Qualla: Lola ya Bonobo

Lola ya Bonobo: Introduction

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fanny Schertzer, CC BY 3.0. The name means "heaven for bonobos" in Lingala, and for the roughly 60 great apes who live in 30 hectares of primary forest on the southern edge of Kinshasa, it is exactly that. Lola ya Bonobo is the only sanctuary of its kind on Earth -- the sole refuge for orphaned bonobos, our closest living relatives alongside chimpanzees, who share roughly 98.7% of human DNA. Founded in 1994 by Belgian-born conservationist Claudine Andre, the sanctuary exists because of a grim arithmetic: hundreds of endangered bonobos are killed each year in the bushmeat trade that persists across the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the infants that survive are sold as pets. When authorities confiscate those infants, there is exactly one place for them to go.

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Image: Fanny Schertzer | CC BY 3.0

Lola ya Bonobo: Substitute Mothers and Second Chances

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fanny Schertzer, CC BY 3.0. Each orphan arrives traumatized, often dehydrated, sometimes physically injured. The sanctuary's protocol begins with quarantine and a substitute human mother -- a caregiver who holds, feeds, and sleeps beside the infant around the clock. Bonobos are profoundly social animals; wi...

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Image: Fanny Schertzer | CC BY 3.0

Lola ya Bonobo: From Sanctuary to Rainforest

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fanny Schertzer, CC BY 3.0. Rescue was always only half the mission. In 2008, eleven rehabilitated bonobos and their offspring were released into Ekolo ya Bonobo -- "land of the bonobos" -- a 117,000-acre community reserve in Equateur Province, roughly 666 kilometers from Kinshasa. It was the first bonobo r...

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Image: Fanny Schertzer | CC BY 3.0

Lola ya Bonobo: Teaching a Country to See Its Inheritance

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Christina Bergey, CC BY-SA 3.0. Bonobos exist nowhere on Earth except the DRC. They are, as the sanctuary's education programs frame it, a uniquely Congolese inheritance. Friends of Bonobos of the Congo runs programs for thousands of Congolese adults and children each year, bringing them to the sanctuary to lea...

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Image: Christina Bergey | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lola ya Bonobo: Science in the Forest

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fanny Schertzer, CC BY 3.0. Lola ya Bonobo has become one of the most important research sites for understanding bonobo cognition and behavior. Studies conducted here have revealed that bonobos share food with strangers before acquaintances, exhibit delayed social development relative to chimpanzees, and re...

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Image: Fanny Schertzer | CC BY 3.0