Roots&Shoots-Lwiro: spreading the conservation message

During these last months R&S-Lwiro has been growing. Starting with 9 children just 8 months ago, the group now consists of over 20 children! The children keep busy during their weekly meetings and have recently been deciding how to spread a conservation message about primate protection to the local community.

Roots&Shoots Lwiro club

The children have decided their first activity will be to perform a dramatic piece about chimpanzees. Patrick, the club leader, has written this play in Swahili and the actors are already practicing their lines. Due to fact that they are extremely shy and it is the first time they have performed a play, we have decided to use chimpanzee and gorilla puppets. We are also designing masks to use for dramatic effect.

Mariamu and her chimp puppet

Frank and Patrick reading the lines

The second activity the children have proposed is to create posters with conservation messages to spread the word to the community. However, as the club didn’t have any place to exhibit their posters they proposed to create a public notice board. Thanks the generous donation from Roots&Shoots-Madrid we fabricated a wonderful wooden board at the entrance of the sanctuary (CRPL). On this board the R&S-Lwiro members have hung information about the 12 primate species of the sanctuary, pictures of the staff (their parents) at work and pictures of the 48 chimpanzees at the CRPL. On another part of the board, they have displayed information about the Roots&Shoots program, an updated picture of the R&S-Lwiro group and some of the posters they have made. Patrick and the rest of the members will be in charge of updating the board on a regular basis so the community and visitors can read this information.

Salomon drawing his poster about poaching

The first wooden board

The second board with R&S-Lwiro work

Some CRPL keepers reading the posters

We would like to thank R&S Madrid and its coordinator Marisa Mariñán in particular, for their donation which has allowed us to buy additional stationary material and build the display board to spread messages to the community. Also, we thank the Jane Goodall Institute Spain for its constant support and advice.

In memory of Hombo

Hombo looking cute

Last week something really sad happened in the baby monkey cage. There was a big fight and Hombo must have fallen badly and hit his head. He was alive when the keepers found him, but died only a few hours later...

Hombo was a young blue monkey (Cercopithecus mitis) and one of the smallest residents in Lwiro. He was a sweet and careful character that arrived at the CRPL almost one year ago. He quickly found a good friend in the red-tailed monkey Bunyakiri. He also loved his keeper Jacques.

He arrived in Lwiro because his mother was killed for bushmeat and he was tried sold as a pet. The ICCN found him and confiscated him and brought him to us.

But he should have lived in the wild with the protection of his mother. Monkeys fight in the wild as well, and accidents like this is difficult to avoid completely. But living in small spaces means there is a lot more fighting. We do our best, but lack so much money to build the enclosures necessary.

We will always remember this sweet little monkey, Hombo- rest in peace.


Hombo hugging his friend Bunyakiri

Hombo having a nap

Hombo in the baby-monkey cage

Fence update

Here is some new photos of the fence construction. 100 fence posts are now up!

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Rotary Dandenong Offer Support!

The Rotary Club of Dandenong, Victoria (Australia) have kindly donated US$870 after Andrea presented at one of their meetings last month. Your support is very appreciated and the funds will help to purchase padlocks which are needed in the new dormitory of the forest enclosure!

Dontations update

The urgent appeal is updated, and we would like to say a huge thank you to all our supporters on this blog and Facebook! A special thank you to the people that have donated this last month or so!
You really are making a big difference!! THANK YOU!

Ryan K - 60 $
Vanessa A - 15$
Steve C - 20$
Saskia K - 50$
Timo K - 25$
Teresa S - 50$
Diane H - 100$

And we would like to thank AWARE Germany and their supporters, which we received 1000 euros from this month! Thanks so much guys for your continuous support!

And a big thank you to Bianca for raising 360 euros for the primates in Lwiro!


Keepers Kahole and Jaques with Bavo the baboon

IPPL award the CRPL a $30,000 grant!

The CRPL has recently had the amazing news that the Arcus Foundation has awarded the International Primate Protection League a multi-sanctuary grant. The IPPL has amazingly decided to include the CRPL in this multi-sanctuary grant and awarded us $30,000!!! They also donated an extra $995 from the money raised at the members meeting I attended in South Carolina in April! The IPPL has become an enormous support for us and have made very generous donations toward the forest enclosure already. With this new grant, we can continue through two more of our $15,000 building stages. This is fantastic news for us. We can not begin to thank IPPL enough for their continued support. The only way too really thank them will be to get these chimpanzees into this forest exhibit as soon as we can!!!

You can help us get the fence finished by donating using the ‘donate’ button to the left! We still have quite a bit of money to raise, but we are well on our way to getting these chimpanzees out of the cages and into the forest!

Suena and Poppy: smiles and laughters!

Suena and Poppy go on with their daily games. They can’t stop playing and tickling each other! It is so nice to see them so happy after all the hard stories they had in the past. We would like to share with you all their smiles and laughters.

Suena tickling Poppy and bitting her ear fondly

Big laughters!


Poppy smiling for the camera

Fence our forest!

The fence construction is going on: 53 posts already up!

Goma’s group and the other chimps at the CRPL can’t wait to go to the new forested enclosure. There they will be able to learn chimpanzee natural skills like jumping from branch to branch or building nest in high trees to rest.

In the current facilities at the CRPL we try to provide them with natural elements like fresh branches so the chimps can play and start developing natural behaviours.

Please, help the CRPL chimps to fence their forest. Each donation makes a big difference for them! Thank you!

Kanshi in her comfortable nest
Bahene and Irangi in the back

Kamituga tasting some fresh branches

Felixta

Irangi

Fence photos!

Here are some photos of the progress of the fence from today, 23 posts of a total of 165 posts are now up. Some of the photos are taken from the top of the walkway and the research center, hence the nice aerial view!

The forest

The posts are coming along nicely

The workers

The May Newsletter is online:

Please read our May Newsletter for an update on the last few month at the Centre de Rehabilitation des Primates de Lwiro! http://www.sjimpanser.net/newsletter/may2010.pdf

PICTURE: Kalume - the first animal to arrive at the CRPL!