The bushmeat trade is an activity severely affecting and changing the tropical faunal and floral ecosystems of the Central African continent. Thousands of metric tonnes of animal meat are consumed every year and several of the species on the menu are considered by the IUCN Red List to be vulnerable, endangered, or critical endangered.

More or less all white Europeans or Americans in Central Africa look at primates in a very different way from the average Central African, and we do not usually consider primate meat as food. Our education and culture make us choose differently as we believe that primates are very like humans, and science has shown that we do indeed share many genetic traits with these animals. Our attitude towards primates, and especially towards the great apes, has been noticed by the Africans:

• When the western/ex-patriot (expat) community visit the bushmeat markets, the vendors will often try to hide the primate meat. This is due to the verbal and facial reactions which some expats express at the sights of dead monkeys and apes.
• Hunters have started to approach expats with orphaned baby primates which they wish to sell. For example, when approached with a juvenile chimpanzee, the expats may misinterpreted that by buying the chimpanzee they are 'saving' one of our most endangered cousins.

Both of these behaviours are bad, if the meat is hidden there is the potential risk of a black market developing. If this happens, scientists will have a difficult time in quantifying not only the amount of primate meat coming from the forests, but also the diversity and health of the existing species in the forest (the bushmeat market is an ideal source of identifying the abundance of forest species). Furthermore, by buying a primate the conscientious expats are actually creating a market for the increasing primate pet trade. By selling one baby chimpanzee to an expat, the hunter is able to make more money than selling 20 blue duikers to the bushmeat market. This is opening vast problems for the highly endangered ape. Until recently in Equatorial Guinea, hunters claimed that they did not hunt apes as they are too heavy to transport out of the forest to sell to a market trader, but an orphaned chimpanzee is not. With the increasing use of guns, hunters are able to kill an entire troop of chimpanzees just to get a juvenile. Therefore by buying an orphan chimp the expat is helping to create a problem.

The trade in orphaned baby primates is a disturbing prospective, but it is developing at this very moment in Central Africa. Growing economies, free trade, and calmer political situations have created a situation where more and more white people are going to the region. Although there are national, regional and international laws and regulations prohibiting hunting of certain primates and the actual trade in live endangered animals, more orphaned animals are being sold to the growing white population. This is one such story of an orphaned chimpanzee in Equatorial Guinea, known as Sendje. She was named after the village closest to the forest where she came from. Once orphaned, she later came under the care of the project and Brigid became her surrogate mother:

"I first heard about this baby chimpanzee arriving in the city when I saw the corpses of two adult chimpanzees in the bushmeat market. This is not an unusual sight as dead chimpanzees were seen in the market a few times a week. What was unusual was that one of the adults was a lactating mother. A local employee of the project then described how a live baby chimp had also arrived in the market and that a taxi driver had taken it off to try sell it to the expat community."

It turned out later that night a group of drunken Europeans bought Sendje for a large sum of money in the local disco as they felt 'sorry for her and thought perhaps they could return her to the forest'. (The prospects for a lone juvenile chimpanzee in the forest are extremely low. Without her mother, she would starve and be subjected to predation within days). After two days they contacted Brigid, Lise's research assistant, claiming that they no longer wanted Sendje as she was too much of a handful. When she was brought into Brigid's care, Sendje was only semi-conscious. This was perhaps due to the large gash on her crown, which she might have suffered falling down from a tree when her mother was shot. However, her condition was more likely due to her chronic diet of bacon sandwiches and beer in the previous two days. It was estimated that she was only about eight or ten months old. As chimpanzees drink their mother's breast milk for up to eighteen months, Brigid concentrated on giving her a diet of powdered milk alongside a course of supplementary vitamins and calcium. Within a week she regained the sheen of her coat and became quite active.

With the financial help of an American employee from an oil company, two daytime chimp-sitters were hired and a garden with plenty of trees for Sendje to climb around in was found. At nights, however, Brigid and the American took turns in chimp-sitting. As Brigid says:

"It is probably the most exhausting yet enriching piece of conservation I have done to date"!

But what of Sendje's future? At two or three years old she would start becoming a serious threat as an adult chimpanzee is six times stronger than an adult human. Unfortunately, there are currently no animal sanctuaries of any kind in Equatorial Guinea, and, as mentioned above, there was no hope of reintroducing her to the forest. After many searches and much discussion with European and American primate experts, a wildlife sanctuary in Cameroon agreed to take her. The oil company offered to take her to Cameroon in their private jet, and the vaccinations and CITES export papers were processed. At last contact, Sendje was awaiting her CITES import papers and then she will be able to go and enjoy a life of semi-freedom with fellow chimpanzees.

Sendje's situation is not ideal - she will never return to the life she knew before her mother was killed. If she remains in good health she is estimated to live about fifty years in captivity and potentially could also reproduce. Let's hope that the future of chimpanzee conservation is not behind metal bars. Although the project prevented Sendje from entering the cooking pot, the expats who bought her in the disco have already created a pet trade for orphaned chimps. In the following two months, Brigid was asked three times whether she would like to buy a chimpanzee baby. Of course she rejected and strongly encouraged the small expat community to do so too. Hopefully with time, either the hunters will return to thinking that these endangered apes are too heavy to carry out of the forest and that the juveniles are not worth capturing, or the national laws protecting endangered species are properly enforced. In the ideal world, Sendje's sad family history and her future life in captivity will be one of the last of its kind - but sadly this is probably just wishful thinking.