Our Founding Chimps

In 1997, Dr. Sheri Speede met Jacky, Becky and Pepe at the Atlantic Beach Hotel in Limbe, Cameroon, where they were held in tiny cages as tourist attractions. Many years earlier they had been captured and sold by the poachers who had killed their mothers for bushmeat.

Sheri was in Africa temporarily volunteering her time as a veterinarian for Limbe Wildlife Center, a local, urban zoo that had been turned into a wildlife sanctuary. The Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center/sanctuary did not yet exist.

Jacky spent at least thirty years of his life in a small, barren cage at the resort hotel in Limbe. He grew from infancy to adulthood, then to middle-age, in total privation. By the 1990s, Jacky was known around town as the “mad” chimpanzee, meaning he was insane. He showed his anguish in bizarre stereotypical behaviors – rocking frenetically back and forth or pounding the top of his head with one fist while he held his other hand in his open mouth – and he was very aggressive toward humans. Anyone coming too close to his cage paid a high price for their mistake. Several people were left with permanent impairment to one of their hands. Whether or not he was insane, Jacky was definitely angry.

In 1998, when Dr. Sheri Speede and staff talked about taking Jacky back to the forest and allowing him to live with other chimpanzees at the new Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center, some people thought he was too dangerous. In fact, Sheri spent many sleepless nights wondering if they were making a mistake. No one was sure if he could be socialized with other chimpanzees.

Becky had been held as a pet for several years before being abandoned at the Atlantic Beach Hotel. She had been in the cage at the hotel for a decade when Sheri met her, and despite all she had lost, her curious and hopeful spirit shined through. Becky’s penetrating, imploring brown eyes stared out from behind the bars of her tiny cell and immediately stole Sheri’s heart.

Pepe was held as a “pet” for at least ten years by the same French couple who eventually bought Becky, and later abandoned them both at the Atlantic Beach Hotel, where they would stay for over ten years. Big, beautiful, confused, lonely and bored out of his mind, Pepe craved human attention and was soon waiting and watching for Sheri’s arrival during those years before his rescue. More than any of the others, his sweet face haunted Sheri and inspired her to save him and the others at all cost.

The Rescue

Sheri’s visit and meeting the chimpanzees that fateful year would change her, Jacky, Becky and Pepe’s lives forever. She promised the three sweet souls that she would one day take them to a new home, and on August 31, 1999, she did.

 The owners of the hotel had recognized that the chimpanzees were a safety and public relations liability. European tourists had written letters of complaint about their living conditions, and the management was eager to assist with the chimpanzees’ relocation. But it wasn’t easy.

Because the rainy season had arrived and the rains were especially heavy that year, the roads had been closed to big trucks. Determined to move the chimpanzees as soon as possible, Sheri and her staff took all the seats out of a bush taxi (minivan) to make room for the three transport cages that would carry Jacky, Pepe and Becky to the newly created sanctuary. Despite getting disastrously stuck in the mud somewhere near the middle of their eighteen-hour journey, the team and chimpanzees persevered and safely arrived at Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center.

After being orphaned and captured by a poacher, Dorothy was sold as a “mascot” and tethered to the ground by a heavy neck chain at an amusement park/hotel. For forty years, Dorothy was taunted and teased by visitors to the park, taught to drink beer and smoke cigarettes for human amusement. People laughed and threw garbage at Dorothy, but no one came close enough to touch her. The hotel staff claimed she was vicious.

Within a month of her first meeting with Sheri, Dorothy was welcoming her new friend with big smiles and warm hugs whenever she visited her.

Nama, a younger chimpanzee who had also had her mother stolen from her for bushmeat, was tethered on a chain within sight but out of reach of Dorothy. For sixteen lonely years Nama lived on this chain. Because she was chained behind Dorothy, and farther from passing visitors who would throw down morsels of food, Nama received little food. She was a small adult, her growth stunted and teeth decayed by years of malnutrition. She also suffered from a severe intestinal parasite infection and resulting anemia. Sheri worried that she might die before they could arrange to take her to Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center.

The Rescue

In May 2000, Sheri and collaborators worked with Cameroon’s Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MINFOF) and provided logistical and technical support for a forced confiscation of Dorothy, Nama, eight other primates and two parrots who were also being held at the hotel/park. A caravan of seven vehicles drove into the hotel carrying the officials from MINFOF, seven military police, as well as Sheri and her colleagues, to carry out the first armed confiscation of animals in Cameroon. The police stood guard over Sheri and the others as they worked to load all the primates in transport cages. An hour later the caravan left with 12 new passengers. Dorothy and Nama were taken to Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center and the other animals were divided between Yaoundé Zoo and Limbe Wildlife Center.

In the Spring of 1999, Dr. Sheri Speede discovered Kiki Jackson and a female companion in a small concrete cell at a hotel in the coastal town of Kribi, Cameroon – two days travel from the sanctuary she was building in the Mbargue Forest. Both chimpanzees were adults and estimated to be about fifteen years old at that time. Kiki and his companion were being fed regularly, and despite their dismal living conditions, were in better health than Dorothy and Nama, who needed to be rescued as soon as possible. Sheri promised to return to save Kiki and his companion from their miserable environment.

The next opportunity to visit Kiki came in November 1999 when Sheri sent a volunteer to check on the two chimpanzees. What she discovered was devastating. The person who had been paid to feed them left Kribi in September and no replacement had been hired. Kiki’s companion had starved to death. And Kiki, who was horribly emaciated and barely alive, had refused to let anyone remove her body from the filthy concrete cage. From that day on and until he could be rescued, Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue staff took charge of Kiki’s care, buying his food and hiring someone to feed him.

The Rescue

To save Kiki quickly, a new temporary quarantine cage had to be built but there was a shortage of funds. Knowing the desperation of the situation, Sheri improvised by using scrap metal from the cages of previously rescued chimpanzees. By June 2000, when Kiki was finally brought to Sanaga-Yong, he had already gained over 30 pounds.