Sanctuaries

The Mona Foundation Primate Rescue Centre

In Spain, WSPA and the Mona Foundation reunited a family of chimps that had spent eight years languishing in the confines of a filthy trailer. The Mona Foundation Sanctuary near Girona in north-eastern Spain was built with the aid of WSPA.

Life for the chimps in the sanctuary is closer to the African Savannah than the miserable conditions they endured for so many years. Long grass covers much of the ground and a series of mounds, wooden towers and rope-ways enable them to survey their surroundings.

The Mona Foundation was set up by a Spanish veterinarian, Olga Feliu. Olga’s vision was to provide a home where rescued chimpanzees and other primates could live in a natural environment and where people could be inspired to understand and respect wild animals. Please visit the Mona Foundation Primate Rescue Centre website for more information.

WSPA helped to design the chimps’ main outdoor enclosure and covered all the construction costs. In addition WSPA provided funding for running costs and chimp confiscations.

Some of the most common acts these chimps have been forced to endure are:

• Photographs for tourists
• Opening supermarkets
• Commercials for companies like McDonald‘s, Estrella beer, and Telefonica

This rescue centre focuses on saving primates from circus acts and zoos to give them the life they deserve.

The Tacugama Chimp Sanctuary

Amidst the clash of civil war in one of Africa’s most politically unstable countries lies this peaceful haven for rescued chimpanzees.

Chimps make common pets in Africa, albeit illegal and entirely unsuitable. Although an awareness programme initiated by the sanctuary‘s staff has recently led to a decline in numbers of pet chimps, the damage to numbers in the wild has already been done. This has been compounded by the fact that until recently, chimps had been exported from Sierra Leone for research in laboratories overseas.

Meanwhile, a new life at the Sierra Leone chimp sanctuary is creating a link between the facility’s captive animals and their wild counterparts.

The Tacugama Sanctuary was established in its current form by Bala Amarasekaran in 1995, in a personal response to the plight of captive chimps in Freetown. WSPA helps the sanctuary by providing funds, workforce, and materials for various projects.

Click here Visit the Sanctuary website.

Sanctuary Residents

There are currently about eighty resident chimps at the sanctuary, all of which are victims of the pet or entertainment trade, plus the two wild chimps, who have found a safe haven in times of both war and peace.

Chimp Population Dwindling in Sierra Leone

In the early 1970s, an estimated 20,000 wild chimps were living in Sierra Leone. Today, there are fewer than 2,000. The Committee for the Conservation and Care of Chimpanzees (CCCC) assesses that for every wild chimpanzee captured, between five and ten have died. Taking a baby chimp from the wild inevitably means killing the mother, and probably several other defensive relatives. Although it has been illegal to own a chimp since 1972, this law was not enforced until the establishment of the Tacugama Sanctuary, as previously there were no sanctuaries to send the rescued chimps.

Ongoing Difficulties

Civil unrest continues in Sierra Leone, and recently six rebels were caught at Tacugama by local villagers who have set up their own civil defence unit. The threat of further war once again endangers both staff and chimps at the sanctuary, and makes sourcing food extremely difficult. A big thank you to SMA, Mazuri Foods, British Airways and Allied Express who have donated supplies for the chimps and transported them to Sierra Leone free of charge.

Bonobo Sanctuary in Congo

WSPA has been supporting the work of member society Les Amis des Bonobos de Congo (ABC) since 1995, at their unique sanctuary called Lola ya Bonobo in Kinshasa, Congo. Lola ya Bonobo is currently home to 26 rare and endangered orphaned bonobos and is the world’s only sanctuary for these animals, which are the most intelligent of the four great apes.

ABC‘s motto is ‘conservation starts with education‘ because changing the hearts and minds of the Congolese people is essential. If the bush-meat trade and deforestation are not stopped soon then the bonobo, which was the last great ape - encompassing chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas - to be discovered, will become the first great ape to become extinct.

Bonobo Sanctuary in Congo

Almost all of the bonobos at the sanctuary are orphans from the rainforest, their natural habitat. Their parents would most likely have been killed in front of them for bush-meat. The babies would then have been whisked away by the poachers and taken on a barge down the river - a journey which may take up to a week - to be sold as pets in the markets of Kinshasa.

In 2004 WSPA assisted in the rescue of four bonobos from a research laboratory in Kinshasa. They are moved to a new six acre enclosure funded by The Wasmoeth Wildlife Foundation (TWWF).

Education

Many thousands of local schoolchildren have visited the sanctuary to be taught about bonobos and meet them.

A paradise where they will never be hungry, never be thirsty and always be able to see the sky. That is how Claudine André, the founder and president ABC, describes ‘Lola ya Bonobo‘ - meaning the bonobo paradise. The sanctuary was funded by WSPA and completed in 2002. It was made possible largely thanks to a kind donation from WSPA members Stephen and Wendie Ryter.

Make it the last dance

WSPA‘s campaign has helped to end the tradition of forcing captive bears to perform tricks for street entertainment in parts of Europe and Turkey. Sadly, hundreds of bears are still being taken from the wild and abused as ‘dancing bears‘ in Asia. WSPA is urging governments to enforce stricter laws and has set up rescue centres for bears in six countries.

The centres are far removed from the torturous life experienced by bears forced to perform for the amusement of tourists. A dancing bear’s life is consumed with pain and fear from the moment it is captured as a cub in the wild. The dispirited animal will spend much of its life tethered to a short three or four feet rope while trying to survive on an unnatural and highly deprived diet.

The Kund Park Bear Sanctuary

In June 2001, the first bear to be confiscated from a bear baiting event arrived at the sanctuary built by WSPA in Pakistan‘s North West Frontier Province. Rustam, a male Himalayan black bear, believed to be about 15 years old, was confiscated after he was used in a savage bear-dog fight at Khan Bela, in the south of Pakistan, the year before.

At the time of the event in Khan Bela, WSPA alerted authorities to the fight and photographed it from the air. Some time later two of the organisers were arrested and imprisoned. Due to a legal appeal, Rustam was kept in a barren enclosure in a nearby zoo at Rahim Yar Khan. After seven months WSPA finally secured permission to move the bear to the newly built sanctuary, Kund Park.

On completion of the sanctuary in 2000, WSPA handed the running of the sanctuary over to the authorities in the North West Frontier province. To date, there are seven bears in the sanctuary with the newest resident, Sutaiel, arriving in December 2004.

The sanctuary ensures that on arrival all bears are:

• Quarantined for several weeks
• Vaccinated against infections such as hepatitis and distemper
• Checked for worms and external parasites

Sanctuary Surroundings

Following a period in quarantine, the bears are introduced to one of the large wooded enclosures that form the main part of the sanctuary.

For Rustam, Kund Park will be his permanent retirement home, since as a tame bear without most of his teeth, he could never adapt to life in the wild.

WSPA continues to liaise with the Pakistan government urging it to clamp down on illegal bear baiting activities and re-house confiscated bears in the sanctuary. WSPA is also available to provide technical advice whenever necessary.

Millennium Elephant Sanctuary

The Millennium Elephant Foundation (MEF) in Sri Lanka seeks to promote and improve elephant welfare in Sri Lanka by encouraging the conservation of Sri Lanka‘s threatened elephant population and compassionate elephant ownership.

Timber, Tourism and Religion

Sri Lanka is home to approximately 170 working and captive elephants, mainly used by the timber and tourist industries, and for religions processions.

Elephant Shelter

The Foundation‘s Elephant Sanctuary, established with the help of WSPA funding near the town of Kegalle, provides shelter for elephants that are too elderly or injured to continue working. It offers a temporary shelter for working elephants to recuperate, rest and receive treatment. It is also a permanent home to eight elderly and disabled elephants.
 
The Story of a Shelter Resident

One of the shelter residents, the Lady from the Alawathura village, now 61 years old, came to MEF in March 2001. She was kept as a safari elephant for five years and then returned to work in the timber yard. Her health problems included:

• Foot rot
• Digestive problems
• Several wounds

She now receives round the clock attention from the Foundation‘s well trained mahouts (elephant keepers) and feels at home with the other elephants.

Mobile Clinic

Our funding also helped establish the first mobile elephant clinic in Sri Lanka. This mobile clinic travels up to 2000km a month to treat sick elephants all over the country and, since 1999, has treated over 75% of Sri Lanka‘s captive elephant population with free and subsidised treatment.

Emergency Funding

WSPA recently provided emergency funding for the Foundation, which had witnessed drastic drops in visitors as a result of the 2005 South-east Asian Tsunami. The Foundation needed urgent funds to cover operational costs such as elephant feed and repairs to the clinic.
 
Take Action - Volunteer

The Foundation is reliant on volunteer support to keep running. It offers three month placements for a cost of £1000GBP to work at the sanctuary, taking care of your own personal elephant, getting involved with education, fundraising and public relations projects. For more details, visit the Millennium Elephant Foundation website.