Asha's First Video!

On December 5th, our team was informed that a poacher selling bushmeat to vendors in the local market said he had a baby chimpanzee to sell. Alfred Bongadu, our conservation officer, and Abanda Sebastien, one of our caregivers, went to investigate. The next day some of the villagers told Sebastien the poacher had left the area and didn’t have a baby chimpanzee with him.
Fortuitously, a seventeen-year-old boy said he knew where the poacher’s hunting camp was located. He led Sebastien deep into the forest to reach the camp, which had been abandoned. There were no people and no piles of bushmeat, only a single shack and the cold ashes of a recent fire. When Sebastien pushed open the door of the stick-and-mud shack, he saw a small chimpanzee huddled on the dirt floor. He thought she was dead at first. But when he greeted her with a series of soft pant-grunts, she raised her little head and greeted him back. When he took her in his arms, the caked blood on her hair and foul odor of infected wounds left no doubt that she was badly injured.
Back at Sanaga-Yong, our veterinary team examined and treated the suffering infant. Her little body was riddled with shotgun pellet wounds from at least two days earlier, and she was dehydrated and weak. An x-ray showed that the bones of two of her fingers on her right hand were shattered.
But Asha is recovering! She’s drinking baby milk formula and has learned to eat mashed up bananas and other fruit, which she didn’t know how to swallow at first. She has bonded with her human caregivers, and one day she’ll find her adoptive family with other chimpanzees. With your support, we’ll do everything we can to ensure that Asha has a long and happy life at the sanctuary. She’ll definitely have love!
Video courtesy of Yannis Baladi - Sheri Speede, DVM with volunteer Tiffany Berthier