Tacugama

Category: Chimpanzee, Tacugama | Date: Feb 12 2008 | By: admin

Miss Congo, a wild chimpanzee, and her baby have been camping around Tacugama the whole of this week causing loads of noise and triggering some manly responses from the adult males. She’s made sure that they all know that she’s ready to mate (demonstrated in female chimps by the large, pink swelling of their genital area)!

Miss Congo’s story is very touching. During the height of the civil war in Sierra Leone we went through very hard and dangerous times. Just a thought from that past makes me so sad and angry. The people we lost, the chimps we lost, the many we had to bury in shallow graves on the side of the road leading to Tacugama. The sound of gunfire and the bombing still haunts of all us. If we go by the latest research work by scientists in Kyoto University that compares the memory of chimpanzees with humans, there is no doubt that our chimps do have haunting memories as well of the whole episode. What has been happening now in Kenya saddens me – we understand what it means from our experiences here! During those hard days, Miss Congo was like enrichment for both Tacugama staff and chimps. She happened across Tacugama during the height of the war and somehow decided that here was the best place to camp; watching a bunch of brave guys defying all odds looking after a bunch of chimps!

The relationship flourished and Miss Congo eventually seduced one of our adult males, Gorilla, and they even managed to mate through the bars of the sleeping dens and baby Cola was born. Sadly Cola survived only for a year, but Congo stayed in touch, made more friends and conceived a new baby that she has carried around with pride for the past 3 years. It is a unique experience! It is a wonderful sight to see Miss Congo and the baby playing around the sanctuary and visiting her fellow chimps. At Tacugama we also have reasons to believe she was instrumental in guiding and bringing back a couple of our lost chimps after the escape incident, at least in the case of Perform. Unfortunately it is extremely difficult to take a picture of her as she runs away as soon as she sees a camera, so we normally only get to snap her from behind. There will be more on Congo. Stay tuned!

Congo leaving camp…
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… but we managed to get this shot of her and baby previously!

Gaura’s TB skin test resulted negative. He is actually teething. His upper canines are just showing and, as Lisa suggested in her comment on our last entry, may well be the cause of his evening fever. We really hope so! For now, we will wait for another month before re-testing him as is normal during the quarantine period for all chimps arriving at Tacugama. We hope his temperature normalises during this time and that we can give him a clean bill of health.

Peewee is doing well and turning out to be a trouble maker and very naughty, teasing the youngsters at any opportunity! She is showing a very strong character despite her disability (she has sight in only one eye, the other lost through injury). Her best friend is Jerusalem, they always walk together, holding on to each other. They’re also a bit camera shy so this is the best recent shot we have of them!

Jerusalem (on left) and Peewee