The Chimpanzee & Me by Ben Garrod

Author:Ben Garrod [Garrod, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788547628
Publisher: Head of Zeus

Stunted. Fed a diet of alcohol and scraps, this adult male is much smaller than he should be.

Innocence lost. Shortly after being rescued, Star settles into life at the sanctuary.

We have Star. She clings to Jenny. The confiscation has gone well. It isn’t the international gang of wildlife crooks we heard it might be, but regardless, an arrest has been made and a chimp has been confiscated. Bonus points for no cobras. But here we are, running between buildings again, the group split up, following a guy who I don’t know is definitely with the police. 7

As we run through the fierce African sun, some kids wave and smile at us, others start to cry. Two old men sitting on a step look up at us, one with an expression of contempt. I wonder what we must look like to this community. Undercover cops and outsiders carrying a baby chimp, streaming through their usually quiet streets. We get to a large compound. Thick white walls surround it, maybe a couple of metres in height. There are already a lot of people around the metal doorway. They’re expecting us. A new police officer joins us here. He’s a dominant guy, with a broad smile that doesn’t hide his tough character very well. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to mess with him and I’m glad he’s with us. He reassures us that he has called for armed and uniformed officers, as the situation may be unsafe. Then we go in anyway. That back-up never arrives. Living quarters take up two of the inner walls of the compound. In the yard, people, livestock and a bunch of dogs are milling around, doing their thing. There are a few trees and some old, functionally extinct cars and a flat-bed lorry, loaded with decrepit crates and covered by tattered, worn sheeting. Our group walks towards the houses but I squat low to scan between and underneath the vehicles, desperate to find this big chimp before it’s too late. I spot movement. It’s an adult chimp. Things just got a whole lot more dangerous.

He is chained by the neck to a tree and is sitting on the ground. He hollers at the sight of our group bursting into the compound. It’s a holler hard to describe unless you’ve heard it before, like the raucous wail of a pantomime dame, trailing off into loud, gurgling stops and starts. It sounds like a terrible imitation by a man who has never heard a primate in distress before, but is giving it a go nevertheless. It’s a sound I’ve heard in the wild when an adult chimpanzee is being attacked or aggressively picked on by another, bigger chimp. A sound designed and tailored to be as pitiful as possible, in order to elicit the aggressor to stop. It’s a male, we can see that. As we get closer, he gives us a massive, scared fear grin and wails again. Broken bottles of cheap alcohol surround him and there’s a long, thin cane lying out of his reach.

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