The men gathered enough food to keep the chimps alive, if not full, for a few weeks.ĭuring that period, Thomas remembers pulling up to islands and seeing frantic, desperate animals. One particularly generous neighbour gave him 50 pieces of coconut. He went with the other caretakers from fruit stall to fruit stall, seeking donations – a daunting task in a time of epidemic. Over the years, Monkey Island has become a local legend, though some news articles have painted the inhabitants as infectious threats Thomas stuck to the feeding schedule until the last penny was gone. (A spokesperson for Sirleaf declined to comment.)īy 2015, as the Ebola virus ravaged the country, the New York Blood Centre notified the Liberian government that it could “no longer divert funds from its important lifesaving mission here at home”, a spokesperson said in a recent statement. The charity said it contacted Liberia’s then-president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, for help but received no reply. In 2009, the New York Blood Centre said it was becoming hard to pay for Monkey Island. A vet stayed on the nonprofit’s payroll to check on the animals. Thomas and the other caretakers collected funds from New York to deliver buckets of bananas and lettuce, among other goods, to the chimps every two days. These makeshift sanctuaries on the Atlantic coast became known collectively as Monkey Island. There are six islands in the Farmington and Gbage rivers. “The only way to hold them was to put them on an island,” Thomas says. What if the chimps heard the familiar sound of people talking – or poachers talking – and ambled out to say hi? No one expected the lab to tumble into chaos.Ĭharles Taylor, a despot whose rule ravaged Liberia (AFP/Getty)Īnother problem arose from their artificial comfort zone. The New York Blood Centre set up shop in Liberia because chimps – now considered an endangered species – were already climbing the trees of its dense forests. He hoped the experiments would ease suffering in West Africa and beyond. He tended the animals as if they were his children. They laugh, cry, get jealous and have temper tantrums – “just like us”, Thomas says. He hoped the experiments would ease suffering in West Africa and beyond.Ĭhimp testing doesn’t happen any more. The chimps were infected with hepatitis and river blindness, an eye sickness caused by a parasite, while researchers developed vaccines. He was promoted four years later to the medical technician.
He fed the animals, cleaned up after them and got to know their personalities, which ranged from shy to class clown. The New York researchers who once injected her with viruses quit the country on Africa’s western coast during the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, abandoning Mabel and other animals that can live up to half a century.Īt times, it has been difficult to find the funding for enough food to keep the apes alive (AFP/Getty)Īt 20, Thomas became a caretaker at the nonprofit’s chimp laboratory in Robertsville, a remote town about 20 miles from the capital, Monrovia. Thomas, 60, met the chimp, 36, when she was a baby, and pressed the soft black pads of her fingers into his open palm. “Look! She likes to wash her food in the water.”Īs if on cue, Mabel dunks her banana in the mud-brown river. “That’s Mabel,” says Thomas, the captain of that small crew, pointing to a 100lb female. They rely on money from a charity abroad and the devotion of men who’ve known them since they lived in steel cages.
Liberia monkey island plus#
This colony of 66 chimpanzees, which never learned to survive in the wild, eats roughly 500lbs of produce each day, plus a weekly batch of hard-boiled eggs for protein. It’s a spectacle, an increasingly costly burden and the enduring legacy of American scientists who set out to cure hepatitis B in 1974.Īnimal testing has existed since doctors in ancient Greece studied the anatomy of rodents – an estimated 115 million creatures are still used each year in research worldwide – but rarely is the aftermath so visible. ‘Look! She likes to wash her food in the water’Ĭhimps aren’t supposed to be stuck on their own island – especially one with no food – or mingle with much-weaker humans.īut nothing about Liberia’s Monkey Island is normal. ‘That’s Mabel,’ said Thomas, pointing to a 100lb female.