Bonobo Nursery-Sanctuary in Kinshasa
Newsletter #2(April-June 2000)

April 2000
Tshikapa has been the object of a lot of worries this quarter, due to frequent crises ofasthmatic bronchitis. Once again we had to deploy the full-scale treatment : Medrol,Ventolin and Becatide. She collaborates willingly to frequent sessions of aerosol
treatment: she keeps the mask on for over ten minutes without complaining.
Unfortunately, she is loosing weight.
We have decided to give her banana
supplementation (she loves bananas!) in order to maintain her weight as much as possible.
She will have two very serious asthma crises this month.
April 3rd: In anticipation of the International Conference on Cites to be held on April 11thin Nairobi, Stephanie Walters of the BBC has programmed a short documentary film onlife at the Sanctuary, as well as interviews on the radio. We have a hard time getting aschool visit on film since it’s Easter break… and since the fuel crisis in Kinshasa iscontinuing to worsen: “Congo-Tour”, our tour company, has a hard time finding buseswith full tanks for the visits!
April 18th: During her short visit to Congo for the “Blue White” project (“Bleu Blanc”,
an educational publication for Congolese children), Delphi Messinger proposes to make afilm jointly with “Blue-White” on the Nursery-Sanctuary’s school education program.
She also gives us, through her own experience, some useful medical advice for the infantbonobos.
April 21st: Arrival of Kikwit. Mbo, ourhead keeper at the Nursery-Sanctuary,
had to make an emergency trip toMushie, Bandundu Province, to get his
mother who had been ill withTrypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness).
On the river-boat back to Kinshasa, hemet a cassava merchant who wasbringing an infant bonobo for sale inKinshasa. Mbo convinced him to cometo the Nursery-Sanctuary and to leave us
the young male, 2 ½ years old, whom we
named Kikwit.

Kikwit1

In the meantime, Kikwit did not arrive at
the Sanctuary alone. He brought with
him quite an impressive colony of“Troglodytella abrassanti”, as well as
those “Bullantidium Colli” which give
us so much trouble when they affect ouryoungest bonobos. To top it all, Kikwit
also has amebic cysts…. Kikwit is fairly
courageous, but that’s quite enough to
get him stressed! In addition, believingthat it was a gorilla, the traders had cut
off a couple of his finger tips off one
foot and one hand, as well as a tooth,probably for some magic potion…
(There are many legends on the strengthof gorilla….) Serious medical care isalso required for the open, infected
wounds on Kikwit’s ankles, where theskin was broken bare by the ropes used
to tie him up during transport.

To our great surprise, this merchant hadin his possession an official certificate
from the veterinary services of theMinistry of Agriculture, authorizing him
to travel with a “gorilla” (sic) to sell inKinshasa. Unbelievable! I had to dosomething to raise awareness about theCites law.
The authorities of the Environment
Ministry and of ICCN (a specializedbranch of the Environment Ministry) areappalled
when
they
see
such
documents… I write to everyone rightaway about this incident so that no one isallowed to forget it. And I decide toorganize without further delay aworkshop with the relevant ministries
and the armed forces.

********In the “forest of the little ones”, all is joyful around the two substitute mothers, Henrietteand Micheline. Isiro climbs to the conquest of tree tops, followed by Beni. All of them
are under the unchallenged leadership of “Kalina”, the youngest bonobo, who deserves
the nickname of “chief’s daughter” for her dictatorial temper! Although older than her,Salonga does not let go of Micheline…
April 26th: This morning, Isiro is in tears… Does she have conjunctivitis? Fever? Notyet… but she is soon pulling on her ear: it is clearly an ear infection. And Isiro is backunder a full dose of antibiotics and pain-killers...
April 29th: Saturday, I will receive a “decoration” from the Press for my work at the
Nursery-Sanctuary – as well as a Kuba wooden cup to enrich my primitive art collection.
Great!
April 30th: Dr Williams, a pneumologist, agrees to check on Tshikapa. She takes theopportunity of the very first exam to “taste” a bite off his finger…. Just in case there wasany doubt about whom between them was the chief!

2May 2000
Visits of several journalists: The Observer (South Africa); Dallas Morning News.
Visit of people from the General Direction of Sabena, who are in Kinshasa for thecelebration of the 75th anniversary of the first flight from Brussels to Leopoldville.
May 15th: Arrival of Garry
Richardson, of WSPA/Central
Africa, and Nick de Souza, “our”
veterinarian from Mombassa,
whosepreciousvisitsandveterinarian care are offered to usby WSPA.
They are coming tooperate on Maya (female, 7 years),
whose larynx bag has been infectedfor many months now, with allentailed risks of complications.
Her terrible-smelling breath andthe swelling of her larynx bag
threaten severe fever within shortdelays.
MayaThe operation takes place on the 17th: Maya is anesthetized in the morning and theoperation is conducted on Maya sitting up, to prevent her from swallowing the infectedliquid. (A joint publication by Nick and Crespin will follow.) The operation is a total
success! The next day, Maya plays with the other bonobos in the forest as if nothing had
happened. She lets Nick take off the suture threads a week later without any difficulty.
May 22nd: Taking advantage of Nick’s visit and considering that he is one of the few inwhom we have total confidence to entrust the infant bonobos, we decide to test the bloodof the last eight bonobos to have arrived at the Nursery-Sanctuary. Testing will be forHIV, SIV, HTLV, STLV, as well as TB. I need to request Cites authorizations to havetheir blood tested outside the country, in Prof. Beatrice Hahn’s laboratory in the US…
While we are at it, Nick takes advantage of this work to also anesthetize Inongo (male, 4years) and evaluate the condition of his hip, since his right leg seems to have shortened
after a shock he received while playing with Michael. Indeed, we confirm a 3 cm
difference between the two legs! Nick thinks that Inongo may have broken his hip bone;
we would need a radio to confirm this, but where and how to do this?
May 15th: Two helicopters over-fly the sanctuary, which is close to President Kabila’s
office… This kind of noise really stresses the bonobos out! Michael (male, the olderbonobo at 9 years) jumps the fence of the enclosure in spite of the electric current!!! It
will take all the staff’s patience to coax him into returning inside…
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Nioki’s arrival: One more infant bonobo will arrive at the Nursery-Sanctuary this month,
once again from the presumed front line. We had her confiscated by Inspectors Etienne
and Freddy, who are now our “regulars”.
small, too small –she is only 12 or 18months--; she is totally dehydrated andfull of parasites. And she unfortunately
has the same hand and feet mutilations
as Kikwit…
As a consequence, the confiscation
process is slightly aggressive. We havecome a long way from the first
confiscation, when the inspectors wereproviding long explanations to thevendors. Now that they are taking an
increased interest in the bonobos, theycannot stand any more to see how theinfant bonobos are being mutilated….
And they even threaten to arrest thevendors!

Nioki

Nioki –this will be her name-- is very
light skinned, like Kalina; she is very********
Organization of the Reflection Workshop: I am almost ready to organize the “Day ofReflection on the Consequences of the War on Endemic Species in the DRC: the Case ofthe Bonobo”. The date has been set for June 3rd. I am going almost every day to Kokolo
military camp to meet Major-General Joseph Kabila, so that he send a few of hiscommanders to the workshop. He eventually agrees to delegate three commanders of theterrestrial Armed Forces, of which he is Head, to the meeting. The Ministries ofagriculture and environment, specialized agencies ICCN (Nature Conservancy) andIJBZC (Botanical Gardens and Zoos) and a few NGOs will participate as well. Allconcerned express a lot of interest!

JUNE 2000
June 2nd: One more infant bonobo received at the Nursery-Sanctuary after a confiscation!
Ruzizi is a very, very small (12 months? 18 months?) female –she is the same size asNioki, but very dark. She is also very dehydrated and malnourished, her skin is wrinkled
and hangs loosely on her… will she survive? And will Nioki? Both of them struggle tosurvive under the intensive care of Valerie, in her home. We definitely need anothersubstitute mother; we select Yvonne, whose salary is being offered by an AAC member.
4June 3rd: Reflection Workshop: We have brought together 39 participants, including a
representative from the Cabinet of the Environment Minister, Mr. Ylanga, advisor to theMinister on environmental issues. Officers from the Armed Forces of DRC are alsopresent… It is a workshop with practical-oriented field people, who understand thecontext we work in, the country’s taboos and tradition. The discussion is at times heated,but a good meal, prepared single-handedly by Valerie, brings back everyone’s goodspirits.

June 3rd Reflection Workshop

Dominique Morel, who acts as moderator, facilitating the discussion and organizing theworking groups. She has opted for an “appreciative” methodology, building on successes
accomplished rather than problems faced, in order to minimize the potential conflicts
between the various groups represented… She handles the situation in a very diplomaticmanner! A great job done!
For my part, I assist the rapporteur with the preparation of the workshop’s report andsummary of its agreed-upon recommendations, and I handle the media (written andaudio-visual press).
The DRC Armed Forces have warmly thanked us for having associated them to thisworkshop, which represented something totally new for them. They were particularlyinterested in the idea of training ecoguards, a kind of paramilitary corps which would
revive the former forest guards and receive dual training in environment and security
issues….
*****June 8th : Italian-style survival fight for
Nioki and Ruzizi, who are still in
intensive care with Valerie. Having
exhausted all further inspiration tostimulate their appetite, Valerie has themdiscover spaghettis. One should haveseen them, with their small hands full ofdripping pasta! They would not havegiven away a centimeter of it for all theirlife!!! But Valerie is exhausted by the5

Unfortunately, Ruzizi will not survive.
She was too small, too dehydrated… She
will have remained only a few days withus.

amount of attention which they require.
Henriette, our head substitute mother forthe little ones joins her and learns about
intensive care.

Among the good news this quarter:
VickyAdaur,
Kate
Farnsworth,
Dominique Morel, and to all of you who,from close by or from afar, allow me todream that we will succeed in soon
creating a “Bonobo Sanctuary inCongo”…

Gerard de Nys of the Netherlands has
obtained an oxygen-therapy machine forus! Many, many thanks Gerard!
Thanks to Jo Thomson for havingpresented our project to Japanese
researchers, who mobilized to collect asignificant amount of funds for us!
Thanks to all our Japanese donors!

Thanks to the Ministry of Environment,
Nature Conservation, Fishing andForests, to ICCN, to the Armed Forces
and to our Congolese friends for theirmobilization during the reflectionworkshop.

Thanks for their fidelity in supporting us
to the Zoological Society of Milwaukee,
to Colombus Zoo, to Anvers Zoo andmore specifically the Bonobo project ofPlaukendael, to WSPA/Central Africa.

And a special thanks to Garry
Richardson (WSPA) for allowing Mayato achieve a successful recovery and to
Nick for his irreplaceable competence!

Thanks to Sally Coxe and Alison Mize,
thanks to Emy Verhnet, Betsy and Jim,

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