|
Peace at last for Josephine
17-year
old Josephine has finally found sanctuary at JGI
Chimpanzee Eden after years of living in a cage
at a noisy scrapworks-cum-printing shop in
Luanda, Angola.
JGI Chimpanzee Eden managing director, Eugene
Cussons, accompanied by volunteer vet, Dr
Stephen van der Spuy, and a film crew, rescued
Josephine in October.
While in Angola, the team, together with the
Angolan Department of Forestry, also found and
confiscated two small chimps who were being kept
in horrific conditions. The youngsters were
moved to safekeeping while permits and blood
samples were obtained, and Eugene will be
returning soon to Angola to rescue them.
Josephine is the last of five chimpanzees
originally identified in Angola as needing
sanctuary. The others, Zac, Guida, Jinga, Lica
and Mimi, were rescued earlier this year. JGI
Chimpanzee Eden works closely with the Angolan
government to identify and rescue chimpanzees
being kept illegally and a fruitful, mutually
beneficial partnership has been forged.
“Josephine was kept in a relatively large,
spotlessly clean cage at a very noisy printing
business,” says cameraman Willem van Heerden.
A Triosphere film crew has been based at JGI
Chimpanzee Eden for the past eight months
filming a 13-part documentary series for the
Discovery Channel.
She is a delightful chimpanzee and was calm
throughout the move.
“When Stephen darted her so that she could be
moved into the transport crate, she pulled out
the dart and hid it,” says Willem. “It was
only much later, while watching the film rushes,
that we discovered where she’d deliberately
hidden it!”
Josephine was crated as late as possible on the
day before she was due to travel to South
Africa. She and the team flew out early the next
day, having encountered the inevitable
last-minute challenges. The most serious was
that there was no mention of Josephine on the
cargo inventory. Eugene managed to sort this
out, but she was then loaded extra early the
next day and the team was unable to verify that
she was actually on board. It was only once they
had boarded that were able to see she was on the
flight.
Another challenge faced the team when they
reached the sanctuary late that evening, having
driven from O.R. Tambo International. Only a few
sanctuary staff, cleared and approved by the
State Vet, are able to enter quarantine quarters
at JGI Chimpanzee Eden.
“Eugene had designed a new collapsible
transport crate to enable him to avoid the
inevitable cross-questioning about taking empty
crates into other countries,” explains Willem.
“It is, however, extremely heavy and weighed
230kg once Josephine was in it.
“It was fairly simple to move her outside of
the sanctuary – it just took lots of muscle
power. But not many are not allowed into
quarantine! However, those few did eventually
managed to carry her in.
“On arrival, Josephine calmly inspected her
environment, before settling down to some fruit
and water,” he says.
Sanctuary manager Phillip Cronje says that
Josephine, now in quarantine for three weeks, is
doing well.
“She’s not tiptop and needs to gain some
weight, but she’s not malnourished and is
settling down well,” he says. “She loves
apples, doesn’t like bread and, obviously not
used to such good food, rejected the
strawberries kindly donated by Woolworths!”
He notes that Josephine, unsurprisingly,
doesn’t react at all to the noise of other
chimpanzees.
“She is much like Lica was,” he says.
“When Lica first saw other chimps she cowered
in a corner and screamed. Lica is now perfectly
happy in the large enclosure, and spends much of
her time grooming with the large males!” |
|
