![]() And that doesn’t sit well with most people have having spent thousands of dollars to get there and days of trekking into the vast inhospitable forest. The small safari camps on the island have lost money since opening, because tourists who travel from far away to the island want to see the chimpanzees - but more often than not, they aren’t able to. The island currently hosts around 1000 visitors a year, and that was before the COVID pandemic. Who cares if tourism isn’t thriving? That's a concern because tourism is what brings in much of the money that supports the park and keeps it (and its animals) protected. And with the chimpanzee population avoiding contact with humans, the island is far from an ideal tourism experience. Meaning no one knows exactly how many of them there are, or has had a chance to closely observe and document their recently observed behaviors. So if it’s the fastest growing troop of wild chimpanzees in Africa, why was it a mistake? The new generations of chimpanzees born on the island are extremely reluctant to be habituated to humans, they seem fearful and suspicious. The elephants and giraffe are unusual, and likely need an injection of genetic diversity, but that’s a very touchy subject and may not work. ![]() The rhinos were all poached within 5 years of their arrival. With a growing population of as many as 100 chimps living in one large troop who have developed their own distinct culture over the decades, the island has been a stunning success as a wildly unprofessional rewilding experiment for these great apes. More than 50 years later, Rubondo Island in Tanzania is arguably both the most successful wild chimpanzee colony in Africa, and Grizmek’s biggest mistake. The stated intention was for this massive forested island park to be a new model of a hybrid zoo/game preserve - a Great Ape Serengeti National Park. Grzimek’s words, he was: “setting them free on Rubondo.” They had mostly never met one another, had never been to the island, and there was no habitat analysis done. Then Grzimek, Rubondo’s Noah, set about re-habituating 17 chimpanzees who were doing poorly in zoos and circuses across Europe to the island. The man behind it, German Professor/filmmaker Berhard Grzimek, had finally created his “Place for Wild Animals.”Ī handful of animals who Grzimek considered endangered species (elephants, giraffe and rhino) were the first to be ferried over to this newly formed game preserve from across Africa. ![]() Just over 50 years ago, a 60,000 acre island in Lake Victoria was cleared of inhabitants by the newly independent Tanzanian government and turned into an rewilded ‘African Ark’ of sorts. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |