Nunuse, new arrival

Nunuse


A baby Owl-faced monkey (Cercopithecus hamlyni) arrived to the sanctuary about 1 and a half months ago. Little Nunuse spent his month quarantine being cared for by the veterinarian. After this, we began to introduce him to a lone female. The introduction has gone well and he has spent three nights so far with the female.

Thank-you!

We would like to thank some people and companies for thier continual support. Thanks to DARCHE for again donating hammocks for the chimpanzees to sleep on! Thank- you to Sheila and Rhoan for coordinating this and assisting with funds. And thank-you to Jetta Exopress for once again donating the freight to send these items. You are all wonderful!

Anyone who would like to donate items or raise money to help there amazing animals can contact Andrea at lwiroprimates@gmail.com. Thanks for reading the blog!

Introductions of the Aketi 5, going well

Keeper Claud with the Goma group.

I have arrived in DRC after having been away for five months to find the sanctuary running very well, but practically overflowing. There are 42 chimpanzees and 50 monkeys in all. All of the animals are currently healthy, which is wonderful. More staff have been hired which brings the number of permanent Congolese staff to 24 people.

The new chimpanzees the Aketi5 has now finished their one month quarantine, and now Aketi and Mangue have been introduced to the nursery group and Kathé, Bolungwa and Django to the Goma group. The introductions are going very well. We have even seen some of the female members of the Goma group (such as Yonguesa and Felixta) attempt to take on the younger chimpanzees: Bolungwa and Django.

The Goma group have been moved to the large round cage that was built for the baboons. The baboons have been scattered around the sanctuary to assist this happening. It is a great space for the group, as there are now 16 individuals with the three new ones from Aketi.

The goma group is enjoying their new view!

Andrea

Old photo of Kalume

Kalume

Kalume was the first chimpanzee to arrive in Lwiro. He had terrible injuries on his face after the poacher had hit him with a machete. Here is a photo of him when he arrived in Lwiro as a tiny baby.

Kalume as a baby arriving at the sanctuary.

Thank you!

We've had a great month when it comes to donations on this blog! And we would just like to thank the people that have contributed! Your support means a lot to us, and we promise that your money will be well spent for the best of the primates in Lwiro!

Greg S. 25$

Kirsty D. 150$

Dan H. 100$

Nicholas O. 100$

Thank you so much!!

Beautiful little boy Muhungu!

We promise to have more updates on what is happening in Lwiro soon. It's very busy at the moment with the five new ones, and a bit short on people as Carmen is away on a well deserved holiday. She will be back by the end of the month, and Andrea will also be back in Lwiro soon! So we're hoping to be able to give you more frequent updates then!

Hilde

Monkey lottery in Norway!

Me (Hilde) and Jeanette is running a little organisation in Norwary called Friends of Lwiro, former AWARE Norway. We both spent several months in Lwiro and hope to go back in the autumn. In the mean time we're trying to raise as much money for the project as possible here in Norway.

A few weeks ago we arranged a lottery for Lwiro. We have previously arranged 3 of these with quite good success, raising 4-4500 dollars each time. And this one was an even bigger success! We starte with a little talk about the project, and then we had some quick lotteries before the draw of the main lottery. All the prices were donated from local shops and businesses. Especially Kristiansand Zoo gave us a lot of cuddely toys, and the main price were zoo keeper for a day. There was a lot of prices, and I think most people there won something.

And a lot of people turned up, a lot more than previous lotteries and it was great! We also had a café and a fishing pond for the kids with nice little prices. All in all we raised about 6000 dollars and I think all our guests had a great time! We're very happy to be sending some more money to our little ones in Lwiro! Hopefully a little start to build the fence around the forrest for the chimpanzees!

Hilde

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

Life in Bonganzulu Sanctuary

After the chimps were rescued they had a good life and was well looked after in the Bonganzulu Sanctuary in Aketi. But the lack of money and support did that they had to find a new home for the chimpanzees and they ended up coming to Lwiro. As all the chimps coming here they are very welcome, but we would have prefered that they were still in the forrest with their mothers and family.

Relaxing in the trees

Bolungwa and Kathé

Cleve with his chimps in Bonganzulu

All photos courtesy of Cleveland Hicks

Read about the 5 chimps from Aketi

Cleve Hicks has written a very nice ebook about his work in Aketi in Northern Congo. Laura and Adam took over the responsibility of the five chimpanzees when he left. He has been researching chimpanzees and the increasing bushmeat trade in the area, and ended up with the 5 orphans, but sadly observed many more. Follow this link to find the books http://www.wasmoethwildlife.org Aketi field season 2007-2008, part 1,2 and 3.
In part 3 you find the story of the 5 chimpanzees from Aketi; Kathé, Django Mayanga, Bolungwa, Aketi Kigoma and Mangé.