Tacugama

Category: Chimpanzee, Gaura, Tacugama | Date: Nov 19 2008 | By: tacugama

Unfortunately in the last couple of weeks we’ve had some reports of hunters entering the Western Area Peninsula Forest Reserve carrying guns. While we’re not concerned about Tacugama chimps or visitor and staff safety (we work so closely with our local communities that there are lots of eyes and ears taking care of our immediate sanctuary area) its both illegal and unacceptable for the hunters to be in the forest reserve. Over the last few months we’ve enjoyed hearing wild chimps calling to our own with increasing frequency and only on Saturday five wild chimps were seen playing close to our local dam. It’s these guys and other forest inhabitants that we’re concerned about so our small patrol team are watching carefully and we’re in close contact with the enforcement authorities. We’re hopeful that the hunters will be apprehended and prosecuted before long.

Empty cartridges found by the patrol team
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We’re finally through the flu and although a couple of our chimps had us really concerned - especially Josephine and Salva - we’re pleased to report that everyone’s made a full recovery. It also means that we were able to release Dr Rosa, our resident vet, to meet her counterparts from the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance (PASA) at a veterinary workshop in Congo. PASA supports the vets getting together every two years so that they can share experiences and update their knowledge to make sure we keep our wildlife safe and healthy. You can see Rosa at the conference on the J.A.C.K. blog…

Gaura, Tombo and Mac are going from strength to strength! They really look forward to their daily forest walk and hoot in excitement when Posseh rounds them up for their excursions. Poor little Bainyaa is feeling really left out as they go. She’s still in her quarantine period so has to wait for a few more weeks before she can join the rest of Posseh’s adventurers.

Tombo (l) and Mac (r) ready to go (you can just see Gaura’s hand on Posseh’s shoulder!)
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Posseh was telling me that Gaura is now getting very daring in the forest, jumping from branch to branch and going higher and higher in the trees. Tombo’s happy to climb high but won’t jump far and Mac is still finding his feet (and arms!) as he gains confidence in the trees. Hopefully we’ll be able to get our new enclosures funded so that our younger residents can spend all day in the trees just like the older guys.

Gaura ready to play with Mac
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The news from Phillip’s group is good so far with Boyze, Ole, Tito and Perform all behaving. Boyze is building his confidence though he still likes to see a clear route to the dens should moods change. Hopefully in the next few days he’ll start to explore further afield. Urgent and Salva are close to being able to go into the enclosures soon and Marion’s not looked back since she joined Mama Lucy’s group out in their forest area. We smile everytime we see her riding on Mama Lucy or Kate’s back - such a contrast to when she first arrived.

Blogging has really helped us to keep in touch with many of our friends - known and unknown but it’s also fun when we hear from you in different ways. A recent visitor to Sierra Leone brought with her an envelope from Bishop Tufnell Junior School in the south of England. Inside was a lovely card from the school’s art club who had raised money for us by making and selling bookmarks. We wasted no time is showing the card to Simon’s group of young chimps - they thought it was great too! Thanks again to all of you in the art club - your donation was a lovely surprise.

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

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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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Phillip too, was keen to strengthen his relationship with Boyze. He wants to succeed in building a strong alliance to keep his rank as he is aware the other adults in the group like Ole, Perform, Tito and Jido have been regularly making moves to topple him. Ole inflicted a nasty injury on Phillip a few weeks ago.

Phillip and Jido greet each other

Boyze reached another milestone three weeks ago when he was given a chance to enter the forest enclosures with the group except for the other adult males. He was brilliant! He made all the right moves and got himself accepted by the whole gang. He even managed to get a long grooming session from Mama Julie in full view of the entire group.

This gave us the confidence to introduce the rest of the adult males one by one. He did very well to avoid any confrontation with Perform, Tito and Jido and left Phillip to take care of any aggression from them. It worked well for Phillip too, to show the others that he has a new pal and he is keen to defend him.

The final moment, the icing on the cake, came on 4th November! Ole (our Senator McCain) the main contender for the alpha male status was brought into the group. It was a tense moment and to the pleasant surprise of all – Ole came out with his mind set on avoiding any conflict with Boyze. He has obviously been carefully watching every step of Boyze’s introduction into the group. Tuesday was a satisfying moment for everyone at camp.

Ole, Phillip, Boyze and Perform (l to r) grooming peacefully
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Phillip oversees more grooming
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As the world marks the historic victory of Obama, we are doing our bit too – celebrating Boyze’s successful introduction into the adult group!  It’s by no means the end of the story but it’s a great step forward.

Boyze receiving a welcoming grooming from Tito, Ole and Sulleh (l to r)
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Many thanks for your recent support to Theresa, Wanda, Leigh, Joanne and Lucia. You really help us to keep our work going.

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

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Category: Chimpanzee, Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Oct 30 2008 | By: tacugama

Sorry for the recent lack of a post, intermittent internet connections and spreading flu have conspired against us staying in touch with you over the past week and more.

On our last post we mentioned a new arrival at Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary. Her name is Bai Nyaa, which means woman of the kigdom Bai. She is a one year old girl with a healthy appetite. She was rescued in a village called Poturu, near Tiwai Island, in the south of Sierra Leone, again by representatives of the Gola Forest Project. Villagers were once more reluctant to give much history, but she is tame and used to people. So far her first health check has shown only a mild anaemia, let’s hope nothing more emerges during her 3 month quarantine.

Even though we are struggling for funding and space, we never turn down a new chimp, because we know there is nowhere else in this country where they can go. It costs us about $1000 per year for every chimp and currently we care for 91 chimps. We thank all of you for your continuing support!

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Marion is fully introduced into Mama Lucy’s group. She is the baby toy of the group and everyone wants her to ride on their backs. It is a wonderful sight to see how well she has been accepted by her new family and finally see her enjoying the extended freedom of their forested enclosure.

Marion and Kate
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The lengthy introduction process for Boyze is making steady progress. He has also been introduced to most of Philip’s group and is now allowed to be in the forested enclosure. The final hurdle will be meeting the two larger males, Ole and Perform. We’re keeping them apart until Boyze is comfortable and made enough allies in the group.

The flu epidemic is keeping Dr. Rosa extremely busy. Josephine responded well to the treatment and she is back in her group. Unluckily, the flu has spread to the other groups and the cacophony of the different coughs makes camp sound like a concert of modern music - not our favourite background.

Gorilla is the next to be badly affected and he has been feeling miserable, congested and weak. Some chimpanzees can be very stubborn when it comes to take medicines, and he is one of them. Finally we have had to medicate him using the blowpipe. Is it interesting to note that Gorilla, different to the other chimps, is not afraid of the dart itself. (Of course, he doesn’t like us to point and dart him but after, he likes to play with the dart and needle. Any other chimp will either destroy it, or be scared of touching it.) This makes recovery of the dart a lengthy process, as he likes keeping it with him. He was originally kept long time ago by an Austrian doctor, so maybe he became used to medical equipment. But who knows!

We have heard about the dreadful events happening  in  East Congo and we want to send our moral support to everyone affected.

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

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Category: Chimpanzee, Tacugama | Date: Oct 15 2008 | By: tacugama

Chimpanzees are tough but when it comes to respiratory infections, they suffer badly. At Tacugama we dread when flu strikes. Unfortunately, the flu season is here and all 27 chimps in Mamma Lucy’s group are coughing, sneezing and some have fever.

Marion and Josephine have been the worst affected. Marion spent one day refusing food or drinks, but eventually the medication worked and she is now recovering well, but Josephine has refused anything for three days.

Today we had no other option but to dart Josephine and give her a drip to provide her with fluid and nutrition. We were very concerned about her breathing as she was very congested, that’s why we had to supplement her with oxygen during the procedure (It is the first time we have had oxygen at Tacugama thanks to a recent donation by WSPA).

She recovered well from the anaesthesia and now we just need to wait and see how she will progress.

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News just in…….we have this evening received a new baby chimpanzee……more news on her soon.

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Category: Chimpanzee, Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Oct 14 2008 | By: tacugama

Urgent has now also finished her quarantine period and we have the difficult challenge of integrating her into an existing family group.  Introducing adult chimpanzees is very difficult and often unsuccessful. In the case of Urgent and her history, it may well be impossible.  Our goal is to integrate her to Gorilla and Baba’s group. Gorilla will then have someone closer to his own age to share the attention of the lively younger chimps who, in turn, may accept her better than other adults.

While under anesthesia, Urgent was transferred to her new den.  She’s sharing a set of dens with Gorilla and Solo.  She is in the middle with Solo on one side and Gorilla and Jettie’s on the other. (Jettie’s one of the youngest members of the group who has become almost inseparable from Gorilla and chooses to stay with him at night rather than with the rest of the young ones.)  She will stay in the den until we are confident that she is comfortable with the rest of the group.  She can interact through the grills with her den mates and during the day the rest of Baba’s group can interact with her through the tunnel entrance to the enclosure.

Urgent meets Gorilla & Jettie with Solo looking on
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Things were going well. Urgent was submissive and there was a lot of grooming through the grills but we then hit a huge problem.  She didn’t want to move from one den to the next for the daily cleaning that is necessary.  We tried all means…all kind of foods, nice words and we even allowed Baba, Tico and Zack to mix with her in the hope she would follow them to next den, but nothing. For almost three days she refused to move dens… she is a woman with an attitute!

Urgent happy with Tico’s company but not moving
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As she seems very keen on Solo, we finally allowed her to mix with him (he’s a much bigger chimp), it did the trick and she followed him to his den, at last we could clean her den again. They got on so well that finally we let them spend the night together and that’s how it’s continuing, now it’s much easier to clean and they’re good company for each other.  Solo is also confined to the dens at the moment as his escape attempts became much more serious - we’re working on a longer term solution to keep him and us safe and happy!

Marion’s continuing to meet more and more of Mama Lucy’s group and has also been introduced to the electric fence. Before any chimp can go into the forest enclosures, they have to learn about the fence and avoiding shocks.  We set some wires next to her den to teach her that this is something you should not touch. Unfortunately the only way to learn is for a chimp to touch the wire. Normally once will do, sometimes twice but never a third time. Marion learned her lesson very quickly!  Unfortunately her progress to the enclosure has been delayed - flu has struck the group and several of the chimps are now coughing and sneezing - Marion included.  We’re working hard to try to stop it spreading but we’re in for a few tough days.

Marion gets a shock

Thanks to Joanne, Leigh and Lucia for your recent and continuing support - it really does make a big difference to all of us here….and Catherine thanks for following our blogs and staying in touch. Say hi to Ron.

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

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Category: Gaura, Tacugama | Date: Oct 06 2008 | By: tacugama

Last week saw the end of Tombo’s quarantine period and so finally we’ve been able to give Gaura a playmate. After a long wait, he was very excited to meet Tombo. With only a small hesitation on Tombo’s part, it took no time for them to bond together, so much so that Tombo wouldn’t let Gaura go at all. It was an amazing introduction that we’ve captured on a few video clips so that you can share the moment…..!

“Gaura, you are mine now”

“Love at first sight”

“I am not letting you go ever”

After spending many happy hours playing together, Gaura and Tombo finally headed to bed for a well earned night’s sleep. Much to Tombo’s disappointment, Gaura was not so good at sharing his hammock as he was at playing! She finally had to let go of him to get enough space and sleep in her own hammock. The two are now sharing the same quarantine enclosure and really enjoying each other’s company.  We’re hoping that we can secure funding soon to allow us to build the additional enclosures we need so that Gaura, Tombo together with Mac, Salva and others will finally start to learn how to live in the forest.

Bed time
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Yesterday saw the opening of the art exhibition at Monarto Zoo in Australia - you may recall that two Australian artists have used photos of Tacugama’s chimpanzees for the basis of their works being displayed. They have kindly offered to give a significant proportion of their proceeds to Tacugama to help with the sanctuary running costs. It sounds like the exhibition is going really well for Leigh Rust and Patrick Hedges - here’s a link to their website Art for Chimps.

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Category: Tacugama | Date: Sep 23 2008 | By: tacugama

Marion is a good natured 3.5 years old female chimpanzee. She arrived at Tacugama last November after being confiscated by an IMATT soldier in a small town named Moyamba, towards the south west of Sierra Leone. She had been kept by people for two years and was mostly free to roam in the town. Maybe that’s why she is so confident and strong-minded.

Marion has had to stay in the quarantine area beyond her allotted three months because of the lack of funding to build the new enclosures that we need. Finally, we decided to try to introduce her to Mama Lucy’s group of 26. It is never easy to introduce a new chimp in an already settled group but Marion is young, female with hints of a strong and determined character so it was worth the try so that she could start to enjoy more space, companionship and the next stages of her rehabilitation.

The introduction process has to be carefully managed so the first step was to prepare a space for Marion in the night dens where Mama Lucy’s group come in to sleep. Marion will need to spend several weeks in here gradually being introduced to her new family so it’s important that she has hammocks and ropes to play with. Early last week Mama Posseh took her from quarantine to her new home while Mama Lucy and her group were out in their forested enclosure, they shared what will probably be their last hug together - a very sad moment for Mama Posseh. Gradually Marion moved away and started to explore the much bigger space that she now has.

On the way to Marion’s new home
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Category: Chimpanzee, Introduction, Tacugama | Date: Aug 25 2008 | By: tacugama

Definitely this is a busy time in Tacugama. With so many new arrivals in a short period of time and the condition in which they arrived, the caregivers and the vet are very occupied.

We are happy to report that Salva is recovering well. Dr. Rosa has sedated him three times to treat his wounds and they are healing well. He has a healthy appetite and for the last three days he has started to accept milk for which he now cries. He is still not allowing us to touch him but accepts food from our hand. I can’t start to imagine how much Salva has endured to be that scared of people.

Salva enjoying a treat (bread) after his sedation
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Mac is growing very fond of his hammock and loves to have naps in it. He is putting on weight, but that is not surprising if you saw the amount of food he can wolf down! Continue Reading »

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Category: Tacugama | Date: Aug 12 2008 | By: tacugama

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:  

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Tags: Chimpanzee, IMATT, sanctuary, Sierra Leone, Tacugama, VSO, wildlife

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