Charly with plastic snake

In recent weeks Nico has been off colour, being fussy with his food, moving around slowly and at times looking tired and bloated. His right (good) hand had been looking less strong and he wasn't knuckle walking correctly. The head keepers had been checking on him daily and in the last 3 weeks Nico has received physiotherapy on the hand. We're happy to say that this has been very successful and as well as Nico using his hand as he should, his overall health seems better.

A month ago Africa met Victor in the association enclosures. It was very tense for us as Victor can be a little unpredictable but amazingly all went well and many more meetings will be undertaken. Another time in that same week when all the others were securely outside, we gave Africa access to all the bedrooms and it was great to see her swinging from room to room, exploring where her future family group spend their nights. 

Mona has been getting more and more busy in the past month. We have an artist who is sketching the chimps for her studies and a research team from Portugal who have been placing various items in the enclosures, filming the facial reactions to the finds. Charly looked very funny with a rubber snake draped around his neck. Juanito ran around with a plastic wolf mask and enjoyed painting fixtures with Romie and Waty!

As the better weather is upon us we've seen Toto napping in the long grass, Toni is coming outside more than usual and there's been a lot of friendly play between Tico, Victor, Nico and Juanito which is shows us that relationships are growing stronger.

Bongo continues to be very content with the males and is the most enthusiastic to show off his strength to visitors.

Sara is very close with Juanito at present although much to his disappointment she won't give in to his attempts to take little snippets of her food! He tries everyday though and generally succeeds with Waty who is still crazy about him and is very protective despite him now losing most of his white baby fluff!

My husband and I have just returned to Norfolk after working six months as volunteers. We enjoyed the experience so much and feel such a strong bond with the chimps that in August we'll be going back for another year.

Charlotte Abrahams