Meet the Aketi5!

Mangay, male

Kathé, female

Django Mayanga, male

Bolungwa, female

Aketi Kigoma, male

All photos courtesy of Cleveland Hicks

Rescued from terrible conditions

Like all the chimpanzees in Lwiro, the Aketi 5 was also rescued from terrible conditions beeing held illegaly as pets. The chimps were not bought or traded in for any favors. They were either given up voluntarily or confiscated by the authorities. The owners were informed about chimpanzees, why it is a bad idea to keep them, and that they are a protected species. It is illegal to hunt or keep chimpanzees as pets in Congo.



It is very important never to buy a chimpanzee, because then the hunter will think it is a good idea, to go and kill another family of chimpanzee just so he can steel their babies.



Most chimanzee orphans that are captured die due to lack of proper care, the ones that don't usually end up beeing killed when they get too big and unmanageable.



Here are Bolungwa, Kathe and Aketi before they were rescued.



Bolungwa

Kathe

Aketi Kigoma

All photos courtesy of Cleveland Hicks

More chimpanzees coming to Lwiro

Plans are beeing made to move chimpanzees from a makeshift sanctuary in Aketi north of Kisangani to Lwiro, at least five. The move is beeing planned for the end of March. The original plan was for the chimpanzees to move to a new sanctuary that is under construction in Kisangani, but the construction took longer than planned and these chimpanzees need a new home now. Although the people that is looking after them in Aketi are doing a great job.
There is a lot of hunting for bushmeat going on up there and too many orphans...
You can read about Laura and Adams work in Aketi and the chimpanzees in their blog: http://lifeincongo.blogspot.com

Lwiro update

People may have heard about the unrest in DRC over the past week or two. I want everyone to know the animals and the staff and their families are all safe. Everything seems to have settled down for the time being and it is business as usual. The volunteers were housed at the UN camp near by for safety reasons during four days of the trouble. We returned on the 2nd of November to Lwiro to find the sanctuary and staff well.
Shumbi – the olive baboon - has been moved from his small quarantine cage into a larger cage which neighbors Kashusha (another male baboon) and a group of other baboons. As soon as he woke from the anesthetic he climbed up on the branches with no problems at all. The staff were originally concerned that he would not be able to move about properly (due to the fact that he has one arm missing and the other is injured from a gun wound). His wound has healed very well.

Muhungu - a young male chimpanzee broke his on the 2nd of November. He has been isolated from the group to allow recovery. He still has visual contact with the group however, and can touch them through the wire. He is recovering well.

Banro is now very happy in the cage with the other babies. She has bonded with both the keepers and all of the babies very well. Every night, Banro and Julius cuddle up in their tub to sleep together. Below are photo of all of the babies in the nursery group. They are all strong, healthy and happy.

Uvira

Another baby Chimpanzee has arrived today. We have been expecting him for some time, and finally had word last night that he would arrive this morning. He was confiscated from a region to the south of the sanctuary. He has been named Uvira, after the area of his confiscation. He has been very quiet today, which is to be expected, but has eaten well all day. He appears to be around 18 months old, with the canines already present. He also has prominent wounds around his waste from where a cord was tied. Uvira will spend his one months quarantine with Ituri, and both of them will be introduced to the nursery group at the same time.

Julius

Last night sadly another chimpanzee came to Lwiro. His name is Julius Kongolo and he is about one year old. We only had a few hours notice about his arrival, and it was the same lady who brought Fizi, that had found Julius with some poachers near Uvira in the village of Kongolo. She took him from them and brought him to us. Normally his name then would be Kongolo, but she wanted us to give him another name as she was scared the poachers would come looking for him... So now his daily name is Julius which is the name of a famous chimpanzee in Kristiansand Zoo in Norway, who has painted some lovely paintings that so far has brought over 10 000 USD to lwiro from sales. He is tiny, very skinny and was coughing constantly last night. He slept in my bed last night, and he woke up lots of times coughing. But this morning it has finally almost stopped, and he has eaten som cerelac and mango today and seems to be setteling in.

Hildegunn

Maiko and Osso

Yesterday Maiko and Osso came to Lwiro Sanctuary. Two little girls. They were very tired and scared. They had travelled by plane, car and boat. They were with us at about 5 o’clock in the afternoon. We carried them into my room, and with a bit of force got them out of the travel cage and put them in the cage they were going to sleep in during the night. I was alone with them in the room and Osso came out of the cage and sat on my lap. I cried for a while. It’s very difficult to understand how people can treat chimpanzees like that. Maiko and Osso have both seen their family being slaughtered. They ate mango and passion fruit and then went to sleep. Today they slept for a long time, we woke them up at eight. We had planned to have them inside in the room for a couple of days, but Maiko was very shivering with cold, so we put them back in the cage and carried them outside to the quarantine cage in the sunshine. There they slept most of the day, scared and tired. We took them back in at four o’clock and put them to bed for the night.

Jeanette

Maiko and Osso

In the beginning of February we heard that two baby chimpanzees had been confiscated near Maiko National Park in North Kivu. And after a lot of paperwork, and quite a bit of money to cover transport cost, they finally arrived at Lwiro today. They are two little girls called Maiko and Osso.

Maiko is a bit over a year old, she has a lot of parasites and her tummy is very painfull.

Osso is under one year old and in better shape than Maiko, but they are both very thin and traumatized.

Jeanette, a zoo keeper from Kristiansand Zoo in Norway is looking after them with the help of Carmen the vet and manager. Jeanette is volunteering at Lwiro for 3 months.

Hildegunn