Happy New Year; January updates

Our energies to work towards the conservation of chimpanzees and their habitat have been renewed this year. Our main goal this year is to build partnerships and become self sustaining. We hope to achieve these through expanding on our network and partnerships, undertaking joint resource mobilisation and programs implementation, and diversifying the business activities.

Your partnership will go along way to enable us achieve the set targets. Become a Friend of the Chimpanzees or renew your membership, visit Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary, become a guardian of the orphaned rescued chimps at Ngamba, donate your technical skills, time, supplies, equipment and cash, and help to advocate for the chimpanzees.

Dr. Jane feeds chimps in the evening

Dr. Jane Goodall reaffirmed Ngamba Island Chimpanzee as the leading and model chimpanzee sanctuary in Africa. She said this during her visit to the sanctuary on 18th January 2014.

"For the last couple of years, I have been moving from one sanctuary to another across the continent, but never have I seen chimpanzee caregivers treat the primates with so much care and love before."

"They have fully acknowledged the fact that chimpanzees are man’s closest relatives and treat them with so much love and attention," she said.

"This means we are on the right track and that we should maintain our standard, but we also want to be more proactive in the face of challenges to continue being a model sanctuary,’ says Ms. Lilly Ajarova, the Executive Director, Chimpanzee Trust Uganda.

During this visit Dr. Jane Goodall also celebrated her 80th birthday with the staff at the sanctuary.

Click here to see a direct message from Dr. Jane

This week we made a major and probably last leap in integrating the infants that were rescued from Southern Sudan in 2011. We took them to the main forest to join the rest of the group. Phillip Sekulya, the Assistant Sanctuary Manager tells us how this is progressing

When the four infant chimpanzees were let out to the forest, they seemed nervous and hesitant, except Cocoa who used to occasionally escape to the forest side. So the others rallied behind her. At first Medina tried her usual tactics of feeding close to the forest but this time she was out competed by the big males like Tumbo. Sara on the other hand was so excited on the first day that she spent most the time playing in the trees and forgot about food. She however got more alert in the subsequent days. On the third day however, we were all surprised when Sara decided to nest in the forest for the first time, accompanied by Connie, Bahati and Nagoti.

On the whole, the integration is moving smoothly, we are making observations of its progress and are quite certain it will be a success.