A blog: Face To Face With Our Closest Living Relative

A few months ago I was asked to work on a project at the Chimfunshi Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Northern Zambia on the border of the Congo. This was a life-changing opportunity to come face to face with our closest living relative.

Face to Face

After a grueling two-day bus journey right through the heart of Zimbabwe we finally reached our destination. It is a lonely place in the middle of the bush that has been poached of almost all wildlife. There is an ongoing battle between conserving Africa’s wildlife and extreme poverty - who could blame someone for killing an antelope to feed their family when 95% of Zambians are unemployed.

The congo on the horizon

Chimfunshi sprang into existence when a badly wounded infant chimpanzee was brought to the cattle farm of David and Sheila Siddle in the 1980s. Prior to this they had been traveling through Africa and had settled in this forgotten corner of Zambia. The wounded chimpanzee was nursed back to health and a tradition of care and respect that forms the legacy of the sanctuary today was formed.