Salvaging Chimfunshi wildlife heritage
…as chimpanzees battle to survive
By GETHSEMANE MWIZABI
On a June afternoon, Mads slipped from a branch and fell to the ground. It was not a usual fall.
It marked an end of an adventurous life and the beginning of another. After great adventures of jumping from one branch to another, he was having great fun with his peers, displaying jungle tactics and usual mocking sounds.
After all, he was born to jump from one tree to another. Truly, he was a champion in his own right.
However, that afternoon, he was not lucky. After taking a seemingly calculated long jump, he slipped from one of the branches he was supposed to hold perfectly.
Thus, he fell on his back, hitting the ground hard, crying out in pain. His friends could not do enough to help when he lay in a pool of blood. He suffered a serious injury on his leg.
After a week, he was taken to a veterinary clinic in the Lusaka show grounds where he was treated for K4.5 million.
It has been three months since Mads was treated fbut he is still nursing his wound that has confined him to one place. He still cries out in pain. He cannot play like he used to.
Mads is one of the 126 Chimpanzees at the Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage, currently struggling to survive.
Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage is a world renowned orphanage and sanctuary for chimpazees, the only one of its kind in the world.
The sanctuary was started by David and Sheila Siddle in 1983, when a badly wounded chimpanzee named Pal was brought to the farm, having been rescued from poachers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The chimpanzee was not expected to survive but the pair nursed it back to health. Since then, the orphanage has expanded to house over 126 orphaned chimpanzees on 1,150 acres of savannah forest and fruit groves.
Siddle, whose commitment to injured and unwanted chimpanzees led to the creation of the orphanage in Zambia, died on June 30 after a long illness. He was 78.
The orphanage is now home to numerous other types of animals, including peacocks, which roam freely around most of the grounds, an assortment of birds, many of which were taken there to be reared back to health, and a now-16-year-old hippopotomus, which went there as a baby and now has little trouble getting through the electric fences.
After 25 years of existence, the wildlife heritage is struggling and needs an urgent financial bailout to avoid a total collapse.
Some of the donors, mostly from overseas, stopped funding it because they argued that the owners were not observing birth control methods.
Donors argued that it would be expensive to run the operations of the wildlife orphange if birth control methods were not observed.
Now that the the site is under new management, the same old problems have been inherited. The wildlife heriatge site is now run by a board and Siddle’s widow Sheila happens to be part of it.
It is for this reason that the orphanage is appealing to the Government, private companies and donors to inject money into the operation of the wildlife heritage site to prevent it from collapse.
General manager Tony Rauch said the heritage site needs over K76 million every month to sustain its operation and feed the 126 chimpanzees currently at the orphanage which is open to the public.
He said this when Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) presented a cheque of K20 million to the orphanage also housing a 16-year old hippo and an impala.
Mr Rauch said there was need to bail out Zambia’s only chimpanzee orphanage as it was a critical wildlife and environmental heritage site for the country.
“It’s been very hard to feed the chimpanzees. We don’t have donors to help us maintain this place,” he said.
The heritage site, which is run by a trust, has four pool vehicles but only one is operational, making it difficult to run the affairs of the orphanage which sits on a vast piece of land.
“This is a heritage site that needs to be preserved for the present and future generations. Zambia needs this site for environmental purposes,” said Mr Rauch, a veteran ranch and livestock manager with over 30 years experience in Zimbabwe and South Africa.
The wildlife conservation site is ideal for educational purposes, especially ecology and environmental conservation. Local and international students researching can also use the centre.
And KCM corporate social responsibility manager Sampa Chita said the mining company would take a lead in soliciting funds to help the orphanage.
She said KCM was pleased to support the wildlife site, as that was part of corporate social responsibility.
“We interact with a lot of partners. So we will make your case known to others as well,” Ms Chitah said.
She said her company was pleased with the operations of the orphanage even under difficult conditions and hoped that other partners would lfollow suit
Most chimpanzees at chimfunshi reside in open enclosures of between five and 500 acres and so have a way of life as close to nature as possible.
Located 60 kilometres west of Chingola on the banks of the Kafue River, the orphanage is a tourist attraction for those living on the Copperbelt and for international visitors to Zambia.
Chimpanzees are not found in the wild in Zambia, the nearest populations being about 500 kilometres north of Chimfunshi.
Mr Rauch said one chimpanzee fetches US$10,000. A fully grown chimpanzee can be four times stronger than a human being, very aggressive and with the ability to easily cause significant harm or even death.
In an effort to effect birth control methods, the new management has injected some implants into some female chimpanzees to make them sexually inactive.
The injections have made them lose interest in sex. So far, 19 female chimpanzees have birth control implants sanctioned by the pan-African Sanctuary Alliance and the remaining 38 will have implants by 2010.
“We have no choice but to effect these methods. We want to reach a point where we will be self-sustaining,”
Currently, the orphanage relies on some donations from Shoprite Chekers and Boart Longyear.
The chimpanzees currently feed on leftover vegetables and fruits from Shoprite Checkers.
The wildlife orphanage also has a serious transport problem. Out of the four pool vehicles, only one is in operation.
Ultimately, Chimfuinshi Wildlife Orphanage is on the verge of collapse and there is need for urgent help
