Student Experiences

A Veterinary Externship at the Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center

By: Laci Taylor, Cornell University

Back in November of 2019, I (Laci) and my classmate, Hannah, were selected by Dr. Robin

Radcliffe, DVM, DACZM, as two of six participants for his 2020 Engaged Cornell Teams.

Through direct experiences at established field sites in the Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and

Indonesia, the Engaged Cornell Program pairs up veterinary and undergraduate students and

challenges them to develop and participate in a focused project in conservation medicine.

My undergraduate partner and I were all set to travel to the Jane Goodall Institute in Uganda

during the summer of 2020, but the threat of the global COVID-19 pandemic altered these plans.

With global and university-mandated travel restrictions in place, I was beginning to think I might

never make it to the Jane Goodall Institute.

A year later, the chances of any international travel still seemed distant but month by month

travel restrictions became less inflexible. While Uganda was not yet on the university’s approved

list for travel and likely would not be for some time, the Republic of the Congo had far less

travel restrictions. My classmate, Hannah Padda DVM ’22, who was previously chosen for the

Jane Goodall Institute Congo site had been tirelessly petitioning to make her trip a reality for

clinical year. While the university was allowing veterinary students to travel internationally as

international research and clinical practice are considered core parts of our curriculum,

undergraduate students were not able to so. Therefore, Hannah and I proposed to Dr. Radcliffe

that we would go to the Congo together. Shortly after, our petitions for travel were approved by

the university and we were off to complete a veterinary externship at the Jane Goodall Institute

Republic of the Congo in the Summer of 2021.

While in the Congo, we stayed at the Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center which

housed chimpanzees, mandrills, several species of monkeys and other injured wildlife including

birds and galagos. The Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center consists of the main

centralized sanctuary and a group of three islands that are about an hour boat ride away,

Ngombe, Tchindzoulou, and Tchibebe Island. On days we were not traveling outside of the main

part of the sanctuary, we performed daily rounds on all the animals housed there, checking their

overall health status, and administering any necessary treatments, such as oral anti-parasitic

medications and application of medicated cream to any wounds. I always said hi to my favorite

chimpanzee, Benjamin, while Hannah would say hi (but then quickly run away) from one of her

favorite chimpanzees, Falero, since he liked to throw rocks at us. We both always made sure to

have a long check in with two of the more curious chimpanzees, Amazon and Mbebo.

The animal care staff work with the chimpanzees to train them to come up to the edge of the

enclosure and present a wound so that it can be monitored and treated. We also collected fresh

fecal samples amongst other samples. This allowed us to expand upon and sharpen our

laboratory diagnostics toolkit by performing and analyzing direct fecal smears, fecal flotation,

skin scrapes, blood smears, and developing treatment protocols for any abnormal findings. There

were a few instances where we were involved in non-routine procedures, such as performing a

full orthopedic examination on a juvenile chimpanzee who became acutely non-weight bearing

on his left hindlimb and a head laceration repair on a juvenile mandrill.

We spent time at the aforementioned islands conducting the annual chimpanzee health checks,

where we monitored anesthesia, collected blood samples, and performed diagnostic imaging

such as radiographs and ultrasounds. Each island contains a different group of chimpanzees, and

due to the complex social structure of these groups, the animal care staff constantly monitors

these groups for any signs of discordance, and when conflicts arise, they work with the

veterinarians to develop resolution plans, which often involve the relocation of chimpanzees

from one group to another, or in some cases back to the main part of the sanctuary.

Whenever a chimpanzee must be relocated, the veterinary staff takes that opportunity to perform

a full health check. We participated in several of these relocations and were fortunate to take part

in the health checks and observations of the integrations of chimpanzees into new social groups.

We learned a tremendous amount about chimpanzee behavior, a vital component of

understanding how to effectively save their species.

On the days we travelled outside of the main part of the sanctuary we focused on other aspects of

conservation medicine. Some days, we hiked through jungles to retrieve camera trap data and

observe the footage to determine what animal species, animal activity, or human activity was

present in certain areas. This data is used to better assess the suitability of areas for chimpanzee

release through geospatial analysis. One prospective location, in Conkouati-Douli National Park,

is already home to a group of mandrills previously released by JGI. We observed and collected

data on these mandrills in the forest to observe their social behavior to determine if additional

mandrills could be added and accepted into their cohort. We are hopeful that another group of

mandrills from Tchimpounga can join these mandrills in the coming months.

To our surprise, we also worked directly with cats and dogs. One of the resident sanctuary cats

had a pyometra and we assisted in her daily care and monitoring after her ovariohysterectomy by

administering fluids, antibiotics, and pain medications. Additionally, we had the opportunity to

work with the Jane Goodall Institute’s K9 unit. The K9 unit was being trained to search for

illegal wildlife products and we were able to observe their training. We helped manage and treat

dermatologic issues that a few dogs had and treated one of them for a corneal ulcer. We also

performed annual health checks on them and administered their annual vaccinations.

During our time at Tchimpounga Sanctuary, we learned a tremendous amount about the

intricacies of saving a species when there is minimal natural space left. We discovered ways to

both directly and indirectly help chimpanzees and the value of creating a protected place for

them to thrive. We went into this experience with the expectation of practicing clinical veterinary

medicine on exclusively chimpanzees and left with improved clinical skills for a variety of

species and greater understanding of the importance of transdisciplinary work in veterinary

medicine and conservation.