Update on Kongo and Lume

Kongo has now finally settled in with the Kalume group. He is playing especially much with Flora and Clara. It took quite a long time for him to get back to the happy playful Kongo from the quarantine cage, but now he seem to realise that he is a chimpanzee and it’s fun to have someone to appreciate his rough games. For example pulling Clara by one finger down the concrete steps, and she can’t stop laughing!! Lume settled in a lot quicker as he is used to chimpanzees. He likes especially to play with Youngesa and Alsace.

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.

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!

New chimp keeper

Kaleshe has been sentinel for the house for many months and has proven to be a good worker. When Kongo and Lume arrived to the garden he proved to love the chimps and they loved him. So today he was promoted and started his career as chimp keeper in the quarantine cage with Kongo and Lume.

New home

Today we let Kongo and Lume out in the quarantine cage. Kongo was the happiest chimp you have ever seen swinging around on the ropes. But Lume was very nervous and scared… Kongo wanted to play with him, but Lume was not in the mood. He was staring out into this strange new world he had come to, and he got very stressed every time someone was yelling on the road.

Kongo and Lume to Lwiro

Yesterday we spent the day getting to know Kongo and Lume. Kongo did not brake out of his cage he’s got a bad cold, but has a good appetite and is generally quite happy. Lume don’t eat as much and is very stressed.
This morning we finally started the move to Lwiro. Early in the morning a pick up from ICCN came and got the chimps and us and drove us down to the boat. We got them loaded on to our little space, which was not very big as they had also put a car in the space we were suppose to have… We hung a tarp in front of us and sat on top of the cages. There were a lot of people outside and they kept pulling the tarp down to se what was behind, very annoying. After about an hour the boat departed and things calmed down a bit. Kongo and Lume were coping incredible well with all the noise and movement. After about 7 hours we finally arrived in Bukavu. The car that the ICCN had sent to transport us to Lwiro turned out to be way too small, and we had to hire another one. Luckily there was a truck in the area that we could hire, and finally off we went to Lwiro. We arrived very tired, and a lot poorer, late in the afternoon, and decided to wait until the morning with moving them in to the quarantine cage.

Kongo and Lume

We’ve been hearing about some chimps near Beni, which is a town far north of Goma for a while now. First it was one, then it was two, then it was three, then back down to one… But they finally got two of them confiscated and got them driven down to Goma, we paid for the transport… But one of them managed to brake out of his cage so they could bring them no further, and we had to come and get them in Goma. All along we had heard that they were about 1 and 2 years old. But then the night before me and Carmen was leaving for Goma, they called again and this time said that one of them was 20kg! We left the next morning for Bukavu and the boat for Goma. We had booked tickets for the fast boat and hoped to be there in the afternoon the same day, but no… They sold our tickets to someone else... We found one that was going in the afternoon and would take all night to get to Goma. No choice so we bought some first class tickets, which was still a lot cheaper than the fast boat. It was a nice cabin on the top of the boat, but as time went on it filled up with quite a lot of people. And it was over filled by the time we left Bukavu… Incredibly we managed to get some sleep though. And the next morning after 13 hours on the boat we arrived in Goma. People from the ICCN met us and we drove straight to DFGF International where the chimps were kept.
The two chimps were Kongo and Lume. Kongo was chained to a cement post, and he was big, but the nicest personality. He gave both me and Carmen big hugs and was very happy to meet us. We guess he’s about 8 years old, maybe older and closer to 30kg!
Lume was in a cage, very traumatised and scared, and he bites. We think he’s about 5-6 years old. Carmen managed to find a cage and reinforced it so that it hopefully will keep Kongo inside, and she anesthetized him and we put him in the cage.
We managed to find a boat that will take us with the chimps, but it leaves the day after tomorrow, so we have to spend tomorrow here. At least then they will get to know us a bit, and we’ll see if the cage will hold Kongo inside!