Meet Janet, a young chimpanzee, who is celebrating a big achievement – one year of safety and love at the Chimpanzee Sanctuary.
Her story started off quite differently, very different from the happy life she has now. Just a year prior, Sanctuary got a distressing call and video – a baby chimpanzee in a dangerous situation.
The call came from John Kamara, a man who started a volunteer youth group in his home country.
One of the volunteers from the group showed Kamara a scary video of “a baby chimpanzee in a bad state,” tied up outside a house with a rope around its neck.
Kamara, despite being far away, couldn’t ignore the suffering animal, so he immediately took action by contacting the sanctuary and alerting them to the situation.
The sanctuary quickly launched a rescue mission for Janet, when their investigation uncovered a heartbreaking reality.
Janet, estimated to be around a year old, had lost her mother, family, and home. She was kept as a pet, forced to live outdoors in neglectful conditions – malnourished, dehydrated, and suffering from a severe skin disease.
Once they got there, the team discovered Janet in a very bad condition, not only physically but mentally too.
The team that saved Janet included a driver, camp supervisor, outreach field officers, on-site rangers, National Protected Area Authority rangers, and local police.
So, they took her to the sanctuary right away for medical help. Janet was also put in a three-month quarantine and was looked after all the time.
After Janet was cleared as healthy and finished her quarantine period, she started attending “forest school.”
She is now part of a group of 120 orphaned chimps at the sanctuary, with 40 of them being babies and toddlers.
Forest school is where Janet and the other chimps can learn important skills like climbing, foraging, and socializing.
It takes a lot of time and patience to help traumatized baby chimpanzees like Janet recover. However, the sanctuary is working hard to get these young chimps ready to join the adult chimpanzees in a big outdoor area.
I think it’s amazing to be able to assist a helpless animal, even if it’s miles away. I’m really happy that Janet is doing better now, I can’t even imagine what she must have gone through.