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Farewell to our beloved Abu |
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Photograph courtesy of Francois Theron
We were all deeply
saddened by the loss of Abu who died of
congestive heart failure on August 1.
Abu was rescued as a youngster from Angola about
12 years ago, and because JGI SA had no
sanctuary then, was cared for at the
Johannesburg Zoo. He, Nikki and Amadeus were our
first residents when the Sanctuary was opened by
Dr Jane Goodall in March 2006. Abu went on to
become the alpha male in the first family group
at the Sanctuary, which had grown to eight by
the time of his death. Sanctuary manager Phillip
Cronje has known and looked after Abu since his
arrival in South Africa aged about four. He had
been rescued from living in a cage at a business
in Luanda. At Abu’s postmortem Dr Andre Beytel
discovered that the chimp’s heart was abnormally
small and one of his valves was malfunctioning.
When Abu picked up a cold, his heart could
simply no longer cope.
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©
Jane Goodall Institute South Africa |
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