South Africa

Romeo And Juliet 

Charles and Jessica,  Chimp Eden’s own Romeo and Juliet, are enjoying freedom in their large enclosure at JGI SA Chimpanzee Eden.  At last they can have the life together that they have been denied through the cruel practice of humans, writes Chimp Eden’s animal behaviourist Jessica Ney. She gives an update on how they are settling in.

Former circus chimps, Charles and Jessica, both 25, arrived at the Sanctuary late last year. They had been kept in separate cages in a dark room for the past few years. Jessica was physically bad - on the brink of starvation and obviously frightened of her caretakers. Charles was extremely depressed and lethargic. Physically he was not in as bad a shape, but was nevertheless underweight. Neither would feed properly for the first week, but soon regained healthy appetites.

Charles

Jessica

Jessica soon showed interest in the new infant group, housed across from her in the quarantine facility. It is likely that she has given birth in the past, as this is often how circuses create the next generation of entertainment animals. She was introduced to this new group and was outside in the enclosure with them within the first month of her arrival. For the first few days, she was ecstatic and used to hang upside down in the trees and laugh to herself. She quickly bonded with the infants and has adopted two-year-old Charlene, who is even allowed to suckle.

In the last six months Jessica has come a long way and has fully regained her self-confidence. She is now the alpha female of her group.

Charles was at first thought to be unsuitable to be introduced into this group with its infants, as he is a full-grown male chimp. Whereas Jessica had already somewhat recovered mentally in quarantine, Charles remained lethargic. The decision was made to move him to our existing adult enclosure.  Here he was housed in his own area in the night quarters where he could meet his future family from a safe distance.

Here, for the first time since his arrival, Charles lit up and started displaying normal chimpanzee behaviour. He bonded with our adult males Amadeus and, especially, Nikki, and was extremely calm and gentle with the females.

Unfortunately, his introduction to the outside enclosure failed due to a series of events and it became clear that he would never be accepted by this group. It had become increasingly apparent during his time with the adults that Charles was much more gentle than at first suspected.  It was therefore decided that he would join the new infant group with Jessica after all, and he was moved back to the nightquarters of that enclosure.

It has become apparent that Charles and Jessica have a very special bond. Jessica was the only chimp that Charles responded to and she would sit at the bars and groom his wounds carefully. He soon regained his strength and found his appetite again.

He initially spent his days in the sleeping quarters with full view of the outside enclosure. Jessica spent a lot of her time with him. There is a ‘hole in the wall’, a drainage pipe, through which they interacted. She would stick her arm or leg through the hole and he carefully groomed her. Then it was Charles’ turn to be groomed. He even kept some of his breakfast to give her when she returned from exploring the outside enclosure.

Charles is now out in the enclosure with the rest of his new family, and getting on well.

Our Romeo and Juliet are reunited and having the life together that they have been denied through the cruel practice of humans. They deserve it.