Tragically, two chimpanzees escaped from their cages. One fateful day, the Davises were visiting Moe at the sanctuary for his 39th birthday. Many legal battles ensued, and Moe was eventually granted the right to stay at a sanctuary for apes, where the Davises could visit him. After a raid by police and animal control, Moe was eventually taken away by the state. When Moe was in his 30s, he began to display aggressive behaviors. The trio gained local fame, and Moe even made some TV appearances. They ate, slept, and watched TV together. Over the years, the human couple and their chimpanzee lived together in West Covina, CA, a suburb about 20 miles east of Los Angeles. Not long afterward, he and LaDonna finally married. Eventually, he came home, but he wasn't alone - he brought Moe, a newborn chimpanzee he had rescued from the wild, back home with him. James left LaDonna at the alter and then skipped town shortly after on a boat headed for Africa. They had planned to get married fresh out of high school - that is, until St. James and LaDonna Davis were high school sweethearts. Perhaps the other chimps were jealous of Moe.St. "It sounds like people were showering a lot of attention on Moe, birthday cake and the like. "Chimpanzees have a real sense of right and wrong and fairness and unfairness," said Fouts, a veteran of four decades of work with chimps. Their upper-body strength is said to be five to 10 times that of the average human.Īpe expert Deborah Fouts, director of the Chimp and Human Communication Institute at Central Washington University, said the attack may have been prompted by an emotion that chimps may share with humans: jealousy. Male chimps usually stand about 4 feet tall and weigh between 90 and 120 pounds, experts say. Virginia Brauer gave chase and soon found the chimps mauling the Davises, police said. The male chimps - Buddy, 15, and Ollie, 13 - escaped. She reportedly detained the two females, Suzie, 59, and Bones, 49. Hal Chealander, Virginia Brauer was at home Thursday morning when she was startled to discover that four chimps - two young males and two older females - had gotten out of their cages and entered her house. The ranch is owned by Ralph and Virginia Brauer, and has been licensed by the state since 1996 to take in primates, usually from zoos that no longer want them.Īccording to Kern County Sheriff's Cmdr. The chimps were housed in outdoor cages at the Animal Haven Ranch, a private sanctuary. Moe was not injured.Īuthorities said they are trying to determine how the two chimps escaped and why they attacked. The attack ended when the son-in-law of the sanctuary's owners shot and killed the two rampaging chimps. "James saw that, pushed me behind a table and took the brunt of everything else," she said. One of the chimps pushed her against her husband and bit off her left thumb, she said. "I turned around, and they started charging," she said. Moe, according to other accounts, was still in his cage. LaDonna Davis, 61, said she was sitting at a table with her husband, getting ready to cut a cake to celebrate Moe's 39th birthday, when she saw the two other chimps out of the corner of her eye. "They don't think he's ever going to be the same," LaDonna Davis said after being released from a hospital Friday. His foot was mutilated, and his heel bone was cracked. He was critically injured, losing all his fingers, an eye, part of his nose, cheek and lips, and part of his buttocks. James Davis took the brunt of the attack, according to his wife. On Thursday, as they visited Moe at an animal sanctuary where he had been banished for biting a woman, they were attacked and mauled by two other chimps. They taught him to wear clothes, to take showers, to use the toilet and to watch TV in their West Covina, Calif., home. That was the word they used to describe him, and that was how they treated him - like a hairy, rambunctious child who was a pampered member of the family. James and LaDonna Davis raised Moe the chimp as their son.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |