By Andrea Cooper
National Geographic
December 18, 2006
When Sheri Speede met three angry chimpanzees caged as an attraction at a hotel in Cameroon, her planning began.
The U.S. veterinarian and animal-welfare activist decided she would open a modest nonprofit sanctuary for these and a few other primates in the central African country and otherwise work toward conservation of the great apes.
Her main adversaries would be the poachers who kill chimps for the illegal wild meat, or “bush meat,” trade. The hunters are primarily interested in adult apes; the babies sometimes end up as roadside attractions.
(See photos of the bush-meat trade: bush-meat gallery, part one and bush-meat gallery, part two. Warning: disturbing
