It’s an unlikely scenario… but it is the exact situation I found myself in at Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary – a tranquil forest retreat in the Western Area Peninsula National Park, just thirty minutes outside of Freetown.
I felt a bit like Jane Goodall… an icon in conservation who, believe it or not, has visited the sanctuary a few times… so it was at the top of our “must see in our minimal free time” list.
A visit to Tacugama won’t be the “up close and personal” wild animal experience you might be anticipating, (unless you’re Jane Goodall)… but, if it were, it wouldn’t truly be a sanctuary with the chimps’ best interest at heart.
Tacugama History
Tacugama was established in 1995 in cooperation with the Conservation Society of Sierra Leone.
Despite being founded in the midst of a civil war, and literally being caught in the middle of a clash between opposition forces in 1997, Tacugama endured and has continued to fight for conservation and the protection of chimpanzees.
In the year 2000, the first large fenced enclosures were built, and, for the next five years, steady expansion lead to new chimp enclosures and even staff quarters.
