Diva Twiggy and Duke Feed

Twiggy finally showed up this morning and I got to feed her for the first time! She's adorable and like hugs your legs while you feed her. We left her out since there was no point in letting her in and then immediately letting her back out into the lagoon. After breakfast, about six of us entered the pool to round up Duke. We have to corner him and then a blanket gets wrapped under him and he's then lifted onto an animal stretcher. He was weighed and he lost some weight, but not a drastic amount. I then got to watch Paul insert the nasogastric tube. They test the placement the same way the test it in people, by blowing air and listening with a stethoscope and inserting some water. While he's being fed, one person has to make sure he stays wet and brushes some of the algae off him to keep him relaxed. Duke was rescued right around weaning age, so he didn't take to a bottle, which is way they have to feed him through the tube. Since he hasn't been eating his sea grass, Paul and Zoe decided he'll be receiving daily feeds for the next few days. The feed took about an hour and after we released him back into the enclosure. After lunch, the motor boat was leaving for Fireburn, but Twiggy was still out in the lagoon, so we had to find her first. I walked the left side of the lagoon while another volunteer took the right and two went out in our makeshift sail boat looking for her, after about an hour of searching we couldn't find her. We just had to make sure she wasn't following the boat. Twiggy decided she actually wanted to spend a night in tonight and showed up at the gate. She definitely makes her own decisions. A new volunteer is supposed to arrive tonight and we just found out we'll be receiving a new baby howler monkey on Monday.