Tacugama

Category: Tacugama | Date: Sep 26 2008 | By: tacugama

Time is flying by in quarantine and Tombo and Urgent have almost finished their 3 month separation from other chimps, Mac has been moved into a bigger cage and Salva is making an amazing recovery from his horrific wounds.

Due to his small size Mac has been living in a smaller cage while building up his health and strength. Last week it was time for him to move into one of the standard quarantine enclosures so that he can really start to climb around and develop some muscles. He’s really enjoying the extra space but he’s still very much Mama Posseh’s little chimp - here you can see him seeking her reassurance as Frankie got too close for his comfort while taking photos for the blog.

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Category: Tacugama | Date: Sep 23 2008 | By: tacugama

Marion is a good natured 3.5 years old female chimpanzee. She arrived at Tacugama last November after being confiscated by an IMATT soldier in a small town named Moyamba, towards the south west of Sierra Leone. She had been kept by people for two years and was mostly free to roam in the town. Maybe that’s why she is so confident and strong-minded.

Marion has had to stay in the quarantine area beyond her allotted three months because of the lack of funding to build the new enclosures that we need. Finally, we decided to try to introduce her to Mama Lucy’s group of 26. It is never easy to introduce a new chimp in an already settled group but Marion is young, female with hints of a strong and determined character so it was worth the try so that she could start to enjoy more space, companionship and the next stages of her rehabilitation.

The introduction process has to be carefully managed so the first step was to prepare a space for Marion in the night dens where Mama Lucy’s group come in to sleep. Marion will need to spend several weeks in here gradually being introduced to her new family so it’s important that she has hammocks and ropes to play with. Early last week Mama Posseh took her from quarantine to her new home while Mama Lucy and her group were out in their forested enclosure, they shared what will probably be their last hug together - a very sad moment for Mama Posseh. Gradually Marion moved away and started to explore the much bigger space that she now has.

On the way to Marion’s new home
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Tags: , Chimpanzee, Sierra Leone, Tacugama, wildlife

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Category: Education | Date: Sep 14 2008 | By: tacugama

It’s not an expected port of call for an ice-breaker, but early September saw HMS Endurance, a British Royal Navy ship, call into Freetown, the world’s third largest natural harbour. The ship’s tour of South and West Africa is helping to raise awareness of climate change and its impact on developing nations (find out more here).

It was a great opportunity for some of the school children taking part in our Tacugama Kids Programme to visit the ice breaker, learn about a continent at the other end of the temperature scale and how it’s helping scientists to learn about the impact of human activity on our planet. Over three days 50 children and their teachers from some of our partner schools were welcomed on board by the crew. It was an amazing opportunity for all of them and will hopefully have a lasting impact that will go towards increasing environmental awareness and understanding in Sierra Leone.

Hastings School
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Seeing Antartica for the first time
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Tags: Chimpanzee, HMS Endurance, sanctuary, Sierra Leone, Tacugama

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Category: Chimpanzee, Gaura, Tacugama | Date: Sep 04 2008 | By: tacugama

Congo, our lady from the wild, has a new brand baby. A tiny furry chimp with pinkish hands and feet holding tight on Congo’s belly….that’s all that we manage to get a glimpse of. What a wonderful surprise! Congo is impossible to get pictures of… she runs away at the sight of a camera, or at anything that points at her. …now she is even more distrustful and unfortunately this picture is the only one we can show you for now….can you see the tiny foot on the left side of Congo? We are keeping our cameras ready for the next opportunity.

Congo carrying her new baby and with her 4 year-old daughter behind
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6 responses so far