Archive for the ‘Tacugama’ Category
Thursday night brought Tacugama the sad arrival of yet another chimp from the Gola Forest area. Some of the photos in this blog are not for the squeamish, sorry. He was found captive in a village in South East Sierra Leone, but again the circumstances of his capture are unclear as the villagers were unwilling to say much. When news of his existence spread, Gola Forest rangers confiscated him and drove him a long eight hours to Tacugama. The chimp was carrying what we suspect to be a machete wound to his back and horrendous abrasion injuries to his sides as the result of metal, snare-type wire having been used to restrain him. It was ridiculously tight causing deep wounds Not surprisingly he was not in a friendly state and we quickly sedated him to carry out a thorough examination, remove the wire and treat the wounds. Getting rid of the wire was not an easy task. With Pastor’s help we finally managed to cut the tough wire With the wire off, Dr Rosa could start to treat the injuries. The wounds were not fresh, the stench of the infection filled the room. He must have been like this for at least a week.
The machete wound to his back also gives cause for concern. Once the wounds were cleaned, he received painkilling and antibiotic jabs. The wounds will have to be kept open to try to prevent the infections developing further. A final clean up and examination found an older injury, a badly broken and poorly healed forefinger on his right hand but that’s the least of his worries. We were anxious as to whether he would survive the night. From his size we thought he was two years old but his teeth showed that he was twice that age. Friday morning saw a frightened but gently moving chimp and after a while he managed to eat a banana and take a little interest in his surroundings. He passed a quiet day, gradually building his appetite but preferring to stay in a corner of his cage. Further tests have shown that he’s also full of every intestinal parasite possible. By Saturday food was becoming much more interesting and it was time to name him. Dr Rosa and Mama Posseh have settled on Salva, which comes from the Spanish and Catalan for save. Hopefully he can be saved, it’s going to be a slow journey. There is clearly much we still have to do to protect our chimpanzees in the wild and stop the flow to the sanctuary.
The rainy season brings us lots of challenges at the Sanctuary, making sure that the younger chimps don’t catch a chill, fixing endless leaks in staff and chimpanzee accommodation, navigating roads as they wash away so that we can bring supplies to camp and just trying to get anything to dry out. Strangely enough we still quite enjoy the rain, maybe it’s because of the antics that the chimpanzees get up to in the wet! A few blogs ago we told you about the rain dances that the chimps enjoy. The latest craze that’s now setting in with Baba’s small group of juniors is rope sliding! Before the rainy season, thanks to the ropes donated from the the visiting British Navy ships, we rigged a lot more ropes for the introductory enclosure to make life more interesting for Baba’s group. With the coming of the rains, the ropes are regularly soaked and the chimpanzees have decided that sliding down at high speed is good fun. Today we managed to capture Joko on film as he demonstrated his own special freestyle descent. The film quality’s not great but we thought you might enjoy it… Tacugama’s YouTube debut by Joko: Back to the less fun side of the rains, Aruna - our driver, had a lucky escape last week when rain contributed to what could have been a really nasty accident that left our main camp vehicle precariously wedged on the edge of a steep drop into one of the river valleys below Tacugama. Fortunately no-one was injured and IMATT, the International Military Advisory Training Team (international support for the Sierra Leone armed forces) came to our aid and recovered the vehicle. It’s now undergoing repairs and we hope to have it back on the road soon. IMATT to the rescue… We’re busy at camp looking at lots of ways to raise funds both for the census we mentioned in the last blog and also, importantly, to cover our running costs. We’ve been joined by a new volunteer thanks to Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), Anita McKenna (aka Frankie) who’ll be with us for the next six months. She’s busy working her way through our big to-do list that includes fundraising, expanding our links with our local communities (to see how we can support them in developing secure livelihoods that don’t threaten the forest reserve) and promoting eco-tourism. Frankie head buried in our to-do list! Meanwhile Tombo, Urgent and Mac are settling well, Boyze is making steady progress in meeting Philip’s group and the rest of the Tacugama family are doing ok. We would all like to say a big thanks to Mills and Theresa for their recent generous donations towards our running costs.
Twice a year, we write Tacugama’s newsletter for friends of the sanctuary to catch up on a summary of our news… here´s a copy for you too! Have a read to catch up on what’s been happening at Tacugama over the first half of 2008 - maybe your family and friends would like to see it too! Please click on this link and not the image below, thanks: http://www.tacugama.com/july08.pdf
The two Australina artists, Patrick Hedge and Leigh Rust, are working hard for their upcoming exhibition. You can see some more of their work at: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=52302214&blogID=419759637 for Patrick and http://www.leighrust.com/tacugama.html for Leigh.
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! As we told you in the last post, Urgent underwent her first detailed health check under sedation last week and the results are good. Her blood is healthy and level of internal parasites much reduced. She’s still adjusting to the major change in her life, after 8 years at the end of a 1 metre chain she’s encountering a lot of new things at Tacugama. Although in quarantine, she can hear and see many other chimpanzees that did not exist in her previous life. Urgent is very friendly but still a bit unsettled and we’re now keeping a close eye on her grooming as she’s taken to plucking some of her hair. We’re hopeful that this is a passing phase in her adjustment. Urgent under sedation Tombo and Mac are settling in well. Tombo is now a big fan of her hammock having mastered the art of using it! She also had her first full health check this week and apart from slight anaemia is also doing well. Mac has discovered food in a big way and we now have to make sure he doesn’t eat too much, he really enjoys his bottle of milk. As you can imagine Mama Posseh has been really busy so Dr Rosa’s assistant, Juliana, has been lending a hand too. Mama Juliana has joined Tacugama to develop her laboratory skills and assist in Dr Rosa’s veterinary work. Being with Mac is a good contrast to the time that she’s spending learning laboratory practice. We thought you’d like the pictures of Mac below, we’ll have some of Tombo next time. Mac - looking a little happier than a week ago! Thanks for the latest donation from WildatArt, Mac and Tombo will make good use of it!
We were recently contacted by two Australian artists who learned about Tacugama through a documentary called “Chimps under Fire” from Animal Planet. They’ve been moved to create a series of works that will be exhibited in October at Monarto Zoo in South Australia. Leigh Rust and Patrick Hedges are not only helping to raise the profile of Tacugama, they’re also donating a large portion of the profits from their works to Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary and the Monarto Zoo to help conservation efforts for our amazing chimpanzees. Their exhibition will coincide with the official opening of Monarto Zoo’s new chimp habitat. We’re extremely grateful to Leigh and Patrick and we’ll let you all know how the exhibition goes. In the meantime we’re providing photos of the Tacugama families for the guys to use as source materials for their work. Here’s a couple of tasters for you… …. from Leigh …. from Patrick And here’s a link to more information and images from the project directly from the artists http://leighrust.com/tacugama.html We’re also very happy to report that our three new arrivals, Tombo, Urgent and Mac are doing well. Tombo has learned to use her hammock, Urgent was anaesthetised today for her full health check and Dr Rosa is now analysing the results, and Tombo has become a banana monster, eating hard to try and catch up with Gaura! More about them and the rest of the chimps on our next post.
…. 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 Mac with Dr Rosa, Bala, Hander and David from the Gola Forest Conservation Programme He is around a year old, a little older than Tombo – our first new arrival of the week – but badly underweight and very vulnerable. Mac checked in just under 3.5kgs We were not sure that he would survive the first 24hrs with us but with care and attention from Posseh, Dr Rosa and the team he is slowly gaining strength. We’re not very clear what happened to Mac or his family. The Gola Forest Conservation Programme were informed of his existence and when he was confiscated in Panguma village there was little information provided as to how he came to be with there. At this stage we only know that they had kept him for at least 4 or 5 days before he was rescued.
Given his low weight it will take us some time to be confident about Mac’s survival chances but the good sign is that he’s developing a healthy appetite for bananas along with his milk.
Tombo and Urgent are taking an interest in Mac’s arrival into the quarantine area and there’s plenty of pan-hooting taking place as they survey each other from safe distances. We’re pleased to say that Tombo’s dysentery has cleared and she’s settling in though still not convinced about her hammock as a replacement nest. Both she and Mac have a place to stay inside our clinic at night as, especially as rainy season is in full force; they’re too small to stay in the cooler quarantine cages at night. Tombo gets used to cuddles with Posseh
Urgent is gradually settling in her new quarters but giving her any medicine is proving a challenge as she’s easily detecting any attempts to hide it in her food. Although fairly healthy she’s riddled with intestinal parasites that need clearing. She’s currently presenting a large balloon – the swelling of her genital area – as she’s ready to mate and is already responding to the communication between the chimps in the outdoor enclosures.
Mac, Tombo and Urgent will have to stay in quarantine for at least three months so that we can ensure that they’re in a good state of health before we can introduce them to their new families. All being well Gaura should at least have good companions. He goes from strength to strength but is still too young to join the other infants in their enclosure. Gaura “helping” Mama Posseh to clean his quarters We’d like to say a huge thank-you to the great response from Lucia, Sherri, Christine and Wanda in contributing to the costs of Urgent’s rescue. Three new chimps in a week is no small challenge and your help is much appreciated by all of us at Tacugama.
We have another new chimpanzee at Tacugama – an adult female of about 15 who goes by the name of Urgent (as apparently she’s always in a rush for her food). Following information we received from the Gola Forest Conservation Programme, the end of last week saw us travelling to the south-east of Sierra Leone, past Kenema to the village of Gorahun. We’d been told of Urgent’s plight and after some checking around realised that, as she is a big chimp, the only option was for us to go and get her. After a total of 5 hours driving and an overnight stop in Kenema, early Friday morning we were joined by Jessica from the Gola Forest team to drive another 2 hours on very rough roads by the edge of the Gola forest (passing the chiefdom where Gaura was found). Village near Gaura’s home Our first contact was with the Paramount Chief – the traditional leader of the area - to confirm that we were coming to confiscate the chimpanzee and to explain the reasons why. We also gave some donations of clothes and children’s toys for the villagers. (We occasionally receive these donations from our supporters and they are well received by the communities that we visit). The Paramount Chief then called the owner of the chimpanzee, Jusufa Sama, who took us to meet Urgent. Meeting the Chief (in green) Paramount Chief (left) with our sensitisation posters Village children with their donated toys Meeting Urgent First sight of Urgent
Her owner seemed to care about her but clearly had no understanding of the needs of a chimpanzee. Most of the village gathered to watch as I introduced myself to Urgent. Bala and Urgent
It turned out that Mr Sama found Urgent with a hunter in a neighbouring village eight years ago and decided to keep her for himself. I don’t think she’s been chained for the whole eight years but probably as she stopped being a cute small chimp and became a strong adult the chain was the only way for him to keep control over Urgent. Mr Sama with Urgent Urgent was sedated so that she could be realeased from her chain, loaded into a travelling cage and made comfortable for the long journey ahead. We had an enthusiastic escort from the village children chanting “Urgent, Urgent” as we set off on the eight hour journey back to Tacugama. Breaking the chain Safely loaded - Mr Sama says goodbye The kids say goodbye She’s now under observation in quarantine, a bigger chimp than usual for Posseh to keep an eye on. All in all the rescue cost us about $250 and any support we can receive towards this would be much appreciated. Baby Tombo who arrived a few days ago is suffering from dysentery and on medication under the watchful eye of Dr Rosa. As I write this entry we’re awaiting the arrival of another baby chimp on the way from the Gola forest area, this time Panguma – we don’t have much information about him yet. We’re clearly in for another busy time with new arrivals and we’ll keep you updated on their progress.
Three days ago we received an urgent call informing us that a baby chimp was being sold at Lumley beach area in Freetown. Our informer was instructed to keep negotiating with the dealer until our arrival. Willie, our head keeper, and Tommy, wildlife ranger were swiftly dispatched. On their way they picked up two police officers and with their help the baby chimp was confiscated without too much hassle. The man, a woodcutter from Tombo village situated in the peninsula of Freetown, obviously explained a fancy story that he came across three adult chimps in the bush and when they saw him, they panicked and took off leaving the baby behind. Tombo village is a gateway by boat to many provincial coastal villages, and we think this baby must have been capture in the south of Sierra Leone and transported into Freetown peninsula for a quick sale. The dealer was in a hurry as he was willing to sell the baby for a mere $25. Tombo on arrival to Tacugama with Willie We have named her Tombo. She is less than a year old, very thin (3.5kg) and very scared. Mama Posseh is now in charge and giving her the love and care she needs to make her feel safe. Tombo It was funny to see Gaura’s reaction to the new arrival. He was attentive, inquisitive and possibly very jealous seeing Mama Posseh taking care of Tombo. It won’t be long Gaura will have a new playmate. Junior is almost completely recovered from his injury and has joined his friends in the night dens. He may be allowed to go outdoors in the coming days. Junior and his mates: his best friend Kouze (sitting in front of him), Nita and Jerry (in the hammocks) Lucia C. and Theresa S. thank you very much for your latest donations. We will use the money to buy extra milk for Tombo.
We’ve had a welcome visit from the British Navy; HMS Albion called into Freetown last week and crew members paid a visit to Tacugama with a few spare hours on their hands. The list of maintenance jobs is always growing and it was great to have the sailors working on our to-do list! With kind permission from Captain Wayne Keble and Commander Richard Murrison the crew set to work replacing ropes and repairing footbridges despite attempts from local ant populations to stop them in their tracks! Planning operations
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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Bala Amarasekaran abandoned his original career as an accountant to establish Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in 1995. Together with the Government of Sierra Leone, he is working to secure the welfare and future of chimpanzees in Sierra Leone. 
