Tacugama

Category: Quarantine, Tacugama | Date: Oct 28 2009 | By: tacugama

This weekend saw the arrival at Tacugama of yet another young chimp prematurely separated from its mother. He’s from the Kangari Hills in the centre of Sierra Leone so we have called him …. Kangari.

Moses receives Kangari at Tacugama
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He arrived at the sanctuary as the result of sensitisation work undertaken by our chimpanzee census team who were recently in the area towards the centre of Sierra Leone. A couple of weeks after they had been working there, Dr Terry received a call from the head of Cluff Gold, an exploration company based close to the Kangari Hills. He had been approached by someone with a baby chimp hoping to sell it to him as a pet. Thanks to the briefing he’d received from the census team he informed the person that what they were doing was illegal, immediately called Tacugama and arranged to bring Kangari to the sanctuary - a six hour drive from the hills. The person with the chimp claimed that Kangari had been left behind by his mother as she was chased away from raiding crops in a local farm. Sadly this is a highly unlikely story - Kangari is probably only 18 months old and it would be very unusual for him to be left behind no matter the stress - and it is much more likely that his mother was trapped and killed.

Kangari greets Bala as Dr Rosa takes him for his first check up 
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Kangari was very nervous on arrival and also full of cold.  He’s small for his age (based on the growth of his teeth) and underweight.

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Fortunately he’s settling into quarantine,  recovering from his cold and developing a huge appetite!

Kangari a couple of days after his arrival
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Here you can see a picture of Kangari’s original home in the beautiful Kangari Hills.

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But sadly on closer investigation, it’s not as unspoilt as it looks.

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Perhaps one good thing that should come from Kangari’s arrival is the chance to build a relationship with Cluff Gold so that as they prospect for mineral resources that could create an income for this very poor country, we can propose protection for important habitat areas to be included in their development plans.

Also to let you know that Posseh is busy preparing her answers to your questions - you gave her quite a lot! She should be ready to share her answers in a couple of days.

Tags: , Baomahun, Chimpanzee, Cluff Gold, Sierra Leone, Tacugama, wildlife

5 responses so far

Category: Quarantine, Tacugama | Date: Sep 13 2009 | By: tacugama

Hello all, apologies for the lack of a blog over the last couple of weeks but a hectic schedule and an erratic internet connection (prbably because of the rain) have kept us off line for longer than planned.

As you can see from looking at the Wildlife Direct blogs, East Africa is suffering a bad drought yet in West Africa we’re getting almost too much rain. It has been more than two weeks since we have had the pleasure of seeing the sun…. rain, rain and yet more rain has filled the skies. Good for water reserves but so many grey days can bring down even the most optimistic! Yesterday the sun made an appearance giving us a splendid sunny day. The locals (both man and animal!) took advantage of the heat, putting things out to dry…. See for yourself!

Tarmac (on one of the best roads in Sierra Leone!) makes a great place to dry clothes when washing lines are scarce
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Large vultures ignore passers by while drying out their feathers!
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Kouze and friends enjoy lying out on a dry platform…
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We hope that the lack of rain critically affecting so many of our fellow bloggers and many others on the continent comes to an end soon.

After our last blog posting we’re happy to confirm that Babe’s new baby now has a name thanks to all of you. As her big sister is called Bintu, some of the suggestions we received fell a bit too close in sound, so we’ve opted for Theresa’s suggestions of … BASMA; in her comment Theresa told us that this was Swahili for smile, let’s up she provides many smiles for us in the future. We’ll have a new picture of Basma for you soon.

Just to let you know that all of our newest arrivals are doing well and settling in under Posseh’s careful care and receiving the best of attention with the recent return from her well earned break of our resident vet, Dr Rosa. Here they are:

Thulani
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Chippe
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Abu (with a toy hammer as he used to play with tools in the garage where he was found)
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We’ve got some great news on its way to you soon on our next post about Gaura and friends…!

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

One response so far

Category: Quarantine, Tacugama | Date: Aug 04 2009 | By: tacugama

Yesterday sadly saw two more small chimps arrive at Tacugama - Abu and Thulani add to the recent orphan arrivals of Chippe, Blama and Sunny and leave us close to bursting at the seams. We now have 96 chimpanzees needing Tacugama’s care.

Thulani was taken to the Gola Forest Project team in the south-east of Sierra Leone on Saturday by a local man hoping to sell him - he was quickly corrected and Thulani was confiscated. The Gola forest team have brought several chimps to us including Gola, Gaura, Urgent, Bai Nyaa, Mac and Jessica.

Handa Zeller with Thulani before travelling to Tacugama - the t-shirt says it all
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After a long drive on difficult, rainy season roads, Thulani arrived late last night. He’s probably two years old and not been with people for long. Small and nervous and with a slight cold, he’ll need closer attention from Posseh than Abu.

Posseh tries to give Thulani a wash - he much preferred a cuddle 
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Abu was confiscated by Pastor in Waterloo, a market town only 40 minutes from camp, where we go for our supplies twice a week.

Abu arrives at camp!
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We had recently been told about Abu by several people but previous attemps to trace him were unsuccessful. This time Pastor was given a definite location and found Abu tinkering with hammers and spanners in a local garage. He had been kept there apparently for almost two years - he’s now about four years old - and his owner agreed to give him up as soon as Pastor arrived. Perhaps word had spread to him; the penalty now for keeping, trading or killing chimpanzees in Sierra Leone is now $1,000 or two years in prison. The Krio name for a chimpanzee is Babu, so Abu the Babu has brought a few smiles as we all learn his name at camp.

Bala with Abu
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Fortunately Abu has clearly been well cared for, he’s healthy and a good size. He’s also very used to people and seemed very surprised on arrival to hear the rest of the chimps calling across the sanctuary.

Abu enjoys his banana
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Posseh and Abu get to know each other

Both Abu and Thulani will spend their three months in quarantine before catching up with Chippe and the rest of the Tacugama chimps. Chippe is improving daily - he’s probably not going to be too happy that Mama Posseh will have to spend more of her time with other chimps too. Sunny and Blama are increasing in confidence and greeted Abu with enthusiasm as they saw him arrive (they were asleep by the time Thulani came last night).

Our challenges now are to get positive responses soon from our potential donors for the much needed new enclosures and to increase the number of adopters for our chimps (the adoption donation goes straight to our running costs). We have never turned a chimp in Sierra Leone away from Tacugama in almost fifteen years but it’s getting harder to keep our doors open.

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

3 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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Continue Reading »

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

5 responses so far

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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4 responses so far

Category: Chimpanzee, Quarantine, Tacugama | Date: Feb 16 2009 | By: tacugama

I was with Dr. Rosa in Freetown doing some errands and she was commenting on the fact the Jessica will be completing her last health check and in a few days she will be out of quarantine. We were happy that this is the first time since last year our quarantine section will be free of chimps. Sadly, our happiness did not last long! We got a call from one of our former education officer … a baby chimp has been handed over to them together with an official handing over note!

NAME BRUNO
SEX MALE
BROUGHT TO TE CONSERVATION SOCIETY OF SIERRA LEONE BY MUSA SANU KNOTEH
CAUGHT IN KABALA, SPENT LESS THAN THREE WEEKS IN MAKENI
FED REGULARLY ON FRUITS AND SOME RICE
REMARKS LOOKS PHYSICALLY OK, BUT DIRTY.

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Tags: Bruno, Chimpanzee, Sierra Leone, Tacugama

8 responses so far

Category: Chimpanzee, Quarantine, Tacugama | Date: Dec 16 2008 | By: tacugama

Sadly we have to report the arrival of another very young chimpanzee at Tacugama - Jessica was brought to us late last week by the Gola Forest project to whom she was handed by her keeper in a sack. They quickly made life more comfortable for her before bringing her to the sanctuary.

Jessica on arrival at Tacugama
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As you can imagine she was very confused and distressed. We estimate that she’s about 14 months old and that she was only very recently separated from her mother - she’s very wary of humans and, from her quarantine den, calls all the time to the other chimps at the sanctuary. She’s fortunately in reasonable health and gradually learning to trust Mama Posseh as she tries to replace the love and care that her natural mother would have given to Jessica. Continue Reading »

Tags: Chimpanzee, Sierra Leone, Tacugama, wildlife

5 responses so far