Hello and welcome to the ChimpanZoo program at Lion Country Safari! 
Thank-you very much for your interest in volunteering! We greatly appreciate the donation of your time and effort. This area of the message board was specifically created to prepare you for what to expect as a volunteer. Please use this "Welcome" folder to freely ask questions and better acquaint yourself with our organization.
This message may look long, but it is here to help you. So please take a few minutes to read over it. If you already know how to open a link inside a new window, it is recommended that you do so for each link in the list below, so that you can easily refer back to this main list and find the next link in the series. But if you don't know how to open a link in a separate window, don't panic.
The first several links on this list can all be found within the Welcome forum, so you can easily click back on this "Read Me" post again at any time. To start things off, please read the introduction letter from our secretary here: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=57
Before entering the preserve, it is required that you read these guidelines first: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=58
Okay, so you've contacted Barbara, you've read the guidelines Bev posted, and you've arranged a time and day to meet at Lion Country Safari... By now you may be wondering "What should I bring for my first day?" Don't worry. We've got you covered with this handy list of
what to expect on your first day: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=59
The first day can feel both exciting and a little daunting. It's normal to feel a little overwhelmed. Don't worry. We've all been there. One of the really great things about this program is that you can go at your own pace. So take your time. Enjoy yourself. You'll be a chimp expert in no time!
After your first day of observing chimps, if you are still interested in volunteering with us, then you will need to register an account on this message board so that you have complete access to read and write on it. We understand that many of our volunteers are not computer or internet savy. A tutorial has been created to walk you step-by-step through how to register and then use this message board. You can find a copy of it here: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=61
Once you have created an account on this message board and logged in to your account, you will then be able to see the entire message board. You may feel a bit overwhelmed by the number of topics you see. But again, Don't Panic! I'm here to help. Keep reading...
As a new volunteer, you will find it most helpful to start by reading topics inside the "In Other News" area first, before exploring other areas of the message board. Here is a link that will send you directly there: viewforum.php?f=4
A
or 
face in front of a topic indicates that it is a very important topic that should be read by everyone. It's always best to start by reading those topics. Inside of the "In Other News" area, the one topic that is probably the most helpful for new volunteers to start with is Traits to use for identifying the chimps at Lion Country Safari: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=50
It is also highly recommended that you look at photos of the chimps you will be observing, so that you can learn to distinguish their faces. On your first day of observing, you probably saw a folder containing chimpanzee photos. The Director of Wildlife at Lion Country Safari, Terry Wolf, has kindly supplied us with excellent quality photographs to help you. He took multiple photos of each chimp. In order to help you, they have been labeled and grouped so that all pictures of the same chimp are together (for example, 9 pictures of one chimp, followed by 6 pictures of a different chimp, followed by 11 pictures of a third chimp, etc.). The name of the chimp can be found directly underneath the picture on the left.
Photos of Whitey's group start here (it starts with Peter): http://s389.photobucket.com/albums/oo340/LCS_ChimpanZoo/2009/Terry%20Wolf%20pictures/?action=view¤t=DSC_0117.jpg
Click on top of the little photo (not the yellow arrow) on the right to go to the next photo.
The image below points out to you which "little photo" I mean:
Photos of Higgy's group and Cooper's group are pending identification by members.
If at any time you want to see all of the labeled photos of all the chimps at once then click this link: http://s389.photobucket.com/albums/oo34 ... 0pictures/ (note that there are 2 pages in total).
Are you now smiling like Ian in the picture above because you feel confident with everything in the "In Other News" section of the message board? Feel ready for the next step? Great!
After learning what your chimps look like, the next task is to learn about each of their personalities. That way you will know what behaviors to expect and what is normal for each individual. You will of course learn details over time by observing them yourself, but you will learn a lot more about each of them by reading the area of our message board entitled "Chimp Observations".
The most current observations we have of each chimp group are found here: viewforum.php?f=3
All of the back history of older observations (from 2003 to 2007), can be read in: viewforum.php?f=9
Whenever you feel comfortable, go ahead and introduce yourself to everyone else by clicking on the
button (viewforum.php?f=12) and typing away!We look forward to meeting you and are excited that you have joined our group!
to ChimpanZoo!
