Tacugama

Category: Chimpanzee, Education, Tacugama | Date: Jan 13 2008 | By: admin

Hi – this is Harriet here, one of the volunteers working at Tacugama. Bala’s asked me to update you on some great follow up on the Tacugama Kids Programme that he introduced to you in his second blog.

One of the goals of our first workshop was to encourage the teachers to start nature clubs in their schools. We were really pleased to get an invite shortly afterwards from one of the participating schools to the official launching of their nature club in December. Laia and I set off not knowing what to expect but as it turned out we were very pleasantly surprised!
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Category: Chimpanzee, Tacugama | Date: Jan 10 2008 | By: admin

Gaura is doing fine so far. This week the harmattan winds (from the Sahara) are blowing hard around the sanctuary and it is very chilly. Despite sleeping indoors with blankets and so on, he is so tiny that in the morning he shivers and we’ve had to dress him in pyjamas to keep him warmer. In the mornings he sits outside with Posseh under the sun till it warms up. Otherwise, he is on medication as his respiratory infection was getting worse and he started having fever and losing appetite. Now he seems better, and is already drinking milk with enthusiasm.
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Category: Charlie Girl, Chimpanzee, Tacugama | Date: Jan 07 2008 | By: admin

We have started 2008 by receiving our youngest resident, Gaura. He is a very tiny chimp, no more than 2.5 kg in weight and less than a year old. He comes from the Gaura Chiefdom in Eastern Sierra Leone. He was found in a trap in the Gola Forest (which has very recently been declared Sierra Leone’s second National Park) and a week later handed to the education officers of the Gola Forest Program; they immediately brought him to the sanctuary. Gaura looks frail and scared. He is running a cold but even being held by unfamiliar hairless individuals, he seems to be slowly adapting to his new surroundings. Thankfully he has a ravenous appetite gobbling up oranges and bananas. It’s just as well that Tico, Mary and Jettie have settled into their new family group as Mamma Posseh now has a new big demand on her time from Gaura. Posseh is being helped by one of our volunteers, Laia, and both are making sure he receives the best care we can give him.
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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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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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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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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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