On Wednesday I went with the older boys to visit the chimp sanctuary high up in the hills above Freetown.
The chimp sanctuary started with just one chimp - Bruno.
Bruno was spotted by the founder of Tacugama in a village having been taken from his mother. Bruno was tied to a post and was starving to death. Bala realised Bruno would not live much longer and he rescued him.
Bruno came to live with Bala and his family and was much loved. People heard about Bruno’s rescue and brought more chimps to Bala that needed help.
Soon enough Bala had 8 chimps living in his house and garden. The chimps would get bored and break out, causing havoc in the neighbourhood. The government linked up with Bala to create Tacugama for the 8 chimps already rescued and for all the future chimps Bala would save.
Sierra Leone has less than 5500 chimps living in the wild currently so the work Tacugama does in educating people about the endangerment of chimpanzees worldwide is very important.
Sadly Bruno and several of his chums escaped in 2006. Of the 36 escapees 4 have not been recovered and only 2 have been seen since. Hopefully Bruno and his friends are alive and well having joined a wild group of chimps somewhere in the huge expanse of forest on the peninsula.
