Rescue Orphaned Primates

Thanks to wonderful supporters like you, two more orphaned baby chimps are safe, happy – and officially enrolled in “forest school”!

Baby chimpanzee Niete was brought to safety at Limbe Wildlife Centre, a PASA member in Cameroon, after authorities confiscated her from the poachers who killed her family. We were very concerned about her chances of recovery because she was an incredibly fragile eight month old infant.

But little Niete is a fighter. Despite her young age and severely weakened state, she survived. Now, she is making great progress thanks to the expert staff at the sanctuary.

With help from our generous supporters, PASA was able to send Limbe Wildlife Sanctuary emergency funding to help cover the expensive rehabilitation costs of Niete and other traumatized orphans. Your compassion and generosity helped save Niete’s life and gave her a new life.

Your compassion and generosity helped save Niete’s life, and she is already making the most out of her second chance. She’s become fast friends with another orphan at the sanctuary named Bakossi.

Despite losing their families, Niete and Bakossi found companionship again with each other. They are now in forest school together and are exploring the forest under supervision of their caregivers. This is an important step in their rehabilitation and ensures they have the skills needed to integrate into a larger group at the sanctuary and potentially return to the wild.

Again, we can’t thank you enough for helping to save Niete’s life. Your support is vital for rescuing primates and fighting wildlife trafficking across Africa.

Thank you!

PASA has been busier than ever working to support the 23 sanctuaries in our alliance and save primates from extinction. Your kindness makes it possible for us to protect wild primates, save babies like Joseph and Nouji, and release apes and monkeys to the wild. Thank you!

Joseph and Nouji are an unlikely chimp and gorilla duo are making great progress towards recovering from their injuries thanks to dedicated veterinary care at Ape Action Africa, a PASA member in Cameroon, and your generous support!

The two orphaned babies arrived in desperate need of care. Both members of endangered species, it is likely that they each lost their families to the illegal wildlife trade. Veterinarians at the sanctuary were horrified to find that Nouji had a bullet embedded in her foot from when poachers attacked her family and stole her from the forest. This bullet has probably been in her tiny foot for many months, but the sanctuary vets are unable to remove it safely until she is a bit older. Baby chimpanzee, Joseph, had scars on his tiny body and hid under his blankets on arrival at the sanctuary, terrified of human touch.

The babies had weakened immune systems and tiny Joseph particularly struggled without his mother’s care. He developed a respiratory infection and needed extra care. The dedicated team of vets at the sanctuary had to give him specialized treatment several times a day to help him breathe. Thanks to their attentive care, he is doing much better now and it’s safe for him to be with other apes. Your generosity makes it possible to give these two orphans round the clock care and nutritious baby formula, allowing them to gain back their strength.

Gorillas and chimps are usually kept separate in the sanctuary, but Nouji is the only baby gorilla at Ape Action Africa right now, and she needs to gain confidence with other animals before meeting any of the older gorillas. If she misses this key development stage, she may never fit in with the other gorillas and could be alone forever. Because of this unique situation, Nouji and Joseph have been paired together and are already forming a strong bond.

Replacing a mother’s love and care is impossible. In the wild, their mothers would have spent years and years caring for them. Both Nouji and Joseph will need 24-hour care from human caregivers for at least a year. Your support is rehabilitating orphans like Nouji and Joseph, allowing them to live the rest of their lives in peace, surrounded by others of their kind.

Now, Nouji and Joseph spend their days playing in the forest, just as baby apes should. Watch them exploring the forest together!

Links:

• Watch Joseph and Nouji exploring the forest together!

We have especially exciting news from PASA, as we have succeeded in completing a rescue operation that has been years in the making!

In 2018, PASA was made aware of a small chimpanzee, Simão, who was being kept alone in a cage in Guinea-Bissau, a country in Africa. A victim of the wildlife trade, Simão’s cage was filthy, had no floor, and little protection from the rain. After investigating, PASA found three other chimpanzees held in similarly terrible circumstances across Guinea-Bissau. Guinea-Bissau has no sanctuary to care for these chimpanzees, orphaned wildlife, or victims of the illegal wildlife trade, and so PASA began a huge operation to try and transfer these chimpanzees to a sanctuary in neighboring Liberia where they could receive the expert care they so desperately needed.

After a frustrating period of delays caused by the pandemic and the complicated process to acquire the necessary permits to move the chimpanzees across international borders, we were thrilled when the rescue finally happened in July. Simão, Fifi, Tita and Tzé were flown to the Liberia Chimpanzee Rescue and Protection (LCRP) sanctuary via charter plane to begin their new lives.

The four chimpanzees spent a short period of time in quarantine after arrival at the sanctuary and are now being slowly introduced to other chimps for the first time since being stolen from the wild. Simão’s introduction to his first new chimp friend was particularly heartwarming, as shown in this video, and Fifi, the oldest chimp to be rescued, is enjoying playing with the youngsters before being introduced to a group of older chimpanzees.

We’re all so happy to see these chimps beginning to thrive as they receive expert care in their new home. Thank you for making it possible to save these chimpanzee and countless others. Your support of our mission is so appreciated. We couldn’t do this without you.

We are grateful for your ongoing support for the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance’s programs. As a result of your generosity, over 3,000 primates are receiving specialist care and have a safe future, and we are continuing to fight the threats to wild primates. We hope you enjoy this update on PASA’s recent activities and thank you again for the important role that you are playing in helping us to protect Africa’s primates.

As the wildlife trade continues to wreak havoc across Africa, PASA members in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been especially busy in fighting to protect primates caught up in this heinous trade.

In late May, PASA was made aware of 20 colobus monkeys that were seized as part of a major operation to apprehend a well-known wildlife trafficker in DRC. The monkeys were kept in such terrible conditions that four of the monkeys died before reaching the safety of Lwiro Primates Rehabilitation Center, a PASA member sanctuary. However, the remaining 16 were rushed to the sanctuary and given life-saving care. Thanks to support from GreaterGood, their lives were saved and PASA members are working together to form a reintroduction plan for these monkeys.

Meanwhile, in West Africa, another PASA member sanctuary was dealing with a particularly heartbreaking rescue. Chimpanzee Conservation Center in Guinea was alerted to a small female chimpanzee that had been rescued from the illegal wildlife trade. She was kept in a tiny box that was thrown from a moving vehicle when the driver encountered a roadblock. When the rescue team from CCC arrived, the terrified young chimp was too weak to use her legs and could only crawl. This poor orphan of the wildlife trade is only around five years old. Though she had been tied up and contained in an inhumane box, presumably to be sold, she now will have a second chance at life.

These are tragic circumstances, but thanks to donors like you, she isin safe hands at an accredited sanctuary. Expert caregivers at CCC gave her immediate medical care, cleaning her wounds and providing treatments to help her build her strength. With 24 hour care and careful, patient attention from the caregivers, she is slowly beginning to trust her rescuers. We’re happy to report that she is now eating and drinking well and on the road to recovery. She will soon be introduced to her new family – the other young orphans at CCC and will once again play in the forests where she belongs. Thank you for making it possible to save this little chimpanzee and countless others.

As you can see, PASA and our members are needed more than ever in the ongoing battle to save Africa’s wildlife. Your support of our mission is so appreciated. We couldn’t do this without you.

I want to take this chance to remind you what an amazing impact your support has on the lives of rescued chimps, gorillas, bonobos, and monkeys. With your help, PASA member sanctuaries have been able to save countless orphaned baby apes and monkeys and give them a second chance in life. Thanks to you, an orphaned baby gorilla now has a brand new family!

Mbailassem is a young gorilla who was rescued from the illegal wildlife trade by PASA member Ape Action Africa. After his parents were killed for bushmeat, Mbailassem was sold to a zoo, where he languished in a cage all alone. While he had a terrible start in life, his story is one of hope.

Happily, he was rescued and brought to Ape Action Africa in Cameroon. Two dedicated human caregivers gave him the expert care and round-the-clock attention he needed to start to recover from his trauma.

Once Mbailassem was strong enough, it was time for him to learn how to play and interact with others – skills that he would have learned from his mother and siblings in the wild. However, he was still too small to meet the older gorillas, whose boisterous play wrestling might have accidentally injured him. Since many more chimpanzee orphans arrive at the sanctuary each year than gorillas, and there were no other young gorillas for Mbailassem to play with, he was introduced to several young chimp orphans. Though these species wouldn’t naturally play together in the wild, this temporary phase of Mbailassem’s rehabilitation plan was the best way to ensure that he developed important social interaction skills that he would need in later life.

Recently however, Mbailassem took a big step in his rehabilitation and was introduced to his new gorilla family! Social bonds are incredibly important to gorillas and staff at the sanctuary were delighted with how quickly he bonded with his new brothers. Mbailassem now spends his days racing around his spacious forest enclosure, wrestling with new big brothers Bobga and Chris and feeding his seemingly endless appetite!

Like many other PASA sanctuaries, Ape Action Africa was hit hard by the pandemic, but your generous donations mean they are able to keep providing a safe home for all the orphans who need them. Thanks to your support, Mbailassem will receive all the care he needs to live a full and happy life with his new gorilla family. You are giving him the safe future that he deserves!