VISITING

Once chimps actually make it to the sanctuary, caring for them is expensive: apart from the cost of medicine and security, there is a lot of food to pay for—every week the chimpanzees get through 80 kilogrammes each of apples and pears and 75 kilogrammes each of bananas and oranges. In total, the centre needs to raise around €180,000 every year.

The Spanish government gives €12,000 annually towards the running of the sanctuary with other funding coming from charities like One Voice in France and the Brigitte Bardot Foundation. Much of the centre’s income however, comes from ‘working weekenders’ like Claire: a four-day working weekend costs between €460 to €520 depending on the type of accommodation chosen.

For Claire Murray, who found out about the sanctuary when she searched for conservation holidays on the internet, this is money well spent. “It is something I have always wanted to do but I did not know you could do it,” she said. “I think it’s great you can come here and do this. When I told people I was doing this, they said: ‘I’m so jealous. I would love to do something like that.’”

During the weekend, Murray, who lives in the UK and is a personal assistant to an employment lawyer, was supervised by one of the three head keepers, who are the only full-time staff at the centre. Working with them is a team of long-term volunteers who have committed a minimum of six months, working five days a week, to the project. Some of them come from countries as far afield as Peru, Australia, the US and Israel, while the working weekenders tend to be from the UK or other European countries.

A typical working weekend begins with an induction and tour of the sanctuary. Participants are then put to work doing jobs like cleaning the indoor sleeping quarters, collecting sawdust from a wood yard and fruit and vegetables from a wholesale market. Other tasks include helping in the design of devices to stimulate the chimpanzees and observing their interaction for Mona’s behavioural study programme.

They also help prepare snacks for the chimps before scattering them around the large semi-natural enclosure to encourage the animals to forage for food as they would in the wild. While the chimpanzees will never be able to actually live outside captivity, the centre aims to create an environment that resembles their natural habitat in African countries such as Tanzania, Uganda and Cameroon. And apart from providing their food and cleaning out their sleeping quarters, the keepers leave the animals to look after themselves, only intervening for medical reasons.