Sofia arrives!

posted in 14 May 2009

SOROCABA SANCTUARY

Sofia arrives!

We know it was close to happen. We were accompanied Samantha diary, in the last few days every each hour. Milk started to pump out of her breasts and she was looking for privacy and did not want be with other chimpanzees. She only felt safe when Guga was around.

On last April 28^th, early in the morning, Wilson Costa, administrator of the sanctuary, called me to inform that the baby had been born maybe one or two hours before. Samantha was not touching him. He entered in the enclosure with her, to cover the baby with fabrics, but Samantha did not like it. He left. A few hours later she had not touched the baby yet and he was covered with the fabrics. I was in São Paulo and decided to go to the sanctuary. I arrived at 2 pm and the situation was very critical. The baby had already been born eight hours before and she had not touched him yet. Sometimes she cried, carried the baby pulling the fabrics and took him to one corner. I entered the enclosure with her and she hugged me. I tried to get near the baby and she grabbed him with the fabrics before I could do anything. I opened all the parts of the enclosure till the aisle. I talked to her, showed that she had to breast feed the baby. She ignored. She is 10 years old and did not know what was happening, even less what to do when the baby cried.

The placenta and the umbilical cord were still hanged. We tried to give her a tranquilizer to see how she would react, but she turned to be even more nervous. It had already passed 10 hours after the delivery; the baby was dehydrating and could die soon. Then I made the unique decision, after talked with Marco Schwarz (owner of a former commercial breeder, already closed), who had already raised more than 10 baby chimpanzees: take the baby away from her.

In order to avoid using an anesthetic, we opened all the doors of the enclosure. When she entered a bedroom, we managed to catch the baby – who was a female – and took her to the clinic. Dr. Camila checked her, cut the umbilical cord and warmed her to recover the body temperature, which was lower than 34ºC.

The other chimpanzees of the group were following everything from the windows of the enclosure, especially Guga, who was hoping the mother would take care of his first child.

Sofia is her name. She was born with 1.6 kilograms and she is very smart. We started to feed her every two hours. Now Sofia is under a VIP treatment, with a permanent baby sitter and a lot of aunts around. There had been years since we raised a chimpanzee in the sanctuary. We began to buy again NAN milk, diapers, baby clothing etc. The house of the sanctuary was turned into a nursery room. It has been two weeks and whenever it is possible Guga and Samantha see Sofia, when we take her near the enclosure. Guga is more interested in her than her mother. At least for now. She is already feeding 50 to 60 ml of milk every two hours. The first image of my non-human grandchild, daughter of Samantha and Guga and granddaughter of Ditty, are here presented so everyone can see.

Dr. Pedro A Ynterian

President, GAP Project International

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