By Elizabeth Willoughby on
The Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center, which rescues orphaned chimpanzees, has more than five times the number of chimps that it was built to handle.
Conservationist Jane Goodall has a wish for her 80th birthday in April: enough donations to bring to an island sanctuary 45 more chimps that are ready for freedom.
After nursing a near death, emaciated chimpanzee named Wounda back to health, Goodall shows the Center’s work in a short video where she joins Tchimpounga caregivers in returning Wounda back into the wild, a heartfelt moment for humans and chimpanzee.
The Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) would like to expand the Center onto three islands to provide safe places for the recovered chimpanzees, which would also free up the rehab center for more rescues. The JGI website says that being a place to bring rescued chimps has another benefit: It “makes it easier for law-enforcement to uphold laws against trafficking chimpanzees.”
“[Wounda] is the 15th chimpanzee to get her freedom here,” says Goodall in the video, “and we hope ultimately to have about 60 on the island. All waiting, waiting, waiting. That would be the best birthday present that I could have.”
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Copyright © 2014 Look to the Stars
