Tacugama

Category: Tacugama | Date: Jul 08 2009 | By: tacugama

Ten days ago we received a call from a businessman living in Freetown saying he had two chimps at his home that he wanted to handover to Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary. We arranged to go and see him to get a better understanding of the situation and found two female chimps around 6-7 years old being kept in terrible conditions.

Our first sight…

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Although we are not totally convinced about the story we got from their keeper, it appears that he acquired the chimps several years ago while on a hunting trip into the centre of Sierra Leone and had kept them ever since in the central section of this small outbuilding. When they were smaller they were given some occasional freedom to roam the compound but as they grew bigger and less controllable that freedom disappeared. They had clearly not left their confines for a long time from the pile of lorry wheel hubs stacked against the gate. Sadly there was a similar pile filling the floor of their prison. He claimed to be an animal lover but wanted to handover the chimps as they were costing him too much to take care of. It would have been difficult for any neighbours to detect the presence of the chimps as the walls of the compound were tall and a noisy generator seemed to be running constantly.

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

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