Tacugama

This Sunday – 15 April – sees Ewa O’Neill and Anita (Frankie) McKenna running in the Paris marathon.  It’ll be the first time that either of them have run this distance and they’ve been training hard to prepare for the big day.  We’d like to ask you to sponsor their run to raise funds for Tacugama’s running costs and community outreach programme.

Many of you will have seen the result of Ewa’s support for Tacugama – our calendars, postcards, posters, leaflets, stationery and many other items are all thanks to her creative talent.  Based in Sierra Leone for two years and now living in Nepal, Ewa and husband Dominic are very good friends and supporters of Tacugama. Ewa’s been thinking about running a marathon for some time and was persuaded by friends last November that it was time to change thoughts to action in time for Paris.  Frankie has been volunteering as Tacugama’s programme and fundraising manager for almost four years and when Ewa mentioned Paris, she thought that it sounded like a good idea to join in despite not having run seriously for a very long time!!

Ewa training in Kathmandu

The 5 months since clicking an “enter” button on a website from the comfort of a chair have flown by and seen Ewa and Frankie hit the road and put in some significant miles in preparation for Sunday’s run.  They were due to be joined in the run by Chris and Teresa Allewell who also became friends and supporters of  Tacugama while in Sierra Leone.  Very sadly Chris was forced to drop out with a very serious back injury in March, we wish him a speedy and full recovery.

Chris and Teresa helping to rescue Benita

We’d like to thank Air France KLM who have generously supported Frankie’s participation be providing a return flight on their service that runs from Freetown to Paris.  The photo below shows Jack Urlus and Toyin Alaran presenting Frankie with her ticket.

Frankie receives her free ticket from Air France KLM

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We’d also like to thank IMATT (International Military Advisory and Training Team) in Sierra Leone for giving Frankie access to their facilities to support her training.

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We wish Ewa and Frankie lots of luck for Sunday and hope that you’ll be able to support them also.  If you would like to sponsor them there are several options:

• http://www.justgiving.com/TacugamaMarathon – we can claim an additional 25% on top of what you donate through Giftaid if you’re a UK taxpayer
• http://www.tacugama.com/donate.html – you can use our paypal account to donate through the links on this page and there’s also the details of a Euro bank account that you can transfer directly to.

Thank you – we’ll let you know how they get on!

Hello everyone – sorry for our extended absence from blogging – we’ve been through some significant downs and ups in recent months and unfortunately with everything that’s been going on we’ve not been able to keep you up to date with the blog.  However we are back on line now and planning to stay that way and keep you all in touch with all our news.  It will take us a few posts to catch back up with you….

Kouze reflects on recent news…

Most importantly for today is to give you an update on the chimps at Tacugama and tomorrow on our activities over recent months. In our last blog post we mentioned our concern that a possible seasonal recurrence of EMCV was giving us cause for concern; we’d lost Urgent unexpectedly in February. Sadly four more chimps died by the end of April: Bo, Baba, Jetti and Small Lucy. All of these deaths have been completely heartbreaking as there was no opportunity for veterinary intervention to save these incredible chimps. We were also very concerned in April with the condition of Babes, mother to Bintu and Basma, but she regained her strength and was apparently back to normal when in August she was tragically found dead in the enclosure. We have been liaising with PASA and advisors from overseas labs to try to clearly identify what we can do to fully identify and protect against the cause of these mortalities and are very grateful for the support that we have received. Given that our strongest suspicion is still EMCV, we have also embarked on re-vaccinating all of our chimps with vaccines sent to us by Taronga Zoo in Australia. Following the vaccination programme in 2009, we had no new occurrences in 2010. It’s an extremely challenging, stressful and expensive process to anaesthetise so many chimpanzees but with the best understanding currently available it’s our best defence.

The most amazing thing that we’ve been able to observe emerging from the tragedies is the importance of the chimpanzees’ social group. With the death of Babes we were extremely concerned for the well-being of the youngest of her two daughters, Basma, who is just two years old. It has been incredibly heart-warming to see how her “aunts and uncles” (who are completely unrelated) have stepped in and taken this infant under their care. We are carefully documenting what is unfolding before our eyes and so far feel very happy that young Basma will continue to thrive with the care that she is receiving from the group. At seven years of age, big sister Bintu is coping well and also ensures that her little sister gets some extra special hugs.

Basma with Uncles Philip and Kafoe

Basma in the centre with Aunties Julie (r) and Susie (l) and Uncles Kafoe (behind) and Sulleh (in front)

We’ve also squeezed in three new chimps even though we are struggling for enclosure space. Two were confiscated with the support of mining companies who had been offered the chimps on sale. We’ve been working closely with these organisations to break the historical expectation that employees at the mining sites would be happy to buy exotic pets and we’ve been getting good support so Eglo joined us in April and Bingo in July. Eglo has sailed through his quarantine and has now joined in our youngest group of chimps with Chippie, Benita, Samson, Delilah, Tompey and Kangari. Bingo still has a month left in quarantine and is progressing well now we’ve moved him on from his previous diet which included plenty of beer, biscuits and sweets!

Eglo on arrival

Bingo on arrival

Our most challenging of the new arrivals has been tiny Perry. Only around 10 weeks old on arrival he was found at the end of May in Port Loko by one of the few vets in Sierra Leone, Dr Gudush Jalloh. He was visiting the area with a World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) ambassador, Stuart Lindsay, a judge from Australia. They were informed about Perry being held and immediately followed up to locate and confiscate him – it was a tough challenge but they finally succeeded and rushed him to Tacugama as he was in a very poor state of health, dehydrated, emaciated and with a bad respiratory infection. We were really not sure if Perry would survive – he was far too young to have been separated from his mother (we understand that she was hunted and killed) – and for several weeks it was touch and go. Fortunately with dedicated care from our resident vet and Mama Posseh and extra support from IMATT, (the international military advisory training team) who loaned us a ventilator, young Perry has undergone an amazing transformation and is now a cheeky, noisy and lively character.

Perry on arrival

Perry showing a marked improvement after 6 weeks at Tacugama!

And even more so by early September!!

We also have a 4th new chimp since we last blogged. Early in the year we became increasingly suspicious of Mama Lucy’s increasing appetite and girth and realised that her contraceptive implant must have failed! On 27 March her son was born late in the afternoon to a very happy and relaxed Mama Lucy. He’s very close in age to young Perry so it will be fascinating to compare their development. Already we can see that Mama Lucy’s son is more mobile and physically confident than Perry and clearly has the advantage of starting his life within an existing social group of chimpanzees. It will be some time before we can introduce Perry to his own social group but we are trying as hard as we can to do as good a job as Mama Lucy is doing – she has turned out to be a great mum! We’ll soon be asking you to help us find a name for her baby.

Mama Lucy and baby son at an hour old

Our resident veterinary position saw a change of faces in April. Simona Papa returned to her native Italy after twelve months of dedicated work and we welcomed Rupak Khadka from Nepal. He joins us after completing a masters programme in Germany. We were also very happy to welcome back Rosa Garriga from Spain for a month at the end of May. Rosa was Tacugama’s resident vet for 5 years before handing over the reins to Simona. Rosa has been supporting our camera trapping project and visited to work with Bernie for some time as well as assisting Rupak with our EMCV vaccination programme.

Dr Rupak (l) checking on Zak with Dr Rosa as part of the vaccination programme

We’ll gradually bring you back up to date with news and pictures on how all of six of the chimp groups plus the new arrivals are faring at Tacugama. We’ve got some more great photos that we look forward to sharing with you.  More news follows tomorrow on some more of our activities but for today we’ll leave you with a recent, sweet photo of Gaura who many of you have been asking about!

Gaura

Hello everyone and a very belated happy 2011. Apologies from everyone at Tacugama for our extended blogging absence but January seems to have disappeared at an amazing rate (as did the end of 2010)!! Hope you’ll forgive us for not keeping you in the picture – we’ll do our best to do a whistle-stop catch up on what’s been keeping us busy for the last few weeks ….

SQUEEZING IN ONE MORE CHIMP
Although our doors  are technically closed we made an exception for AJ, brought to us by mining company African Minerals. He’s a very young guy and was confiscated by the company who alerted us that they had taken him from a hunter. The mine site is an extremely busy place and we all felt that it would be much better to squeeze AJ into Tacugama to keep him safe and healthy. He’s now almost finished his quarantine period and will hopefully soon become a companion to little Sarah, also a rescued by a mining company. She’s also doing incredibly well in Posseh’s care and looking forward to a friend her own size as she’s too small to join some of our more boisterous youngsters.

AJ on arrival

AJ coming round from his first health check

AJ a few days ago – sometime we think Linus could be a better name he loves his blankets so much!

Sarah sharing some special moments with Mama Posseh

STAFF FIRST AID TRAINING
Thanks to the kind support of IMATT and their doctor Lt Col Pete Roulston, several of our staff received vitally important first aid training so that we are in a much better position to assist should visitors, staff or chimps be unlucky enough to meet with an accident. Passing through several rigorous training sessions and a final test, we are very proud of Moses, Willie, Pastor, Posseh, Manso, Momodu, Daniel, Obana and Ansu who successfully achieved their Emergency First Response certification. We are very grateful to Pete, Tina, Faye and Luke for their supportive training.

Building skills

Recreating an accident scene

Lt Col Pete Roulston with Obana, Daniel, Manso, Moses and Dr Simona

TACUGAMA KIDS ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION PROGRAMME (T-KEEP)
Working with the rural junior secondary schools in the communities around our forest continues to be an important priority for us and Obana, our education officer has been busy implementing our education programme with the support of our field officers Papanie and Yirah.  We visit the schools and bring the kids to Tacugama to try and ensure that our young generations understand the importance of conserving the forests for the future.

Students from Rokel School at Tacugama

Understanding the web of life at Huntingdon School

CLEANING UP OUR LOCAL ENVIRONMENT
Sadly the mountain road leading from Freetown that passes Tacugama onto the southern beaches of our peninsula has been increasing abused as a rubbish dumping ground as a result of the expansion of our capital city Freetown. Together with our neighbouring communities we have decided that enough is enough and with them we have launched “Kip Wi Community Clean” to clean up the dump sites and stop this horrible and unhealthy habit. We’ve already stopped some vehicles that have come to dump, erected a warning sign and are gathering support to get the tools that the communities need to remove the dumped waste.

Planning for action

Fortunately we caught this one before too much was tipped on the road

Dumpers beware!

EMERGENCY REPAIRS…!
Sometimes disputes between adult male chimpanzees can get a little out of hand and in January an argument between Ole and Perform left Ole with a very nasty torn lip. Emergency surgery was the order of the day and Dr Simona quickly attended to the situation, the following pictures are not for the faint of heart! Fortunately he’s now back with the group and he and Perform are back on talking terms.

Ole’s upper lip was almost removed by Perform’s bite

Dr Simona undertakes some difficult needlework with support from Willie and Bala

Ole’s recovering well but will carry the evidence for life – luckily no damage has been done to his appetite!

AND MORE EMERGENCY REPAIRS….!
Maintaining several kilometers of electric fencing requires constant vigilance to make sure that we maintain safe enclosures at Tacugama and in January we noticed that two of our fence posts needed replacing. This is an arduous task as the posts are connected with high tension wire that must be carefully removed and reconnected as part of the repairs.

Moses, Pastor and Manso repair the fence

LAW ENFORCEMENT As members of a EU funded project (with Welthungerhilfe and the Environmental Forum for Action) to protect the forest reserve where we are located, we recently delivered a 3-day field training programme for 36 newly recruited forest guards. Coincidently on the same day the training started we observed a suspicious vehicle close to the sanctuary and after following up on this confiscated many illegally harvested sticks that were destined for use in the building industry.

We found almost 200 poles hidden in the bush

It was a major task to remove these to a safe place

The forest guards and Tacugama trainers deep in the forest reserve

TREATING A SERIOUSLY ILL CHIMP
Young Zeelie fell seriously ill in January, unable to urinate easily, in significant pain and with alarming swelling to his genitalia Dr Simona was pressed into emergency action. This time we needed help from others as the cause for Zeelie’s problem was not easy to diagnose. We were very lucky to gain support from senior Sierra Leonean specialists to assist with this difficult case. After an ultrasound scan undertaken by Dr Harris identified a foreign body in Zeelie’s bladder, urologist Dr Kamara stepped in with his team to operate and remove a huge stone. Post-operative care has required managing to keep Zeelie with a catheter to drain his urine while his bladder and penis recover – keeping this in place has been a major challenge as chimps are not known for their tolerance for medical treatment! Fortunately so far he’s recovering well and tolerating the catheter thanks to the close supervision of Dr Simona, Posseh and Dr Pete from IMATT. Zeelie is still some way away from a full recovery but we are much more hopeful now thanks to the great support we’ve received.

Ultrasound checks

Operating to remove the “stone”

The offending stone

FIELD RESEARCH
Our field officers have been been once again setting and monitoring the digital camera traps in the Western Area Peninsula Forest Reserve so that we can continue to gather more information about the wild chimps and other wildlife in the forest that surrounds Tacugama.  We’re looking forward to bringing you more photos over the coming months taken by these great tools.

Papanie and Yirah setting one of the cameras

Ready to capture passing wildlife

TAKING CARE OF OUR FAMILY
We’re almost there on raising the final funds that we need for the new enclosures so badly needed by our growing family at Tacugama. It’s been a long road but we’re hopeful that we’re nearly there and preparations are now underway for this major construction project that will make a huge difference to our chimpanzees and our ability to continue to enforce the law and protect them in the wild. Watch this space for more news.

After our hectic start to the year we’re back on the blogging track and look forward to sharing our updates and photos during 2011. We thought we’d leave you today with these great photos of young Basma who is growing in character and confidence every day!

Warning: some of the pictures shown below may be disturbing.

As part of our routine health care of the chimpanzees at Tacugama, we recently gave Gorilla (yes that’s really his name -you can read more about him on one of our earlier blogs here) a booster vaccination. After a few days, Gorilla’s leg showed signs of stiffness and discomfort and his leg started to swell. We became increasingly concerned when Gorilla didn’t respond to follow up treatment and decided that we had to knock him down to investigate more closely. As sweet natured and friendly as Gorilla is, he is still an adult male chimpanzee weighing over 50kg and sedation is the only way that we can do a thorough check.

Carrying a sedated Gorilla to the operating table
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We hope you’ve all been enjoying the holiday season, sorry for our belated greetings but our best laid of plans to send you our festive cheer were delayed with the arrival of yet another new chimp at Tacugama, Benita is her name and she’s somewhere close to 3 years old.

Dr Rosa was busy with the one month health checks for Samson and Delila, who arrived with us in November, when a call came in from IMATT (the International Military Advisory & Training Team) who have become good supporters to Tacugama. While on his way out of the base, Major Chris Allewell spotted someone holding a chimp on the side of the road, stopped to check out the situation and ensured that the chimp made it safely to the sanctuary.

Major Allewell with Benita and her owner, Fatmata
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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:  [kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/T994vqZQnFg" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

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