Environment change, life change

Tião is a 14-year-old chimpanzee. He is big and strong. Since the first day I started to work here, he has been very anxious and, a lot of times, brute in his grooming, which turned our contact with him very difficult. Mainly the origin of this behavior is his past in circuses, where he was not allowed to have the company of other chimpanzee. When he arrived at Great Primates Sanctuary in Sorocaba, Tião started to be introduced to other chimpanzees and to live in group. Today he lives with Carlos and Noel in the biggest enclosure of the sanctuary.

In this enclosure, together with their fellows, Tião is now “another person”, much happier, and can turn to be a real chimpanzee. When you go until his enclosure, we interact with him with no problem at all, tickling him, playing run and doing grooming. But, at this time, with not that hard anxiety. His happiness is so big that he turns his back and out his head on the floor for us to play with him.

I am telling the story of Tião to illustrate how much a big enclosure and living together with their equals are crucial to the welfare of chimpanzees. Tião is just one case and we have a lot of others that are the living proof that here, far away of public harassment and human stupidity, chimpanzees are transformed. This is what we defend for Jimmy, from Zoonit, who continues imprisoned in his cage: the right of being free of exploitation, being able to live together with their brothers and being, for sure, a chimpanzee.

MSc. Luiz Fernando Leal Padulla