Baby Zumba was rescued by J.A.C.K. in February 2020, just before the pandemic started on our side here in the DRC. She went through her three-months quarantine without any problems and, unfortunately, we had to wait untill September 2020 to do some healthchecks as, because of the Covid virus, all the labs refused to work on wildlife samples…
When the bloodwork turnt out to be excellent and because it was high time Zumba met others of her own kind, trouble started when we launched the introduction program…
Zumba was introduced to Luna, a gentle female we knew would be extremely maternal with the baby. Zumba never accepted contact. Zumba ran away when Luna wanted to hug her or groom her. It was as if she didn’t understand what Luna was expecting from her. Zumba was very scared when she heard the other members of Luna’s group shouting and panthooting.It seemed Zumba was in permanent stress and lost. Zumba never vocalised when happy, when hungry, when scared… as if she didn’t remember how to communicate in chimp language. We believe she had forgotten her chimpanzee culture because of all the trauma she had gone through when captured and when illegaly detained…
Then, we decided to introduce a second maternal female, Kaly. We coudn’t just keep Zumba alone. The aim is to go in a group of chimps and not to stay with humans… So, we slowly continued the introduction process and it was clear Kaly managed to calm down the baby. Shortly after Kaly got into Zumba’s group, the baby started playing with Luna and Kaly and she even vocalised…
After a few weeks, when the alliance was made between the 3 of them and once Zumba understood she was a chimp, we introduced different chimpanzees. It took a long time, nearly 11 months, before Zumba got on well with each and every member of the group.
Then, the baby chimp also accepted to discover the open air playground and to join her friends outside!
I was so happy to see her in the group. Luna and Kaly are still behind her because some of the males are strong teenagers and like to bully the most vulnerable ones. But the two females are over protective and defend Zumba very well! These days, Tommy has been very impressive to the baby so she remains very cautious when big boy Tommy is around!
It took some time to introduce Zumba with a group of her own kind, but WE DIT IT and we are so happy she has now frends and can interact with them!