Adopt a Chimpanzee at Tacugama
For the Love of Chimpanzees — Our Closest Non-Human Relatives
Together, we keep them safe.
Did you know that chimpanzees are our closest non-human relatives?
We share 98.8% of our DNA with them.
Our non-human relatives need your help today!
By adopting a chimpanzee at Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Sierra Leone, whether for yourself or as a meaningful gift, you become part of the Tacugama family and part of the mission to protect West Africa’s endangered chimpanzees.
Your compassion offers safety, dignity, and a vital lifeline of hope to chimpanzees who would otherwise have nowhere else to turn.
Your kindness truly changes lives.
Why Tacugama Needs You
West African chimpanzees are critically endangered.
Without urgent intervention, they could disappear within our lifetime.
Adoptions support:
- rescue missions
- forest protection
- anti-poaching patrols
- community conservation
- education programmes
- long-term care for life
Together, we keep them safe.
Why Your Adoption Matters
Every adoption directly supports the rescue, rehabilitation, and lifelong care of chimpanzees who have endured the unimaginable, poaching, the illegal wildlife trade, habitat loss, and the trauma of captivity.
Your support helps Tacugama provide chimpanzees with:
- A protected forest home
- Nutritious meals and safe, clean drinking water
- Specialist veterinary care
- Emotional and behavioural support for traumatised individuals
- Long-term conservation work to protect wild chimpanzees across Sierra Leone
Your adoption ensures that every rescued chimpanzee is given the life they deserve.
Meet Tom — the Elder of Tacugama
Tom is the oldest and one of the gentlest chimpanzees at Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary.
For the first 30 years of his life, Tom lived alone in a cage.
No companionship.
No movement.
No forest.
No chance to learn how to be a chimpanzee.
He was isolated, frightened, and robbed of the rich social world that every chimp needs to thrive.
Like us, chimpanzees feel love, joy, loneliness, fear, and anxiety. Tom is no exception. After decades of trauma, he carries deep emotional scars. He is an anxious old gentleman, doing his best to understand a world that was once unimaginably cruel.
But today, Tom is safe.
Just like humans, chimpanzees need family, community, and a place to call home. At Tacugama, Tom finally has all three. He now wanders through the forest alongside other chimpanzees who teach him how to belong, and he is supported by the dedicated humans who care for him with the patience and dignity he deserves.
Thanks to Tacugama, Tom, and more than a hundred other chimpanzees are finally living the peaceful, enriched lives they were denied for so long. Their suffering is no longer their story.
Your Support Makes Sanctuary Possible
Your donation — or your adoption of Tom or one of his friends — helps Tacugama continue providing rescue, refuge, and lifelong care to West African chimpanzees in need.
Tom’s story is no longer only one of survival.
With your support, his life and the lives of many others can become stories of hope.
Choose Your Adoption Type Below…
Donate or Adopt a Chimpanzee Today
Give hope. Give safety. Give love.
Guardianship for Tom
If you want to change Tom’s life forever, you can become his guardian here:
Make a Donation
Every contribution makes a life-saving difference. If you’d like to support the sanctuary’s urgent work, you can give here:
Meet Chimpanzees Waiting for Adoption
And Tom is not alone — many other chimpanzees are still waiting for someone to choose them. Meet them here:
Tom thanks you for your support
