Meet La Vielle

La Vielle, one of the long term residents at the Jane Goodall institute’s (JGI) Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Centre (TCRC) in the Republic of Congo, has taken on a new role as surrogate mother to six young orphan chimpanzees living at the sanctuary. 

La Vielle’s Early Life

Like the majority of the young orphan chimps at Tchimpounga La Vielle has had a tough life.  She was most likely kept as a pet when young but as she reached adolescence she likely became unmanageable and too big and powerful for her owners to care for. In 1974 La Vielle was abandoned at the Point Noire Zoo. Unfortunately conditions at the zoo were very poor.  Eventually the zoo was closed by the government and in 1992 and La Vielle, at the age of 24, was transferred to Tchimpounga.

La Vielle’s Life at Tchimpounga

For her first 16 years at the Sanctuary La Vielle lived with Grégoire, Africa’s oldest known chimpanzee, until he passed away in December 2008. After she lost her close companion, caretakers at Tchimpounga carefully monitored her while she was integrated into the sanctuary’s young chimpanzee group. At first caretakers were unsure how La Vielle would like living with young chimps. However she surprised them by not only accepting the infants but acting as their ‘mother’.

 A new generator for Tchimpounga, thanks to YOU!

 Thanks to the generosity of our supporters Tchimpounga has a brand new generator.

 As you can see the old generator was really in need of replacing and thanks to you we were able to help.  The new generator has a large enough capacity for all the needs of the sanctuary.

 Your generosity has:

• Water: Provided drinking water access to the chimpanzees, as well as for cleaning purposes (as per the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance’s and International Captive Primate Care’s standards).
• Electricity: Provided electrical power to the office of the sanctuary, the housing for the staff, as well as to the veterinary clinic.
• Security for the chimpanzee enclosures: Improved the security of the outdoor enclosures by reinforcing the solar power batteries when there is not enough natural sunlight to do so with the solar panels.

Ultimately you have:

• Increased health and wellbeing for the chimpanzees and other animals under our care at the sanctuary through the implementation of a clean water system and active veterinary department.
• Increased wellbeing of staff at the sanctuary.

Conclusion

The new generator provides the sanctuary with enough power to help cover all of our needs. Before having this new generator, the old one was constantly breaking down and we encountered numerous issues with the day to day operation of the sanctuary as well as the administration. The largest issue was always having access to water on a daily basis. Since the new generator was purchased, we have not run into any serious electrical issues at the site. This was a fantastic and much needed contribution to JGI Congo in general and the sanctuary more specifically.

 FROM EVERYONE AT TCHIMPOUNGA WE WOULD LIKE TO SAY A BIG

THANK YOU

TO ALL JGI UK SUPPORTERS

Despite the massive emotional trauma they undergo when captured from the wild, orphaned apes at Tchimpounga often make a complete psychological recovery, according to the results of a joint Harvard University and Duke University study. Researchers Virginia Wobber of Harvard and Brian Hare of Duke observed orphaned chimpanzees and bonobos at sanctuaries in central Africa :

“We found that orphans showed lower levels of aberrant behaviours, similar levels of basal cortisol, and highly similar performance on a broad battery of cognitive tests as individuals at the sanctuaries,” the authors wrote.

"The sanctuaries' ability to not only bring apes and monkeys back from the brink of death, but also restore social and behavioral instincts is a testament to their dedication."

Wobbin and Hare conducted their research at the Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Centre in Congo and the Lola ya Bonobo sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Apes at those sanctuaries actually exhibited a higher degree of normal behaviour in tests than chimpanzees examined at the Leipzig Zoo in Germany.

Most orphans reach sanctuaries as a result of the illegal bushmeat trade, whereby adult apes are hunted for food and infants are sold as pets. A chimpanzee or bonobo that arrives at a sanctuary has often spent weeks or months living under extreme stress. But the sanctuaries offer rich social and physical environments – including ad-hoc family groups and forest enclosures that encompass hundreds of acres, in some cases – that help speed the recovery, according to the study.

Great Story of New Friends

Makasi, Laki and Mbebo are the last chimpanzees that arrived at Tchimpounga after being seized by the Congolese Ministry of Water and Forests. The three chimps stay together day after day playing carelessly beside their guardian Godelin. This is an image and story that usually repeats itself in Tchimpounga. However, some weeks ago something surprising happened; the Center of Tchimpounga director’s dog, a young German shepherd, some five months old, guided by curiosity approached this group of chimps for the first time.  Normally chimps at this age are fearful of any new things that appear in their environment, but on this occasion Makasi took the initiative of lunging herself on Lobo and started playing with him. Lobo reacted immediately and started pursuing and rolling on the ground with Makasi, while Leki and Mbebo shyly observed them. Makasi grabbed Lobo by the neck and made him fall on his side meanwhile Lobo moved his legs trying to defend himself. This was the first day of a great friendship. Since that day we are all used to see Makasi and Lobo’s persecutions in the bushes of the Tchimpounga garden.

Links:

• Visit Gombe and have lunch with Jane!

In the 50 years since Dr Jane Goodall first set foot on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in what is now Tanzania’s Gombe National Park, the chimpanzee behavioural research she pioneered there has produced a wealth of scientific discovery, and her vision has expanded into a global mission to empower people to make a difference for all living things. The Gombe research started in 1960 with Jane Goodall’s observations of chimpanzee behaviour and became one of the longest-running studies of animals in the wild. But it is so much more. The Gombe research has helped provide answers to many of the world’s most-compelling questions, including: • What it means to be human; • How certain diseases are spread; • How to balance the needs of people and nature; • How to stop the destruction of tropical forests, a major factor in climate change; • How to improve the plight of women in developing countries; • How to help people in developing countries foster environmentally and economically sustainable communities; and • How to prepare young people to address the issues impacting our planet. The impact of the Gombe research spans the globe and covers a wide range of scientific disciplines, including human evolution, ethology, anthropology, behavioural psychology, sociology, conservation, disease transmission (including HIV-AIDS), aging and geospatial mapping. Dr Goodall and the Gombe research have inspired a generation of scientists around the world, a great many of them women, to work not just in chimpanzee behaviour but more broadly in conservation. In recognition of Gombe National Park’s irreplaceable position in our world’s natural heritage and its outstanding value to humanity, the United Republic of Tanzania has selected the park for consideration as a United Nations World Heritage site.

Links:

• New Jane Goodall UK website

To everyone that has supported our project to date, your donations are really valuable to us and I just wanted to say a big 'Thanks!'

We've only got a few days to go so please pass on this link to your friends/ colleagues/ anyone you think would be interested in the work of the Jane Goodall Institute. Check out the links below for some updates on the Tchimpounga Chimpanzees...

Links:

• a day in th elif of the chimpanzees in Tchimpounga

Cleve Hicks account of central African wilderness under imminent threat of destruction by rapidly-emerging commercial bushmeat trade sweeping across Democratic Republic of the Congo, describes struggle to save orphaned chimpanzees from torture, sale and slaughter. This shocking report shows that there is still so very much to do. JGI are on the ground in DR Congo and work to intercept and rescue chimpanzees who have fallen victim to these atrocitities, and YOU can help us.

baby chimp

Links:

• http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3700963,00.html