We had the honour of hosting the 2008 PASA
management meeting at the beginning of April. It is a
moving experience to have all the African sanctuary
managers reunited in the same room. There is always
so much information to share and things to learn from
each other…. that is one of the reasons PASA was
founded 9 years ago, to bring together the African
primate sanctuaries and become a family with a
stronger voice. The conference also gave the
participants the opportunity to visit Tacugama for the
first time. They had a colourful welcome from
children involved in our Tacugama Kids Programme.

COMING SOON....
National Chimpanzee Census
The PASA attendees at Tacugama
A key output of the PASA managers meeting for
Sierra Leone was the decision made by the PASA
steering committee to support Tacugama to undertake
a national census of chimpanzees.
Sierra Leone is home to the endangered Western
Chimpanzee but there is no true understanding of the
current population numbers. What is clear is that their
habitat here is continuing to be reduced as a result of
encroachment through logging and much other human
activity.

One of our aims at Tacugama is to be able to release
our residents back into the wild, but we can only do
this through identifying suitable release sites. We also
work to protect the existing wild populations and
increase knowledge and understanding of these
amazing animals. The census results would help us
enormously in much of our work.
We need a minimum of US$200,000 to undertake the
census and with much support from the PASA team
we are approaching potential donors internationally to
raise these funds. We are hoping to undertake the
census at the end of the current wet season so the
pressure is on to get the proposals out and the money
in. All donations will be gratefully received!

http://www.tacugama.com/july08.pdf