Beyond the reach of bloody conflicts in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), rescued apes swing from one branch to another under the leafy canopy at a wildlife sanctuary.
On the edge of a national park that is home to endangered gorillas, the Lwiro Ape Rehabilitation Center (CRPL) has for two decades nursed wounded and traumatized animals to recovery, and taken in orphans.
The center houses scores of chimpanzees, gorillas and bonobos among its wards, often saved from poachers in a region where illegal activities go largely unchallenged in the insecurity caused by many armed groups.
Photo: AFP
During a recent visit, half a dozen apes gathered behind a fence to choose the best banana to peel and eat after a fresh food delivery.
Female chimpanzees walked around, carrying their babies on their backs.
Each of the 110 chimpanzees at the sanctuary in South Kivu province eats 6kg of fruit, cereals and vegetables a day, the staff said, adding that the infants are bottle-fed.
Photo: AFP
“These orphaned baby chimps are coming to us because of insecurity and war,” center manager Sylvestre Libaku said, urging the government to secure the region to “let the animals live peacefully in their natural habitat.”
Weeks or even months of effort are needed to stabilize an animal in its new home. Tarzan, a chimpanzee collected in June last year from Bunia in the troubled Ituri province to the north, still lives in quarantine.
The ape has unhealed wounds on his skull, but “is doing better. The hair is starting to grow, but he is still kept in his cage, as we wait for him to be able to mix with the others,” Libaku said.
However, Byaombe, another injured chimpanzee picked up more than a year ago, is a source of worry. The animal receives care every day, but “without success — its future is not reassuring,” he said.
In his laboratory, Damien Muhugura handles samples taken from sick animals.
“We do parasitological analyses to search for intestinal worms,” among other bacteriological and biochemical risks, Muhugura said.
The facility extends over 4 hectares inside the Kahuzi-Biega National Park, named after two extinct volcanoes and listed as a UN World Heritage Site.
Animals brought in from large forests, where they roamed freely, “feel trapped” on the small terrain, veterinarian Assumani Martin said.
Thirty-nine grey parrots were in November 2020 released into the Kahuzi-Biega forest, after a stay for adaptation at the center, founded in 2002 by the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature and the Center for Research in Natural Sciences.
Since then, no animals have been introduced to the reserve because of the insecurity in and around the protected domain, Libaku said.
Covering 600,000 hectares, the national park lies between the extinct Kahuzi and Biega volcanoes, and provides a sanctuary to a remarkable diversity of wildlife, including about 250 eastern lowland gorillas, the last of their kind.
UNESCO describes the park as “one of the ecologically richest regions of Africa and worldwide,” but it is also one of 52 sites on the World Heritage endangered list for the planet.
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