Of Dragons and Chimpanzees

Of all the wildlife sanctuaries in Africa, Tacugama chimpanzee rescue sanctuary is closest to my heart.

Despite being situated in a country ravaged by terrible civil war, Sierra Leone conservationist Bala Amarasekaran has created one of the most thriving chimp rescue centers in the world. Bala is one of the most extraordinary people I’ve ever seen –he can communicate fluently with the chimpanzees and he is in charge of rising up their young who, as victims of illegal pet trade have not had a chance to be reared by their real parents. Unlike any other conservationist I’ve seen, Bala is even able to communicate with the large males of the troop –no mean feat considering that any of them could kill him in an eye blink.

Bala is also a man with a vision: he works with the people of the country to stop the illegal trade of the chimps and employs local people to work in the sanctuary, thus providing income for the community. If Sierra Leone is ever to recover, it will be due to efforts of man like Bala.

Thus as you might imagine, I was shocked when I recently heard that 31 of the chimpanzees of Tacugama escaped from the sanctuary under unclear circumstances.

Unfortunately during the escape Bruno, the alpha male of the chimp group, also killed a man, almost certainly because of feeling threatened and due its traumatic experiences with humans during the Sierra Leone Civil War. Chimpanzees are many times stronger than even the strongest humans, and as an alpha male it is Bruno’s duty to protect the other animals from any perceived danger. It is a testimony to the people of Sierra Leone that instead of trying to kill the escaped chimps, the people are working with Tacugama sanctuary to recover them.

Bala and his staff have now recovered all but five of the chimpanzees, but due to danger posed by the chimps at large, the Tacugama sanctuary is still closed and is struggling to feed its inhabitants without the income from visitors. Bala is working incredibly hard to recover the chimpanzees, but he is of course running out of funds.

I want to issue a challenge all Dragon/kolibri readers: please, please, pledge some money to help Tacugama. Sierra Leone is incredibly poor, so even 5$ will go a long, long way to feed the chimps and perhaps save our closest relative species that is teetering on the brink of extinction due to human actions.

The link to the donations page is here.

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