Laos / Day 73-77

Hello dear ones, I have my day off today and therefore time to tell you about some animals in the project again. Today I would like to write about some of our individual children, meaning the animals that are alone in the enclosures here. Please read the article 'Laos / Day 63-65' beforehand, if you haven't already, so you know what this project is about.

I would like to start with our jackal. His enclosure is the closest to our accommodations. If the others hadn't told me it's a jackal, I would have thought it was a slightly undersized wolf. He looks very similar to a wolf, with the size of a medium-sized dog. He has one of the largest enclosures here and we hope to be able to release him into the wild one day. But that may take a while, as the government here has to approve it first and they are very strict with an animal that could also kill livestock, and so far they have rejected the applications. But I hope that he will eventually be released. Yesterday we installed a toy in his enclosure, which hopefully will keep him more occupied. However, he hasn't shown much interest in it yet. I hope that will change.

One of my favorite animals here is definitely the otter Henry. The little guy is always so lively and curious. We can never make the toys for his food complicated enough for him. He loves it when we throw a ball with the fish into the water. He rolls around it a thousand times to get the fish out, it's always wonderful to watch him. Unfortunately, we can't release him, as he has been in the zoo for too long and is too accustomed to humans. Therefore, we try to give him something to do every day.

But my absolute favorite animal here by far is the leopard. I find leopards so beautiful and graceful. The one we have is already 15 years old and his name is Rambo. Unfortunately, he came to the zoo as a young animal and cannot be released again. I feel the most sorry for him. In the wild, he has a territory that is probably several square kilometers in size, and here he has to make do with a few hundred square meters. Since he is already so old, his eyesight is not very good anymore. But that doesn't diminish his strength and wildness. Every time we feed him, he runs around the cage like crazy and growls. It can be really intimidating, and I can imagine how he would be in the wild.

Then we have a badger here. He is also always very lively and we have to make a lot of effort to give him appropriate stimulation, as he is also very intelligent. Unfortunately, I don't know if we will ever be able to release him. But I hope so.

We also have a super beautiful hornbill here. He got a nice, new, large enclosure a few months ago. He loves to sit on the top perch in this enclosure and look down from above. Almost as if we were all his subjects. A truly proud bird.

One of our shyest solitary fighters is probably our albino deer. It is snow-white and therefore easily visible among the trees. Unfortunately, this is not advantageous for a deer, as it can be easily seen by predators. Therefore, we cannot release the deer.

Now I have 5 working days left in the project before going to Cambodia on Saturday. There I will visit Angkor Wat first and start the new project at Elephant Nature Park on Monday. I'm curious to see how this project will be. I will write to you again.

Until then

Your Alex