On 12th May we had a great business networking meeting at Port Lympne Wild Animal Park. The meeting was really well attended with Counterpoint Networking members, and some new faces too.
Attending were:
Members Lee Freeman, Barry Nutley, Chris Raines, Tuija Foster, Paul Tatt, Jaci Godman-Irvine, Alan Noake, Trevor Cobb, Christine MacSween, Steve Holley, Hayley Jones and us of course. We had 4 new visitors as well which was great!
We had a talk from one of the keepers which was absolutely fascinating as usual. We did all of this while watching the monkeys in their enclosure and then we were privileged enough to see into the monkeys’ bedroom!
Diabetic Monkeys – is that possible?
Matt, one of the keepers that looks after the De Brazza’s Monkey gave the Aspinall Business Club members a talk about George, a 20 year De Brazza’s Monkey, who has developed diabetes.
Matt noticed that George was losing weight, going to the toilet very often and drinking lots of water; the classic signs of diabetes. Matt was more aware of these symptoms because he himself has diabetes. Matt suggested that the keepers try to inject George with insulin, in the same way that humans with diabetes inject themselves with insulin.
“You’ll never get that monkey to let you inject him!”
The vets agreed this after working out based on George’s weight how much insulin he would need a day. Everyone was sceptical except Matt that George would accept being injected every day. Matt had decided that he could inject George in his tail, so the next day Matt took the insulin and successfully injected George. Matt has a special relationship with George and we could see that when Matt was calling George.
Matt has known George for about eight years and has a good relationship with him, which was the key to the successful insulin injection. However Matt has a couple of days off a week, so the day was approaching when someone else would be responsible for injecting George, so Matt needed to train someone else to cover for him while he wasn’t at Port Lympne.
The next day Matt went into George’s area with one of the other Monkey keepers, so that they could both do the injection. When they approached George he disappeared into his house, Matt thought at this point they were going to have some trouble with George, because normally when two humans approach the animals, they think it’s the keeper and a vet!
“He’ll never let someone else inject him!”
Matt and the other keeper followed George into his house and remarkably George was standing against the wall, with his bottom in the air ready for his injection. Matt gave the other keeper the all clear and he injected George straight away, with no drama at all (apart from the other keeper receiving a slap round the head from George after it was over!).
Matt and George have set a precedent – now other zoos are injecting their diabetic monkeys, whereas in the past they just used to put them down.
We had a great time and would like to give special thanks to Matt for his friendly and very informative talk. We are always amazed by the level of knowledge these keepers have and their passion and dedication to the animals.
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