they were brought to Jungle Fortress. This story is a perfect example of how animals generally make bad gifts, and are seen as disposable... It was lucky for Billy and Yosi that their owner saw one of our school workshops. If you are going to buy a pet for yourself or anyone else, make sure it can be looked after to a high standard for its whole life!

Mr S

Mr S is an adult corn snake. He came to us as his owner was no longer able to look after him. He is very friendly, and often comes to events and encounters with us, enjoying meeting lots of new people!

Shelldon
Here at Jungle Fortress we see a lot of terrapins and Shelldon, the latest arrival, got here just in time! Found wandering along a road by a member of another animal care organisation (London Wildcare), he came to the sanctuary just as Terra Lake opened. After a quick vet check to make sure he was healthy, Shelldon was released into his new home to meet his new friends! Unfortunatley we forgot to take a photograph of him before we released him into Terra Lake. So we do not have a good photo of him to show you. There is a photo of Terra Lake later on in this newsletter - Shelldon is in there somewhere!

Mort

Mort is as baby Bearded Dragon, his owner came to us as a last resort as Mort needed an urgent leg amputation but could not afford the operation. As soon as we could we organised for the leg to be amputated, and he has now recovered very well and can hunt surprisingly well with only 3 legs!

Spikey and Skippy

Spikey

Skippy

These 2 Uromastyx were brought to us as they were being housed together and began fighting. After one had bitten the others leg off their owner decided to give us a ring and see if we could rehome them both. They now live in seperate enclosures safely from damaging each other, and the 3 legged Uromastyx has coped very well with a leg missing.

Melonie
Melonie is a Yellow Tree Monitor. Have you ever seen a Yellow Tree Monitor in a zoo? Chances are probably not. That's because it is not known how many there are left in the wild, and they are VERY rare in captivity. Only discovered in 1997, Yellow Tree Monitors are an arboreal Varanid lizard species, which mainly feed on insects and small animals. As obligate carnivores they do not eat any vegetable, plant or fruit matter, and are excellent hunters. We are currently looking for more Yellow Tree Monitors to breed with Melonie.

Saying Goodbye…

Sadly Dorak, the 5ft Argus monitor which arrived with Isis, passed away just after publication of the last newsletter. He died in a matter of hours from a severe gut infection, with few preceding clinical signs. He will be sorely missed by all the staff at Jungle Fortress, who enjoyed trying to re-lead train him (when he arrived he came with a lead and the instruction that if you could get the lead on him he was a treat to walk!). At our new premises we are currently working on 'Dorak's Secret Garden', a tribute garden to this cold-blooded, warm-hearted giant.

Projects

Terra Lake

In the past few months we have completed projects at the animal sanctuary such as Terra Lake a very large pond specially built for the terrapins housed at the animal sanctuary. The size of the the pond means we will be able to house many terrapins which come to the sanctuary needing a home!

Isis's Enclosure

We have also completed Isis's new enclosure she now has an indoor and outdoor section to her enclosure where she can bask in the sunshine. As well as this she has a very big pond to swim in, being a Nile Monitor this is very important as she is semi aquatic. Her enclosure is also specially designed so that she can dig a burrow in the substrate another natural behaviour which is important for her to display.

Rabbit & Guinea Pig Shire
We have also nearly completed the Rabbit and Guinea Pig Shire! These enclosures are designed for the rabbits to be able to burrow below a nice layer of soil. As well as this the spacious enclosures means that we can house many different animals with the rabbits such as Guinea pigs, chipmunks, and birds. We have currently completed 3 of these wonderful enclosures and are planning to build more!

All these projects although they are complete we still need funding towards them. If you are planning a fund raiser please keep Jungle Fortress Animal Sanctuary in mind to put your funds towards as we do need every penny we get!

Funny Tails From The Fortress...

Mouse
Mouse is a very naughty Dumbo Rat. Although she is housed at the animal sanctuary she is in fact a staff pet. A couple of times we found her in the boys cage. We were a bit confused because sometimes we socialise the girl rats with the boys but we keep a close watch for them breeding as we had no intention of having more rats. So we thought we had forgotten and we had left her in the boys cage by mistake! After a couple more times of finding her in with Renton and Begbie (the male rats) we discovered that she was able to squeeze herself between the bars of her cage and into the boys. This was again surprising, as it meant she had not simply climbed from one cage to another, but crossed a whole room to go and see them! We subsequently ended up with lots of rat babies, and are being cared for by the Jungle Fortress staff. Mouse has been a very naughty girl!

Natterjack
It was a very exciting day at Jungle Fortress, the new chipmunk and rabbit enclosures were ready to have animals housed in them! Natterjack was put in a carry case to be transported to his new enclosure but somehow managed to squeeze himself out of a very small gap in the carry case! Natterjack made us run after him for quite sometime before going into the neighbours field where our neighbours watched the 3 of us chasing after a very quick and very small animal! Finally we all pounced on him and managed to catch him and put him into his new enclosure. He now lives with Fluffy the rabbit and Salt the Cockatiel in an enclosure so big he could never get bored!

Terra Lake
When we first arrived at the new Jungle Fortress site there was a lovely pond with fish and Frogs, but after we built Terra Lake the very large frog decided he wanted to move to a bigger home! At first we saw him basking in the sunshine on the edge of the lake and jumping into the water. We were worried the Terrapins living in the large pond would hurt the frog but we later saw him basking in the sunshine with his scaly friends! Britain's frogs have been slowly decreasing in numbers so when we discovered we had frogs living in the Jungle Fortress grounds, we were thrilled!

Funky Facts

- Fruit bats are like the Jungles bumble bees for large fruit trees. This is because they pollinate the trees when flying from fruit tree to fruit tree!

- A Parrot has the same intelligence as a 4 year old child! One African Grey Parrot had the vocabulary of around 900 words!

- Baby Komodo Dragons live in trees in order to avoid being eaten by larger older ground dwelling members of the same species.

- In order to control their population, rabbits are able to re-absorb developing foetuses while pregnant!

- Chickens are the closest relative to the T-Rex Dinosaur!

Jungle Jokes

What Kind of bee can't be understood?

A Mumble Bee!

A Flea jumped over the swinging doors of a saloon, drank three whiskeys and jumped out again.

He picked himself up from the dirt, dusted himself down and said, "OK, who moved my dog?"

Summary Letter

Hi there!

Thank you for reading about this summers 'News From Atlantis'. As you might have noticed we have removed the Atlantis Safari Trust website, due to complications in our charity number application. We also thought having one name for both the charity and the business would cause less confusion for everyone!

Regardless of this 'News From Atlantis' may change its name to 'Tales From the Fortress' although we haven't yet decided!

In other news we have started to set up Eco-Goodie Bags! As far as we are aware we will be the only business to offer this sort of thing. The goodie bags will be made and produced in the UK from recyclable or sustainable materials. We have been trying to reduce our carbon footprint as much as possible and we found that sourcing things from within the UK is a good start.

Finally this summers good weather has meant that we have been able to complete many of the projects we had planned. This is great news for the animals as they will all soon be in perfect enclosures that they can roam around in! Although we have now built most of the enclosures we have planned on building this does not mean we no longer need funding. The animals still need to be fed and some of them need lots of heat which means expensive electricity bills.

Please spread the word about Jungle Fortress Animal Sanctuary because we need all the help we can get!

Thanks again for reading this seasons 'News From Atlantis'.

We look forward to seeing what events will occur over the next 3 months, and to telling you about them in next seasons newsletter!

Jamie and Lucie :)