Holiday Greetings from Gorilla Haven - Not Just About Gorillas …

by Jane Dewar, Saturday 15 December 2001

This will be a brief update … more exciting news will come after the New Year …

We sponsored Bala Amarasekaran (the one on the right of the photo to the left!), director of the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Sierra Leone, to visit GH in conjunction with attending the 4th ZACC (Zoos & Aquaria Committing to Conservation) conference, held in Florida.  After spending a couple of days here in paradise (aka Gorilla Haven), Bala, Kelly and I drove off to Florida.  While I tried to focus on Bala’s love of chimpanzees, we managed to pack a lot into our 10 day road trip, with a lot of laughs en route.

We made a quick stop at Zoo Atlanta (no chimps, but lovely gorillas, orangutan Chantek and pandas Lun-Lun and Yang-Yang were there to greet us) before heading south.  We stopped to see my dearest friend at Disney’s Animal Kingdom (thanks for the passes!) the next day,  where I saw my beloved Gino and Gus and their families, before continuing on to Cocoa Beach, where the ZACC conference was held.  For 5 days we attended meetings, hearing about how zoos (sadly, not enough of them … yet) are actively involved in helping conservation efforts around the world. 

From 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. we heard about projects helping sea turtles in Sri Lanka (among other places) to tree kangaroos in Papua New Guinea to bonobos in the Congo and hornbills in Thailand.  We’d made a poster featuring Tacugama, which Bala was able to show to the attendees, and hopefully he made many good contacts and new friends. Special thanks to  the Brevard Zoo and Beth Armstrong  (one of the GH Board of Advisors) for making the conference such a success!

After the conference, we visited Patti Ragan’s wonderful sanctuary for chimpanzees and orangutans – Bala’s first visit with chimps since leaving Africa almost 2 weeks earlier. Grub, a Clark-Gable’esque 10 year old male chimp, went hysterical when he saw us and while I’d like to think he remembers me, I think all 6 of Patti’s chimps recognized a chimp-lover in Bala and they responded accordingly.  Poor Kelly had never been so close to chimps before, and was a bit taken aback by the racket their joy at seeing us caused!  So the visit to the 3 orangutans was much more peaceful for Kelly and I, even though Pongo was making a racket with a bucket, doing his best gorilla imitation for me when we first arrived!  New-comer, Mari, was our favorite, sitting covered in a blanket with tiny holes cut out so she could peek out without being seen.  Mari is a beauty, with no arms, who recently arrived at Patti’s from Sue Savage-Rumbaugh’s project near Atlanta, and is still in quarantine, before being introduced to Christopher, who can see Mari and seems most anxious for the introduction!

Then we drove to Busch Gardens and Lowry Park zoos in Tampa, where the staffs at both zoos were wonderful and gracious, inviting us behind-the-scenes to meet their wonderful chimpanzees up close. Lowry Park Zoo's male orangutan, Rango showed great interest in Bala too (Rango's the one on the left of the first photo above left, with Bala). We had dinner with Tony Chasar and LeeAnn Rottman, who were about to leave to take over the Project Manager job at Limbe Wildlife Centre (another project we helped sponsor), before heading back north, in time to get Bala on a flight from Atlanta to New York, on his way back home.

Check out some of our new links (not just primate-related!) of some of the people we met at the ZACC conference.  Gorilla Haven is more than just about gorillas and if we can help inspire others to do their bit in making the world a better place, then we’re achieving our goals.  Meanwhile, Julicat reluctantly got into the spirit posing in her Santa hat next to our gorilla Christmas tree this morning, sending everyone the best holiday greetings, along with everyone at Gorilla Haven!  Here’s hoping everyone has a happy, healthy holiday season, and that 2002 helps mend the hurts and pain of 2001.