Tacugama

Category: Tacugama | Date: Jul 30 2009 | By: tacugama

We’re really excited to be able to present you with a short documentary film about Tacugama.  We hope that this will give you a better insight to the sanctuary, our day to day work, challenges and aspirations, especially if you have never had the opportunity to visit us in Sierra Leone.

Please share this link with all your family, friends and colleagues and help us to spread the word, thank you!

We’re very grateful to Paul Glynn, who filmed and produced this documentary as a gift for Tacugama after visiting us in December 2008.  Paul was also instrumental in the production of Lost Freetown, directed by Nazia Parvez, a documentary showing the environmental threats to Sierra Leone’s capital city.

We look forward to receiving your feedback.

(PS The chimp shown arriving at Tacugama is Jessica)

Tags: Chimpanzee, Freetown, Nazia Parvez, Paul Glynn, sanctuary, Sierra Leone, Tacugama, wildlife

9 responses so far

Category: Gaura, Tacugama | Date: Jul 28 2009 | By: tacugama

Shortly after Tacugama started blogging through Wildlife Direct, Gaura arrived as a newly rescued, frail baby chimp; eighteen months later he is a strong, cheeky and loveable character. Sadly another seven young babies have arrived since then; Chippe being the most recent two weeks ago (another four older chimps have also come to us in the same time frame). As each of the babies has completed quarantine they have been gradually introduced to Gaura and his “gang” now includes Tombo, Mac, Bai Nyaa, Jessica and Bruno. Last week they were joined by Yoyema who has quickly settled in with her new playmates.

Yoyema checks out Tombo’s hammock for comfort!

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Tags: Chimpanzee, sanctuary, Sierra Leone, Tacugama, wildlife

8 responses so far

Category: Chimpanzee, Tacugama | Date: Jul 24 2009 | By: tacugama

Last week saw us receiving little Chippe from Moyamba district. Chippe is about 3-4 years old but small and stunted for his age. He was originally reported as being in captivity by the census team while they were in Moyamba but they were unable to retrieve him. It then took some time to make contact with his keeper but finally we were able to make arrangements for Chippe to come to Tacugama. He will be in quarantine for three months while Mama Posseh works her magic and builds him back to full strength. While we were able to get very limited information about Chippe we know that he was captive for at least four months and suspect that his mum may have been snared and killed. As we reported on one of our census blogs, Moyamba District suffers from human/chimp conflict due to huge loss of forest habitat to agricultural land.

Chippe on arrival
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Tags: Chimpanzee, sanctuary, Sierra Leone, Tacugama, wildlife

4 responses so far

Category: Tacugama | Date: Jul 08 2009 | By: tacugama

Ten days ago we received a call from a businessman living in Freetown saying he had two chimps at his home that he wanted to handover to Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary. We arranged to go and see him to get a better understanding of the situation and found two female chimps around 6-7 years old being kept in terrible conditions.

Our first sight…

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Although we are not totally convinced about the story we got from their keeper, it appears that he acquired the chimps several years ago while on a hunting trip into the centre of Sierra Leone and had kept them ever since in the central section of this small outbuilding. When they were smaller they were given some occasional freedom to roam the compound but as they grew bigger and less controllable that freedom disappeared. They had clearly not left their confines for a long time from the pile of lorry wheel hubs stacked against the gate. Sadly there was a similar pile filling the floor of their prison. He claimed to be an animal lover but wanted to handover the chimps as they were costing him too much to take care of. It would have been difficult for any neighbours to detect the presence of the chimps as the walls of the compound were tall and a noisy generator seemed to be running constantly.

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Tags: captivity, Chimpanzee, sanctuary, Sierra Leone, Tacugama, wildlife

11 responses so far