Tacugama

Category: Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Sep 16 2009 | By: tacugama

Over the last few weeks we’ve been gradually introducing Gaura and his group to the small infant enclosure that is being used by another seven small chimpanzees. The older babies were brought inside each day for a couple of hours to allow Gaura’s team to get used to the new space on their own and the end of last week finally saw both groups being introduced together and sharing the enclosure.

Tess Wiggans - a volunteer who has been at Tacugama since May - writes more about their introduction below, she’s taken some great photos for you! Tess will help us to stay in touch with you and will write some more of our blogs over the coming months:

The youngest group of chimps, consisting of Gaura, Tombo, Jessica, Mac, Banyaii, Bruno and Yoyema are finally having more freedom. The babies were first introduced to the two youngest in the group, Chica and Joyce along with Nita, a very gentle female. The first meeting couldn’t have gone smoother, with Joyce making friends with Jessica right from the start, and Nita acting as foster mother to the youngest ones!

Nita gives Tombo a hug
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Tags: Africa, Chimpanzee, sanctuary, Sierra Leone, Tacugama, wildlife

5 responses so far

Category: Gaura, Introduction, Quarantine, Tacugama | Date: May 08 2009 | By: tacugama

After such a sad week last week, we are pleased to be able to bring you better news this week.

It was finally time for young Bruno to leave quarantine and join the famous five: Gaura, Tombo, Mac, Bai Nyaa and Jessica! He could tell the day was different and seemed very happy to accompany Mama Posseh as she walked him over to the rest of the babies.

Happy Young Bruno
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Tags: Chimpanzee, EMCV, sanctuary, Sierra Leone, Tacugama, wildlife

5 responses so far

Category: Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Dec 05 2008 | By: tacugama

What a great few days we’ve had here! We’ve finally been able to introduce Urgent and Salva to a whole new way of life much closer to what Mother Nature intended for them.

After such a terrible first 15 years Urgent is now out in one of our forested enclosures and able to climb trees, for probably the first time in her life. You may remember that she came to Tacugama in July this year having spent at least the last 8-10 years tied to a tree by a short chain. As far as we understand she has been captive almost all of her life. Last Saturday saw her finally meet Gorilla and Jetti face to face and then they took her on a guided tour of their forested enclosure. She hasn’t looked back and we were thrilled yesterday to finally see her at the top of a tree watching the world go by with Jetti at her side.

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Tags: Chimpanzee, Sierra Leone, Tacugama, wildlife

6 responses so far

Category: Chimpanzee, Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Oct 30 2008 | By: tacugama

Sorry for the recent lack of a post, intermittent internet connections and spreading flu have conspired against us staying in touch with you over the past week and more.

On our last post we mentioned a new arrival at Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary. Her name is Bai Nyaa, which means woman of the kigdom Bai. She is a one year old girl with a healthy appetite. She was rescued in a village called Poturu, near Tiwai Island, in the south of Sierra Leone, again by representatives of the Gola Forest Project. Villagers were once more reluctant to give much history, but she is tame and used to people. So far her first health check has shown only a mild anaemia, let’s hope nothing more emerges during her 3 month quarantine.

Even though we are struggling for funding and space, we never turn down a new chimp, because we know there is nowhere else in this country where they can go. It costs us about $1000 per year for every chimp and currently we care for 91 chimps. We thank all of you for your continuing support!

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

5 responses so far

Category: Chimpanzee, Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Oct 14 2008 | By: tacugama

Urgent has now also finished her quarantine period and we have the difficult challenge of integrating her into an existing family group.  Introducing adult chimpanzees is very difficult and often unsuccessful. In the case of Urgent and her history, it may well be impossible.  Our goal is to integrate her to Gorilla and Baba’s group. Gorilla will then have someone closer to his own age to share the attention of the lively younger chimps who, in turn, may accept her better than other adults.

While under anesthesia, Urgent was transferred to her new den.  She’s sharing a set of dens with Gorilla and Solo.  She is in the middle with Solo on one side and Gorilla and Jettie’s on the other. (Jettie’s one of the youngest members of the group who has become almost inseparable from Gorilla and chooses to stay with him at night rather than with the rest of the young ones.)  She will stay in the den until we are confident that she is comfortable with the rest of the group.  She can interact through the grills with her den mates and during the day the rest of Baba’s group can interact with her through the tunnel entrance to the enclosure.

Urgent meets Gorilla & Jettie with Solo looking on
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Tags: Chimpanzee, sanctuary, Sierra Leone, Tacugama, wildlife

2 responses so far

Category: Chimpanzee, Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Aug 25 2008 | By: tacugama

Definitely this is a busy time in Tacugama. With so many new arrivals in a short period of time and the condition in which they arrived, the caregivers and the vet are very occupied.

We are happy to report that Salva is recovering well. Dr. Rosa has sedated him three times to treat his wounds and they are healing well. He has a healthy appetite and for the last three days he has started to accept milk for which he now cries. He is still not allowing us to touch him but accepts food from our hand. I can’t start to imagine how much Salva has endured to be that scared of people.

Salva enjoying a treat (bread) after his sedation
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Mac is growing very fond of his hammock and loves to have naps in it. He is putting on weight, but that is not surprising if you saw the amount of food he can wolf down! Continue Reading »

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

10 responses so far

Category: Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Jul 30 2008 | By: tacugama

Great news this week is that we’ve been able to release a fully fit Junior back with his friends, Kouze is especially happy to have Junior back. Thanks again to Drs Sorn and Andrew Routh for their lifesaving surgery. The experience does not seem to have frightened Junior at all, this is one of the first photos we were able to get of him in the enclosures!
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Category: Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Jul 21 2008 | By: tacugama

…. new chimpanzees received by Tacugama in a week. Yes 3, as we posted our last blog about Urgent we received news that another young chimp was on its way to us from the Gola Forest and that evening Mac arrived to join the Tacugama family.

Mac arrives
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8 responses so far

Category: Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Jun 24 2008 | By: tacugama

We’re busy at the moment with Boyze, the other adult from Augusta’s group, who is being introduced to Phillip and his adult group. Boyze is a renowned bully and has no regard for anyone younger than him. Ideally, he should have gone with Gorilla and Solo to join the youngsters but it is a huge risk to take and we have decided instead to integrate him with the adult group. It will be a difficult task and we have to exercise a lot of patience to get it right.

BOYZE
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8 responses so far

Category: Chimpanzee, Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Jun 06 2008 | By: tacugama

The rains are here and I’ve been really busy with lots of maintenance work at the sanctuary and some new introductions. Sorry for not giving you as much regular news recently but thanks for your comments and donations. We appreciate them very much.

Little Gaura is fine. Gorilla is doing well in Baba’s group. Boyze, another adult male is being introduced to Phillip’s group as he was previously with Gorilla and Augusta. It started well but we’ve had some hic-ups and are progressing slowly. It is not easy to introduce an adult male into a well established adult group!
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6 responses so far

Category: Chimpanzee, Gaura, Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Apr 22 2008 | By: admin

Poor little Gaura….he has gone through his first knock down! Despite his tolerant nature towards medical procedures, he had to be sedated as we all know dental surgery can be very painful.

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6 responses so far

Category: Chimpanzee, Education, Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Mar 20 2008 | By: admin

This is proving to be a busy week indeed!

We are hosting the upcoming PASA (Pan African Sanctuaries Alliance) Managers’ Meeting, due to start on the 30th of this month, so we’re finalizing the arrangements for this. We’re really looking forward to catch up on everyone’s news and progress.
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9 responses so far

Category: Chimpanzee, Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Mar 10 2008 | By: admin

Hi again - it’s great to be able to start another blog entry by saying thank you; we’ve received a generous donation from Antonio C. His donation will go towards our community support work and you can read below on how the Tacugama team is expanding….

Close to Tacugama are the villages of Regent and Bathurst, founded by freed slaves some 200 years ago. Both villages are very scenic, surrounded by beautiful hills and wooden houses based on creole architecture. Regent can also boast of having the famous St.Charles church, the oldest stone church in West Africa. Continue Reading »

10 responses so far

Category: Chimpanzee, Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Feb 05 2008 | By: admin

At Tacugama we spend time and resources to build relationships with the communities around the Western Area Forest Reserve (WAFR) to educate people about signs to look for, what to expect and how to deal with the situation should they ever come into contact with chimpanzees in the wild. These relationships proved invaluable to us at the time of the escape of some of our chimpanzees back in April 2006 (for more information then you can download the newsletter issued shortly after the escape http://www.tacugama.com/tacugamanewsletterjune06.pdf). Information provided by the local communities helped us to rescue the chimps much more easily than we could have done without people’s support.
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18 responses so far

Category: Chimpanzee, Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Feb 02 2008 | By: admin

At Tacugama we try to create as natural an environment as possible for the chimpanzees. An important part of this is establishing groups that recreate the natural family hierarchies that exist in the wild - a tough job when our chimps come from all over Sierra Leone.

Mama Lucy’s group out in the enclosure
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7 responses so far

Category: Charlie Girl, Chimpanzee, Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Jan 04 2008 | By: admin

A few days ago Perform, a 12 year old male, failed to turn up for the last feeding of the day. We give supplementary feeding to the older chimps who range in the bigger enclosures and forage for some of their own food. This also allows us to monitor them as not all choose to enter the dens at night to sleep, preferring instead to build their own nests outside. Earlier in the day Willie and Mosses had reported hearing him coughing but he was still quite active and seen busy mating with big Lucy. I was worried as Perform has never missed a meal before.
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6 responses so far

Category: Charlie Girl, Chimpanzee, Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Dec 31 2007 | By: admin

Everyone in camp is happy as three tiny tots: Mary, Tico and Jettie from quarantine are graduating to the introduction group. Whenever we receive newly rescued chimps they are isolated from the rest of the sanctuary’s chimpanzees for around three months so that we can bring them back to full health and ensure they’re not carrying any transmissible diseases. They frequently arrive in very poor shape and sometimes carrying injuries sustained through capture.
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3 responses so far

Category: Charlie Girl, Chimpanzee, Education, Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Dec 18 2007 | By: admin

We’re gradually getting ourselves into the blogging habit and catching up on events over the last couple of weeks. Thanks for all the comments. The real time for Charlie Girl’s antics was about three weeks ago and today’s blog catches up on two weeks ago… we’ll soon be hot off the press and gradually fill you in on the sanctuary’s history!!

A week’s gone by and Charlie Girl’s cast is still on. But I am beginning to see some damage along the edges. She is certainly working on it! And I can tell by her crying that she isn’t happy being indoors. The family group is very important to chimpanzees and Charlie Girl is missing her group. It’s important that we can keep an eye on her recovery and try to make it as speedy as possible. Also the last thing we want is to go through the whole hospital procedure again especially in the middle of a busy week!
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4 responses so far

Category: Charlie Girl, Chimpanzee, Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Dec 10 2007 | By: admin

As another busy day comes to an end at Tacugama, our head care staff, Mosses, radios through that one of our chimpanzees, Charlie Girl, has a swollen arm and is not using it! Mosses has been with us here at Tacugama almost since we started in 1995 (even staying with the chimps through the worst of Sierra Leone’s civil war) and has amassed amazing knowledge about the Sanctuary’s residents.
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11 responses so far