New Baboon Camp

The 9th of April saw the unveiling of the new camp! Many of the volunteers and staff gathered to see the baby baboons try out their new home and helped take them from their old smaller camp and move them into their new camp. They were so excited, running round and exploring! Stretching out in their new camp they adventured into their new housing and enjoyed their new play area, running and jumping and climbing! They now have much more space to run around in and monkey bars and a tyre swing to play on. The baboons looked so happy and all the volunteers and staff, whose hard work had gone into building the camp, also looked delighted!

Lightning's Success Story

In December 2009, we released one of our young leopards, Lightning, on Wilderness Safari’s Little Kulala reserve.

On Saturday 23 April this year Rudie received a phone call from Johan Steyn of Tsauchab River Camp regarding a leopard with a radio collar which he and his guests have seen regularly at Tsauchab. Rudie knew immediately that it was Lightning. Her radio collar had stopped giving out signals in January this year so all of the N/a an ku sê team were very excited to hear that, after 15 months of freedom, Lightning had been seen and that she is in good health and there is no conflict with the farmers in that area.

It is fantastic to know that Lightning can add value to Johan Steyn’s tourism market. It is a very good example of how tourism and conservation can work together and we now send all information about Lightning to Johan so that he can share it with his guests.

Elvis has not left the building – he has just arrived!

Elvis was about 4 days old when he was found on the road side clinging to his mother who had sadly been shot. The family who found him had friends with a farm in the area so gave this tiny baboon bundle to them to look after. The family looked after Elvis very well for 3 months. As time went on they started to realise how big Elvis was growing and how boisterous he would become and that, unfortunately, baboons do not make good pets. They decided to bring Elvis to N/a’an ku se where he could be looked after at our sanctuary and bond with other baboons, learn baboon traits and become part of a troop.

Elvis came to us three months ago and has grown in size and personality ever since. When he first arrived at N/a'an ku se Elvis was very shy and wary of the other baboons. However over the last few months he has become far more confident and even stands up to Carola and Shauna, the alphas in the baby baboon camp! During the day Elvis spends his time with the four other baby baboons who have all just moved into a new camp. As he is only 6 months old and at the age where he would naturally still be with his mother, our volunteers still look after him over night, giving him his evening bottle feed and taking him to sleep with them so that he feels safe. Elvis is definitely the most tactile of the baboons and loves sleeping with the volunteers; however he has recently be given a new nickname – Smelvis – as he tends to have an extremely smelly nappy in the morning!

To adopt Elvis, or any of our other baboons please email donations@naankuse.com