Chimpanzee Conservation Centre

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 28 2009 | By: chris colin

Zoe safelly arrived at midnight on Monday night at the sanctuary! Almost 17hrs of travel, a long trip but she stayed calm all the way!

She spent the night in her cage of transport with Matt and Melanie by her side.

In the morning, they put Zoe in Coco’s cage as it is divided in 2 parts. As I explained before, Coco’s cage is the only cage that can hold an adult chimp in quarantine at the sanctuary. The cage is isolated from the other facilities. Zoe will probably stay with him after her quarantine period as it is probably too late for her to gain enough experience to be rehabilitated with the others. We will see anyway how she evolves.

First, Zoe was  scared of Coco but after one hour she accepted to have physical contact with him through the bars. He was passing his arms through the bars and lifting her up and tickling her. They played like crazy, there both laughed a lot… Matt said that he had never heard Coco laugh so hard before!

The next step will be to introduce them together and to let them go out in their enclosure. We all hope that they will remain in their enclosure without escaping (Coco is an escape artist if you remember) and enjoy their new life together!

Take care

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 27 2009 | By: chris colin

Two photos of Zoe in her cage in Conakry…

Still no news from Matt, hope to be able to tell you more about Zoe and her new friend Coco tomorrow!

Take care

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 26 2009 | By: chris colin

Tomorrow morning, Zoé, who spent the last 10 years of her life in the big city of Conakry as a pet, will weak up in the middle of the forest with new friends of her kind around her.

Matt, Melanie and our driver are on their way to the sanctuary with Zoé. They left Conakry really early this morning. Zoé is calm and really nice. It is a chance as it is not really easy to travel with a young adult chimp in a  cage of transport for such a long time.

Hope to be able to post you Zoé’s photos by tomorrow and to tell you how she is!

Take care

Chris

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 23 2009 | By: chris colin

Matt and the team got everything done in time to pick up Zoe tomorrow morning but they got a call few hours ago, the boat engine is not done yet…They have to wait Sunday morning.

We all hope that Zoe will finally arrive safely at the sanctuary. It is sad to notice that Western people do not care about chimpanzee extinction in African countries (in every sanctuary we get animals coming from Western people who are supposed to be aware of all these problems) and we try our best to educate these people, but they are sometimes the worst!

Zoe will meet her new friend Coco on Monday. I promised you to tell you more about our Coco

Coco is our oldest resident; we think he is about 28 years old. He arrived at the sanctuary in March 2000, after we rescued him from a hotel in Conakry where he lived for years in the back of the garden… Estelle met him years ago, in 1996 when she was working in Conakry with the government and she had a small orphanage (8 chimps). One day Coco broke his chain and escaped in the crowded streets of Conakry. A military shot him several time and Coco received bullets in his back and his legs, but he was still alive. Somebody - who knew that a young French woman (Estelle) was working with the government to rescue chimpanzees – found her and took her to Coco. He could not walk anymore… one of the bullets exploded one of his kneecap. Estelle managed to remove every single bullet without anesthetics, without good surgery instrument, Coco let her help him. Coco finally recovered from all his injuries as Estelle came every day for one year to cure him and to give him physical therapy so he would manage to walk again one day. At this time (in 1996) there was no sanctuary, only 2 small orphanages not equipped to handle an adult chimp.

Coco in 1999 in the back of an hotel in Conakry. He was chained by his neck

It took quite a long time before the sanctuary was able to take him (we had to find enough money to build a strong cage for him) but we finally brought him in March 2000. We anesthetized him at the end of one afternoon and we drove all the night to reach the sanctuary at dawn. Everytime we had to stop at a military roadblock (there were quite a lot at these days), Coco was scared and screaming against the militaries. He remembered that one of these guys shot him… and he still remembers as he hates military clothes! When we arrived at the sanctuary, it was a great moment as it was the first time for Coco - after almost 20 years spent in Conakry - to be in the middle of the forest, surrounded by nature’s sounds! It remained scary for him for quite a long time. He forgot everything about natural life…

Coco in his enclosure in 2005

The sad part of this story is that Coco is not behaving really like a chimp as he spent most of his life in captivity by himself, with humans. His physical handicap (he limps a lot) added to his lack of “chimp behavior” exclude him from being released one day. Because of that we could not integrate him in any group as all the groups we had in the past and the ones we have at the moment are supposed to be released one day.Coco gets his own cage and an enclosure where he does not go anymore as he became a professional at escaping! Though he spent 6 happy years with Amadeus, another male who also had physical problems (he was a dwarf) and who sadly died in September 2007. 

 Amadeus, we all miss him a lot

So now we try to spend as much time as possible with Coco every day, to give him comfort, to play and dance with him (he loves dancing on Reggae!), to give him some enrichment, etc. The volunteers and the keepers are very close to him and have a lot of physical contacts with him! Coco is a sweet chimp.

We try different kind of activities to entertain Coco, such as facial painting!

  Coco playing with a volunteer 

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 22 2009 | By: chris colin

I spoke with Matt this afternoon. The situation is calm in Conakry, everything is opened, everybody works, even if everybody knows that something is going to happen at one point…

Anyway, they managed to bring the boat engine and the car (which had also some problems) to the mecanics and hopefully everything will be fixed by tomorrow night. Our cars (we have 2 to be sure to always have one at the sanctuary for security reasons, as we are completly isolated from any “civilization”) suffer a lot on the bad road (it is not a road, it is a “pist”) we have to make every week to get supplies in Faranah both for the chimps and the staff. It is 80kms one-way long but it takes about 4hours during the dry season and up to 7hours in the rainy season. We also go once a week to a village (32kms) to get more food for the chimps. Nobody use this road except us, as there is nothing but the sanctuary at the end of it! So the cars suffer a lot and we spend quite a lot of money to maintain them.

Matt and Melanie, the vet, also went to see Zoe today and Matt told me that she is super sweet! She played with them, tried to seduce Matt… Camille, a volunteer who is about to leave for France on Sunday, will bring us back photos of Zoe. She will also bring back Zoe blood sample’s so we could test her for diseases.

They will bring her back to the sanctuary on Saturday morning (they will pick up  her at 5.30 am) as the National Director for Protected Areas - who deliveres the authorizations to circulate with a chimp (we work in close collaborations with his department) - asked Matt not to travel at night for the moment, he thinks it is not safe at all especially with a chimp in the car, even if everything is calm during the day.

So I hope to be able to post you some Zoe’s pics on Monday and in the meantime, I will tell you more about Coco.

Take care,

 Chris

An education board in Conakry, to try to increase public awareness of chimp pet trade issues…

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 20 2009 | By: chris colin

I called Matthieu today. They can not fix the boat engine in Faranah so they will go to Conakry tomorrow. They will be carefull as the political situation is still tense in Conakry, but they have no choice as the boat engine is absolutly vital to reach the release camp and we can find boat mecanics only there.

Matthieu will go with our driver Balde and Melanie, our volunteer veterinarian. They decided to go together as few weeks ago, in the middle of the terrible events in Conakry, a diplomat contacted us for “his female chimpanzee” that he wants now to give to the sanctuary. This female is named Zoe, we have known her existence for at least 5 years now, and we tried to convince this man to give us Zoe as she has been living in the middle of the Guinean capital for so many years, but he always refused and we could not do anything because of his diplomatic status (we could not enter in his house with the local police).  Anyway, this man realized after the sad events of September in Conakry that he would probably have to leave the country suddenly if the situation was getting worse and he did not want to leave Zoe behind defenseless. He also agreed to help the sanctuary to take care of Zoe by making a donation.

So Matt planned with Melanie to bring Zoe back to the sanctuary on Friday night. It is always better to travel at night with a chimpanzee as the road is really long from Conakry to the sanctuary, at least 15 hours. They usually stay quiet, sleeping.

We all hope they will manage to get both the boat engine and the car fixed for Friday night so they could bring Zoe to the sanctuary as shuddeled. Zoe will go first next to Coco, our dean (and I really need to explain you all about Coco’s story), to make her quarantine. Apparently, Zoe is really sweet. We all hope she will have a better life at the sanctuary!

I will keep you posted on how the things are going on in Conakry for the boat engine, the car and Zoe!

Many thanks to Wanda, we really appreciate your generous help!

Chris

the Niger river

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 19 2009 | By: chris colin

I am sorry for not sending any news recently but I got fresh news yesterday and today.

 At the sanctuary:

Fatim is still doing great even if she gets some throat problems (her tonsils are swollen). Melanie, our vet, thinks she might have a local infection because her immune system is still low. But her general attitude is excellent, she plays, eats, drinks! Only her voice is distorted, like a smoker’s voice! Melanie started some antibiotics to help her to face this small infection and Fatim is still under Fluconazole, the mass has completly disappeared now but we have to continue for one month after the last symptoms.

-Coco is our oldest chimp, we think he is about 27. We rescued him in March 2000. I will explain you more about him in a next post as his story is long. He was not doing well at all during the past weeks, refusing to eat and play. And suddenly he started to eat again! A mystery!

From the release site:

- Nanou had been seen carrying a corps of a small mamal, maybe a primate but it could not been confirmed as she refused to be approched enough. When she was last seen, it was gone unfortunately! Maybe she had a miscarriage or it was an animal prey she hunted. If it is a miscarriage, it is not abnormal as Nanou is a young adult female, she never gave birth before and it is the firts year of the release. In any case, nobody noticed any sign of pregnancy. 

The others are doing great, Zira is still hanging out with her wild friends!

For the bad news, Matthieu, our manager, gave me a call an hour ago. The boat engine broke down this morning while they were coming back from the release camp. Matthieu and Mamadi, our boat driver, had to walk 10kms back to the Center. They may be able to get  it repared in Faranah tomorrow if it is not serious but if it is serious, they will have to take it to Conakry where we can find boat mecanics. But this engine is really old and we have been encountering more and more problems with it. Therefore there is no telling wether it can be repaired at all. Ideally if we had enough money we could buy a good second hand or a new engine in Conakry directly. We use the boat to move back and forth between the sanctuary and the release site and I do not know how they are going to manage at the moment. Wether the old one can be repaired or not, we will need to get a new one, I will keep you posted on the situation.  Keep an eye open!

Matthieu in the boat!

Take care!

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