Limbe Wildlife Centre

Category: Cameroon, Chimpanzee, Simone de Vries, endangered species | Date: Mar 11 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

Last saturday 7th March was a very exciting day. After three and a half years of building we finally opened the new island chimpanzee enclosure. Without a doubt, the building of this enclosure has been the most ambitious and difficult project in the history of the Limbe Wildlife Centre, but we can say that the result is magnificent.

The enclosure, known as the island enclosure, has been funded by generous donations from the Born Free Foundation, so we were delighted that a representative of this organisation could participate in the opening. In his opening speech, Ian Redmond explained that also for the Born Free Foundation this project has been an enormous undertaking. Further, we were honoured by the presence of the Director of Wildlife of the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife, the Divisional Delegate and many other invitees. In a joint effort a ribbon was cut and the new chimpanzee signboard was revealed. Subsequently the chimpanzees were released from the new satellite enclosure into the new outside enclosure.

The new enclosure is large, but only until we saw the chimpanzees run into it we realised how large. The chimpanzees just seem to disappear in all the space they have now. It is an absolute pleasure to see the chimpanzees run around, play with each other and in the water, and explore all corners and hiding spots. Especially with the tall vegetation this enclosure is a true chimpanzee jungle.

We would like to thank the Born Free Foundation for their endless support and great patience. The work that we do can only be done because of sponsors like them and we are extremely grateful. With the completion of this job we now have time to start planning the building of a new guenon enclosure (see blog of ). We welcome all donations for this new project.

Best wishes,

Simone de Vries, Assistant Project Manager