Wolfgang stayed and worked at Arugam Bay for many years. AbHa has hundreds or even thousands of his nice wildlife photos on file. But, as a tribute, below is just one selected dozen, of what he, himself considered to be his best memories of his time in the Bay and Sri Lanka.
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- Wolfgang’s last known photo.Taken in Cameroon, August 2010
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- Colour changing Lizard. In the Bay itself
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- Lizard in the SVH tropical garden
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- Leopard. Near Okanda. Just to the South of Arugam Bay
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- Langur in the garden of an Arugam Hotel
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- Elephant’s Billabong. Lahugala. 15 Min. West of Arugam Bay
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- “Elephant Love” near Panama, south of Arugam Bay
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- Wolfgang used to conduct exiting walking safaries all around Arugam Bay
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- Crocs in a tank just south of Arugam Bay
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- The 4 baby monkeys lost their mothers near AbaY
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- In the open, free range SVH orphanage at Arugam Bay
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- Bimbo became friend with one of the SVH kittens
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- Bimbo. His 1st orphan baby
Photos taken from Wolfgang’s own web site and album:
Mycelex-g treatment http://picasaweb.google.com/wpe.cameroon 
Arugam Forum
Arugam Photo Galleries on Picasa
Old Website
Press Coverage
Surf Forecast for Arugam Bay
Remarkable!
Wolfgarg Heilman actually stayed and lived with us at Arugam Bay for a number of years, before we came to Cameroon. We often wondered what actually had happened to him.
Please stay in touch. And send us an email and we will reply to you.
arugam@arugam.com
Hi all,
Might be too late for me I come across this post and comments. I happen to be the last one who worked with Wolfgang and who laid him to rest. I with other sympathisers continued his project which is still alive today in Cameroon. I’m writting from Dubai where I currently live and work and should anyone have any interrogations about his last projects and his last days kindly contact me or visit the new website i opened to pursue the project.
http://www.wolfgangwpe.wordpress.com
Thank you Seta for your comment.
We are very sorry to learn that you were such a close friend of Wolfgang. And lost him.
We are in touch on FB with you and if you agree, we will try to find a way forward. Maybe we can do something from here to assist in your worth while projects, which were started by your departed friend Wolfgang.
Sad
Fred
I was all Wolfgang had in Cameroon, we lived together, shared everything together (a lot of sufferings and some good times with children in the school) I really miss my boss.
Yes. Indeed. RiP, Dear Wolfgang
He was a good guy.
I’ve known him for many years.
First, he had a sailing boat touring operation in the South of Thailand. Serving the Nicobar and Andaman’s a long time before anyone else ever heard of such islands.
Then he fell out with his local partners.
In Pattaya, he teamed up with another Woofgang, W.Boord (“Berliner Bristo”) and Thailand’s first Cheese manufacturing Company was born.
Just before it became a huge success, “Mr. Cheese” (as he was known then) fell out with his partners.
Wolfgang Heilman packed his bags overnight, and returned to Germany.
He got a small room near Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, became a tour guide,taking mainly American and Japanese Tourists to Neu Schwanstein and Hitler’s Eagles Nest.
He successfully completed the paperwork to allow his new Thai wife to settle in Germany.
Then he fell out with the boss of this hugely successful Company.
He moved on, a few miles west of Frankfurt.
There Wolfgang became partner in a Computer and Web Design Company near the home of his aging mother.
This must have been 2003 or so.
We stayed in contact with each other,and Wolfgang was helping us,with bad Internet connections, to re-design our own Web Pages.
Then he fell out with his local partner.
This must have been 2004 or so.
Then the Tsunami came.
Our communication links were broken.
But, having access to this web site’s passwords, he gave just about everything up to re-vamp “Arugam.info” into a unique Community self-help site.
Work,which should have been done by the notorious ‘Red Cross’,was done by him:
Contacting relatives,informing families of the fate of their loved ones, coordinating a few donations and making sure they arrived quickly and without any additional cost or charges where they were needed most:
With the affected,poor people of the Bay.
In addition with my own personal savings we are proud to look back and reflect how much we managed to do then -direct help, with no overheads. And a long time before any silly NGO’s descended on our Bay.
Wolfgang miscalculated the greed of the local population.
When he decided to come to Sri Lanka, I suppose he didn’t expect a heroes welcome. But he was ill prepared to being treated like a white Nigger.
He was not at all popular in the Bay.
‘If you give a finger to the ‘Natives’ – they will bite3 your hands, and arm off’ he used to muse.
Indeed,they seen us as some ultra rich walking ATM machines. And nothing we managed to give, was ever enough. After all, most was our personal input and money, donated mainly, but never used for: The recovery of our own SVH.
Most hotels in the Bay received donations from friends and former guests- but few,if any, shared any of it with others more poor then them.
So Wolfgang turned to helping animals rather than humans.
The rest is history.
He became know as Sri Lanka’s ‘Monkey Man’, even trying to extend his Visa by walking into the Immigration office in Colombo with his orphaned Makakke Monkeys on his arm.
Needless to say, he fell out with the authorities and others.
Then he moved to Cameroon.
The two of us, perhaps eccentrics, had our differences, but:
Wolfgang was a good man.
He was a pioneer, often ahead of his time.
RIP Wolfgang !