Help Feed over 150 Orphaned Chimpanzees

Young Anzac sleeps with her friends Willy, Sam and Zola. Since it's now the dry season in the Republic of Congo, overcast days and cool nights are made even cooler by the offshore winds that arrive in the dry season. Zola and Anzac hug each other for warmth. Their mothers are gone, and so the orphans have to help each other. Others, like Sam and Willy, prefer to make a nest with dry and soft grass that caregivers put in the bedroom. During the winter months, staff provides extra bedding to the younger and older chimpanzees, giving them blankets or towels to use in their nest to help retain more warmth.

In the morning Anzac and her companions go outside into the enclosure. They play a little while caretakers are busy preparing bottles of warm milk for them. The sun begins to rise on the horizon and the freshness of the morning changes the cold morning into a balmy day.

Every year, when temperatures drop, many chimps become vulnerable to flu viruses that abound in the human communities. Caregivers and the veterinary team conduct thorough monitoring of each chimpanzee, especially smaller ones like Anzac This year she has not yet been sick, although some of her companions have. The veterinary team administers most of their medicines orally, using a large plastic syringe to offer medicine directly into the mouth of each sick individual. Anzac managed to “steal” one from the vet team as they were giving Sam his medicine. Anzac is very fast and no one was able to recover the syringe from her. For Anzac, this syringe is a perfect toy to play with. She has great imagination, using it like a cup, as she refills the syringe barrel with water from their water fountain. This process is quite challenging, as Anzac has to put just enough pressure on the fountain to ensure it dribbles into the syringe, rather than spurts her in the face. She also has to block the end of the syringe, so she does not lose the water. She does this all with just one arm, as her left arm was amputated before she arrived to the sanctuary. Staff suspect that she may have either lost her arm in a snare or from a bullet wound during the killing of her mother.

Yet, even with this disability, she proves extremely skillful in the use of the syringe as a water vessel. The other, younger chimps come to watch, to beg for a sip from her novel “cup.”  But she pays them no heed; instead she remains focused on her new favorite toy.  Even when the caregivers take the younger chimpanzees to the forest with group four, Anzac hides her new toy in her mouth. She was so attentive of her new toy that, even the next day, staff could see her still playing with it.