Etumbe is the sweetest female I know. She is 23 years old which is full grown and oneday i went walking int eh forest with her and she just held my hand and groomed me. it was such a beautiful moment. she will be the group's female leader. Here she is with her baby mbano.
we were at lola the year she gave birth. it was Lola' very first baby and it was so exciting! all the other bonobos werecrowing around and wanted to see the baby, they were SO excited.
now etumbe gets to raise her baby in the wild where she came from. Etumbe spent years with keza in a biomedical facility in kinshasa and it was many years before she even saw grass. i think someone wanted to know how keza ended up in the facility. i'm not sure. they were either captured or rescued fro teh wild then used in various tests, or not, i'm not sure. but they spent years in tiny cages before they finally saw the big forests at Lola and now they have an even bigger forest at Ekolo - the release site!!
ps. it's my birthday today:)
