WORLD CHIMPANZEE DAY 14 JULY 2019
CHIMFUNSHI GIVES RESCUED & ORPHANED CHIMPANZEES A FOREVER HOME.
Help Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage celebrate World Chimpanzee Day on Sunday 14 July and come visit the chimps and learn all about humans’ closest relatives from their knowledgeable Keepers.
Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage is internationally recognised as one of the oldest and largest chimpanzee sanctuaries in the world, located in the Copperbelt region 65kms west of Chingola. Chimfunshi started as a family-run wildlife orphanage when a game ranger brought a badly wounded infant chimpanzee to the cattle ranch of David and Sheila Siddle. Against all odds, and with care, protection and love the Siddle’s nursed that chimp back to health. The Siddle’s named him Pal, and to this day Pal lives at Chimfunshi. Once word of Pal’s recovery spread, the Siddle’s found themselves inundated with orphaned chimpanzees.
Today, Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage is home to 130 chimpanzees, which live in large forested enclosures measuring between 19 and 77 hectares each. Each of these enclosures has a facility with 6 to 8 spacious cages, which are used exclusively for feeding, observing chimpanzee health, and providing medical care when necessary. This ensures that each chimpanzee, even the weakest, is provided with enough food. The large enclosures are guarded at all times, in order to be able to react to every irregularity immediately. Unlike many other sanctuaries, the chimpanzees at Chimfunshi come inside only once a day and sleep outside as wild chimpanzees do, building nests in the trees at night. At Chimfunshi, care is taken to provide the chimpanzees with as much freedom, protection, and species-typical environment as possible.
Chimpanzees are native to Equatorial Africa, and once roamed in vast numbers across 25 countries in West, Central and East Africa. But relentless poaching, logging, habitat destruction, and human encroachment have reduced the wild population to less than an estimated 150 000, and they are classified as an Endangered Species. Hunted for meat or captured for sale to foreign zoos and animal testing labs, chimpanzees are disappearing at a rate of 6,000 per year.
Chimfunshi is located in a forest habitat similar to the wild habitat of chimpanzees, but chimpanzees are not indigenous to Zambia and to release locally is not possible. Therefore, Chimfunshi provides rescued chimpanzees the chance to live chimpanzee-typical lives in lush, forested bushland for their natural lives.
Help Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage celebrate World Chimpanzee Day on Sunday 14 July and come observe the chimps and learn all about humans’ closest relatives from their knowledgeable Keepers.
Chimfunshi is open 08:00 – 16:00 (Gates close at 17:00). Entry fee is K60 for adults and K30 for children. You are welcome to bring your own food for a picnic or braai under the thatched Lapa – cost of for use of braai stands and charcoal is K50. Chimfunshi also offers overnight accommodation, if you would like to make a booking or make an enquiry, please contact the Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage office on 0975519881or [email protected]. Chimfunshi is located 65kms from Chingola, off the Solwezi Road, you will see a large Chimfunshi sign on the right, leaving the main road onto the untarred road, follow this for 15kms to the sanctuary office.
Facebook and Instagram: Chimfunshi Wildlife Life Orphanage Trust
It could have worked well as a place of origin for the rise of the planet of the apes.
@Dokowe how long have you lived at Chimfunshi?
@Nostradamus. I unfortunately haven’t been there.
If chimpanzees are not indigenous to Zambia where do these chimpanzees come from starting with the wounded infant chimpanzee which was the first to be kept at Chimfunshi?
Probably abandoned pets that have grown too powerful for the owners to look after like those Reticulated African Rock Pythons in US.
Chimfunshi started in 1983 with Pal. The other rescued chimpanzees were confiscated from circuses and dilapidated zoos, rescued from poachers from the illegal bushmeat trade, found at local street markets where they were to be sold, or discovered by customs when being smuggled out of the country. The chimpanzees came from all over the world; Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. In the past 18 months, 11 chimps have been rescued from Angola and South Sudan.
Under5s should go and campaign to chimps for more votes. CK as the speaker and translator.
Thanks for the information. Been wondering where to get these details for a while.