Tacugama

Category: Gaura, Quarantine, Tacugama | Date: Mar 25 2009 | By: tacugama

Congo - our wild chimpanzee visitor - continues to come to Tacugama with her daughters. Her older daughter - now almost five years old - is gaining confidence and becoming more independant of Congo. This is a typical view that we get of her as she watches activity at camp….
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Category: Chimpanzee, Education, Tacugama | Date: Mar 09 2009 | By: tacugama

This is a new initiative at Tacugama to raise awareness of the natural richness of the Western Area Protected Forest Reserve that the sanctuary helps to protect and at the same time to raise some funds to help cover our running costs.

In the last two months, Kenneth Gbengba, a Sierra Leonean ornithologist who has led many international birdwatching tours, has been training our staff, Willie Tucker and Michael Tommy.  Together they have been compiling a list of birds spotted around Tacugama. So far the list has reached 85 different species of birds - including several endemics - and the list is growing with each survey walk.

Kenneth (left) training and surveying with Willie and Tommy.
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Tags: bird-watching, Chimpanzee, sanctuary, Sierra Leone, Tacugama, wildlife

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Category: Tacugama | Date: Mar 04 2009 | By: tacugama

If you’ve had a chance to read our newsletter then you’ve probably read about our appeal for Solo. We’re repeating that appeal here and ask you to please spread the request for help to as many of your contacts as possible, thank you.

We’re looking to raise $15,000 to help improve Solo’s living conditions here at Tacugama:

In every sanctuary there is usually at least one chimp who challenges the security of the enclosures and it’s extremely difficult to develop enough measures to stay ahead of the challenges.  Here at Tacugama, Solo is our escape strategist and he has certainly put us to the test.

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In June we moved him into Gorilla’s group so that we could monitor him more closely and manage his ladder and bridge building skills. Unfortunately he has continued to master his skills to the point that we cannot afford to take the risk of him escaping or passing on the skills to other group members. As he’s growing into a strong adult male we’ve had to take the very difficult decision of confining him to the dens.

One of Solo’s planned escape routes
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Bala and Willie take Solo back to the dens
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Currently Solo has no access to our forested enclosures and has limited contact with his fellow chimps. He is given the chance to interact with his group members in the dens when they come in for the night but his situation is far from ideal. Along with many of the chimpanzees at Tacugama we plan to rehabilitate Solo into the wild once we are able to identify protected forest areas where they can live as natural, wild groups in Sierra Leone but this will still take time to achieve.  Until then he deserves a better environment than the one the dens alone can provide.

We desperately need help with funding to build a roofed outdoor enclosure that will provide Solo with a large,  outdoor space where he can climb and socialise with other chimps but not get out! We have estimated it will cost approximately $15,000 to build it as most of the materials will have to be imported but we are working to get a better and more accurate quote.

Please help us to help Solo have a better life. Please make your donation using the one time open donation option on the right. Thank you.

Solo enjoys a special treat of a bottle of juice until the other chimps - keen to share in the attention - stone his den from a nearby enclosure…!

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