Africa | Tacugama

Mama Posseh Q & A

Category: Tacugama | Date: Nov 04 2009 | By: tacugama

Hi, this is Tess here again. Following the earlier blog where we asked you to send us your questions for Mama Posseh who works in quarantine, she has now finally finished answering your questions. She was very happy that so many people around the world are interested and appreciate the work she does!

With the help of Willie, the camp supervisor, Posseh gets down to answering all your questions
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How did you come to work at Tacugama?
I came to work at Tacugama as a cook by Mr Bala, and then later joined the sanctuary as a full member of staff dealing with the chimpanzees; deployed in the quarantine section as a foster mother.

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

9 responses so far

Question Time with Mama Posseh

Category: Tacugama | Date: Oct 10 2009 | By: tacugama

Hello, this is Tess, one of Tacugama’s volunteers, blogging today.

As some of you know Mama Posseh is the responsible for the quarantine section at Tacugama where she looks after the new arrivals for their 3 months quarantine period. She gives them lots of care and attention during their stay here, acting as their foster mother. The new chimps are often weak, distressed and their backgrounds unknown. Posseh works very hard, an important part of her job is keeping the area clean to prevent any spread of diseases, preparing their food as well as helping the chimps recover from their trauma. She also helps Dr Rosa to administer any medications needed.

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

8 responses so far

Gaura’s group make new friends!

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

Names and rains

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

One response so far

Obama makes it ……… so does Boyze!

Category: Chimpanzee, Tacugama | Date: Nov 10 2008 | By: tacugama

It has been a long, hard 3 months for Boyze, going through the integration process to join Phillip’s group. Introducing an adult male into a well established group, including several adult males is indeed a challenging task!

Boyze’s initial introduction to the alpha male – Phillip – started off well (see earlier post), but after a couple of weeks Boyze made a wrong move and was punished badly by Phillip. It took a month for one of his wounds to heal. Thankfully the incident was a one-off and both chimps worked hard to patch it up. Phillip was still keen to accept Boyze, who learned from his mistake and tried his best to be submissive towards Phillip.

As this friendship grew, we were able to introduce Boyze to all the females and juveniles in the group. Boyze worked hard, very hard… sometimes he even faked playing with the little ones to win the hearts of their mothers! (We have 4 juveniles who were born into this group about 4 years ago, before we managed to improve our contraceptive routine.)

Boyze with young Gara
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