Tacugama

Category: Tacugama | Date: Jun 23 2009 | By: tacugama

Sorry we’ve not been blogging as much over the last couple of weeks - it’s been a tough time here at Tacugama recently.

We were catching up with ourselves after the month long intensive health check programme and putting all the paperwork in place in mid-May when one of the chimpanzees in Mama Lucy and Joke’s group, Mark, failed to come in from the forested enclosure as usual at the end of the day.  Joke also failed to come in and was sitting at the top of one of the tall trees calling to the care staff.  The rest of the group came into the dens but with Joke in the enclosure there was no way for us to go and look for Mark.  Joke has grown into a strong and powerful male and we can take no risks.  Joke finally sensed that we were trying to help and came into the dens but with the light failing, looking for Mark proved unsuccessful that evening.  We were out again at first light the next morning and sadly found Mark dead, another likely victim of EMCV.  It was a bitter moment as we had just completed all the vaccinations but it takes time for resistance to develop and for poor Mark it was too late.  It was a sad end to an intensive and positive programme with great team work from all our staff, volunteers and the Max Planck team but demonstrated just how vitally the protection from EMCV is needed.

Continue Reading »

Tags: Chimpanzee, Max Planck, Sierra Leone, Stichting AAP, Tacugama

9 responses so far