Move to the sanctuary

Today was the day for moving Kongo and Lume to the sanctuary. We decided that Kongo would move into Kalumes group and Lume in with the babies. Carmen managed to anesthetize Lume by hand and he was put in a cage and moved up to the sanctuary to the babies bedroom so that he could get to know them through the bars for a few hours before he was let in. It was harder with Kongo. He had been anesthetized by Carmen ones before and she was not allowed to come anywhere near him with the needle, and not anyone else either! Pablo, a wildlife vet from Spain, arrived yesterday to relive Carmen, so she could go on holiday for a month. He got an exiting first day, when he had to dart Kongo with his blowpipe. Poor Kongo had never seen one of them before so was easily fooled. And then he was a sleep as well, and could be moved up to the sanctuary. He was put in the empty room next to Kalume groups room and then we waited till he woke up. He was very scared when he did and saw all these strange chimpanzees looking curiously in at him. Luckily we had made a sliding door between this room and Kalumes room so we could introduce them safely. We decided only to let a couple in at firs to get him used to them over night before putting the whole group in tomorrow. Shege and Lubutu was let in and it went well, but Kongo didn’t want much to do with them, still very scared.
Lume was let in with the babies, and it went much better with him, because he knows how to handle chimpanzees. It was a bit much at times because everyone wanted to play with the newcomer at ones, but then he had Kaleshe there to comfort him.

Alexa: Kavumu and Bukavu

One evening we received a new arrival, a male red tail monkey who had been confiscated that day. He arrived at the house in a bag and was obviously distressed. Carmen and Balume took him out and we could see he had a cord around his stomach that was so tight his skin had grown over it at the sides of his waist. We took him into the bathroom and managed to easily remove the cord, but the smell was awful. Carmen cleaned him up and we put him in a cage in the house to keep a close eye on him. He had come from a village called Kavumu, so that was to be his new name. In only a few days, with regular treatment from Carmen, his wounds healed well and he was taken to the sanctuary.
The next week another male red tail monkey arrived. He had been found in Bukavu, and of course we named him Bukavu! He was in a much better condition but very hungry, all day you could hear him munching on something! He went straight to the sanctuary and was placed in a cage next to Kavumu so they could get used to each other. After a week we introduced them with no problems at all, and they’ve been great friends ever since.

Alexa: Monkey move

So, one of the new monkey enclosures was eventually finished. The day came for some of the monkeys to move into their new home. We decided the 3 mitis (Simon, Si and Haviari), 4 owl faces (Sydney, Melbourne, Vienna and lippy) and 2 l’oestis (Santa and Tippy) should live together. They had been living in small cages for a while and we were all very excited to see them climbing trees and running around. Although they were all quite confused at first, having to make new friends and investigate their new surroundings, the move was very successful. Surprisingly, the big Miti Simon, was very friendly with everyone and it was the female owl faces who caused a bit of mischief! However, within the first week everything had settled down and they seemed very content grooming each other and loved the views out to the hills.

A bit more about Kongo and Lume

We have had big difficulty getting Lume happy in his new environment. At first he was very stressed, then he got a bad flu, and was coughing a lot. He hardly wanted to play with Kongo, finding him very annoying. Kongo did not understand this… Even if Lume was screaming in anger and biting him so that he had cuts all over, he was just laughing still wanting to play. So for some days we put Kongo back in a little cage within the enclosure so Lume could recover from his cold. He eventually did, but was still very depressed. And we got more and more convinced that this was a wild chimp. We have now learned Lumes story and it is something like this.
A group of chimpanzees in a forest reserve near Beni in North-Kivu was raiding crops. The farmers got very angry and decided to capture a chimpanzee as evidence. And Lume seems to have been the unlucky one… The photo above was probably taken just after he was captured and is the photo we got when we first heard of him. Lume is a 5-6 year old chimpanzee that have probably just been weaned from his mother, bur are still very dependent on his family. Normally chimpanzees are captured between 1-2 years of age when they are babies. And these little chimps adapts much easier to a life with humans if they get proper love and care. Lume is a bit too old… Like it’s much harder for a 6 year old human child to loose his family, than it is for a 1 year old. But Lume is finally getting better now, with the help from Kongo which after all is a chimpanzee, just a very strange behaving one from Lumes point of view! Kongo is maybe about ten, and we have a feeling he has been someone’s baby. He is very humanized, and don’t know a lot about how a chimp should behave. But he is very nice and happy, which is two things that is very good for Lume!