We are just days away from visiting the Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Project in West Africa, which we have supported since 2008.

CRP is an island sanctuary established in 1979 in West Africa in the River Gambia National Park. It is home to approximately 140 chimpanzees who live in four groups in relative freedom—without bars or cages—on three of the park’s five islands.

Many of the refuge’s chimpanzees were confiscated as orphans of parents killed by hunters for bushmeat or parents who were taken for exploitive industries. Some were voluntarily relinquished by people who had unwisely tried to make them into pets. The daily work of the CRP also concerns the protection of many wildlife species, including the critically endangered red colobus monkey.

While visitors to River Gambia National Park can take boat expeditions through the river and estuaries to get a view of chimpanzees, baboons, hippos, crocodiles, manatees and more than 240 species of birds, red colobus monkeys scamper around the mainland campsite, providing a very rare up close and personal glimpse into their marvelous lives and behaviors.

The CRP is a place where you can explore a mosaic of gallery, woodland and savanna forests, and the opportunity it provides to see wildlife, is unlike any other. For more information visit click on the SANCTUARIES tab on the top menu of this site.