Wildlife Rehabilitation Centers: Releasing Wildlife Safely

IFAW has been a vital supporter of PASA from the start. IFAW provided funding that helped convene the first PASA meeting in Uganda in 2000 and IFAW personnel from Africa, Europe and North America formed some of the most influential advisors.  In fact, IFAW has been the single most consistent supporter of PASA through the years, helping fund workshops in management, veterinary healthcare and education, offering technical expertise in a variety of disciplines, and working to coordinate primate rescues and relief operations throughout Africa.
 
That support continued in 2007 with IFAW serving as one of the chief sponsors of the PASA 2007 Management Workshop in Kigali, Rwanda. Delegates from 15 PASA animal sanctuaries in 10 African countries attended, along with over 50 supporters, advisors, researchers and government officials from another 11 nations.  Together they worked to find solutions to law enforcement and primate confiscation, mutli-national border disputes, population management, healthcare crises, education outreach, and reintroduction of animals into the wild. PASA also established much-needed new policies regarding internal management, finance, protocol, and structure.

Capacity Building
PASA stages separate annual workshops for animal sanctuary managers, animal sanctuary veterinarians, and animal sanctuary education officers.  It also helps facilitate international exchange programs. While the management workshop was the genesis of PASA in 2000, all three workshops have come to play vital roles in the development and training of PASA personnel. The PASA Veterinary Healthcare Workshop, for instance, is the only opportunity for most animal sanctuary veterinarians to address the physical and psychological wounds they encounter in primates on a daily basis.  The PASA Education Workshop helps the PASA education officers capitalize on the 300,000 visitors who enter wildlife sanctuaries each year – and in turn impact a combined audience of 1 million – to spread important and effective messages of wildlife conservation.

IFAW personnel were instrumental in the organization of both workshops, and IFAW provided funding that helped get both meetings underway. Today, IFAW continues to fund and support the work of the education committee via valuable staff time to organize and implement the education workshop each year. 
 
PASA also prints and distributes support materials on everything from primate care to conservation education – in both English and French. Currently PASA Educators are working on the development of a colouring book explaining the role of a wildlife sanctuary and why it is important to protect primates.  The PASA veterinarian manual is the only manual that wildlife sanctuary vets can reference that deals with the animal emergency issues they face in the field. 
 
Primate Release Into the Wild
PASA sanctuaries are at the forefront of primate reintroduction in Africa, and PASA works to help members access funding, expertise and governmental support, biological data, and the latest technological equipment to facilitate the return of chimpanzees, gorillas, and other primates back into the wild. In April 2006, PASA staged the African Primate Reintroduction Workshop in The Netherlands, a three-day seminar designed specifically to analyze and address the reintroduction programs of PASA member primate sanctuaries.
 
Crisis Fund
PASA’s ability to meet the emergency needs of its members is crucial. Through the PASA Crisis Fund, PASA has helped sanctuaries in Nigeria, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Sierra Leone and Zambia respond quickly and effectively to crises that were beyond their day-to-day capacities. When 31 chimpanzees escaped from a sanctuary in Sierra Leone in 2006, PASA shipped medical supplies and extra dart guns to the site.  And when a potentially deadly skin disease began to affect bonobos at a sanctuary in the DRC, PASA sent medicine and a skin specialist to respond. In each case, PASA provides a safety net that would not otherwise exist.
 
Government Relations
Through extensive relationship building, PASA has earned an important role encouraging African governments to enforce the laws that protect great apes.

Sanctuaries are critical in the overall conservation strategies of African governments.  Without sanctuaries to care for the confiscated primates (or other wildlife), law enforcement inevitably wanes and the illegal trade – be it bushmeat, live animals or both – surges back to life.  In Cameroon, PASA has worked with the government to not only break black-market rings, but also provide swift support for the confiscated animals. In East Africa, PASA helped broker agreements between Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC regarding confiscated gorillas, and PASA is a driving force behind the newly formed CITES Great Ape Enforcement Task Force.
 
PASA and IFAW have worked closely together in the international debate over the confiscated “Taiping Four” gorillas. The two organizations – working with a consortium of four other NGOs – have quietly and effectively negotiated for the gorillas’ return to Cameroon since late 2004, resulting in the agreement by the Governments of Malaysia, South Africa and Cameroon to send the gorillas back to their native land in November 2007.
 
Beyond PASA Member Animal Sanctuaries
PASA sanctuaries collectively care for over 780 chimpanzees, 85 gorillas, 55 bonobos and literally thousands of other endangered primates, yet there are still hundreds more orphans at ad-hoc facilities throughout Africa. Some are crumbling colonial-era zoos, some are tourist hotels that never took off, and still others are earnest sanctuaries in various stages of development. But PASA is increasingly compelled to work with these organizations as it monitors the movement of captive primates throughout Africa.
 
One of the problems is that PASA sanctuaries are already at capacity or beyond, and struggle to manage the steady stream of confiscated animal orphans as it is. To simply close down poorly run facilities across Africa or ask governments to confiscate the primates would overwhelm PASA sanctuaries and compromise the welfare of the chimpanzees, gorillas and others already in their care. For that reason, PASA engages non-member organizations as a protective buffer for its own sanctuaries.
 
In Cameroon, PASA has helped coordinate medical assistance, food, and managerial support for a small sanctuary on an island in the Pongo Songo River in the southwestern region of the country. Although begun by a French-based organization, the sanctuary lacked veterinary protocols or any management plan, and PASA was forced to intervene repeatedly to ensure the health of the 11 chimpanzees on the island and four infants being kept in a village nearby. PASA is working to install a permanent manager and establish funding.
 
In Angola, a request from the Government of Angola to help confiscate and protect more than a dozen formerly captive chimpanzees in the nation’s capital grew to include a start-up sanctuary in South Africa. The chimpanzees were released or abandoned following fears of an outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus, and were identified with the help of local volunteers and a grant from the Disney Rapid Response Fund. The first chimpanzees were eventually transferred to the new Jane Goodall (JG) – Chimpanzee Eden sanctuary in South Africa in 2006, and it is hoped that another airlift can be organized for later in 2007.
 
In the DRC, PASA responded to an emergency in September, 2006 when five confiscated chimpanzees were trapped in a fire set by a disgruntled employee at the Lubumbashi Zoo. Although two chimpanzees died in the fire, the other three survived with injuries, and PASA rushed a veterinarian to the scene from neighboring Zambia. A third chimpanzee was too badly damaged and needed to be euthanized, but the remaining two were saved.
 
In Sudan, international relief workers began reporting that infant chimpanzees were appearing at refugee camps in late 2005. Although probably smuggled across the border from the DRC, the chimpanzees were nevertheless in need of care and a suitable home. PASA reported the situation to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) – which promptly warned its employees not to buy or trade for chimpanzees or other wildlife – and PASA undertook negotiations with the Government of Southern Sudan. In mid-2007, five of the chimpanzees were successfully transferred to JG-Chimpanzee Eden in South Africa and four others will be moved by early 2008.

By Doug Cress
Doug Cress is the executive director of the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance (PASA). For more information, please visit www.PASAprimates.org  or contact PASAapes@aol.com