QUEENIE: 1961-2011

Sometime in 1968, criminal hunters killed the parents and caught two chimpanzees somewhere in an African forest and kept the babies Quennie and Francis. The order, from a animal poacher of Miami to clients like important zoo of USA, made them arrive quickly in the country. From the hands of poachers, for USD 500 each at the time, they were sent to Mesker Park Zoo, in Evansville.

Months later Mesker Park was dealing the two chimpanzees with another zoo, Cheyenne Mountain Zoological Park, in Colorado Springs, state of Colorado.

There they stayed, in theory, for 23 years. During this time Quennie gave birth to three babies and Francis, to seven, and three of them died. After a few years with the mother, they were sent to Los Angeles zoo, breaking, as usual, familiar bonds. The first daughter of Francis was Fran, who had two babies, Ruby and Frolic, turning Francis into a young grandmother.
 
The time at Cheyenne and at Mesker Park could have been theorist during some years. Between the 70`s and the 80`s, it was usual American zoos borrowing extra chimpanzees to medical torture labs, although in theory they were at a zoo. The investigative work developed by North-American GAP Project was not able to conclude that both chimpanzees were kept in a lab, but both have tattoos with a number and this was a common practice in experimentation laboratories. Then it is possible that they had been submitted to medical experimentation.
 
On March 8, 1996, those innocent chimpanzees, mothers of a lot of babies, were put in an cargo airplane and sent to La Paz, Bolivia, to go to La Paz zoo. During eight years Quennie and Francis survived in a zoo that did not have conditions to keep them. Local authorities of La Paz decided to euthanize them. Dr. Miguel Vaudano, from GAP Brazil and warned by GAP USA, travelled to La Paz and convinced the city to donate both chimpanzees to Great Primates Sanctuary of Sorocaba.
 
On February 18, 2004, when the night fell, Quennie and Francis had a new chance of life and entered their new enclosure at the sanctuary.

Quennie left us last Sunday (June 19) unnexpectdly. She was almost 50 years old. Quennie hated humans and had her reasons for that. She only received bad things from humans, who killed her parents, took her children and abandoned her in a country where there were no chimpanzees, in a zoo that was a slaughterhouse.
 
Francis, who also had a miserable life together with her partner, is lost in her solitude. When we took Quennie`s body out of the enclosure they lived together, we stop for a while to show her the body of their dead friend. Francis yelled, ran from one place to another, without knowing what to do. I talked to her for hours later and tried to explain her that Quennie had left forever. But everytime I mentioned her name she looked to see if she would appear in the door of the enclosure. When she was alone she looked on the beds, to see if Quennie was not sleeping wrapped in the blankets.

Quennie had a severe vaginal bleeding. We did not have access to her, as long as she did not want to relate with no one; she suspected of every Homo sapiens. When we tried to do something it was too late. By the end of the night she let their soul go to other dimensions and maybe there she will find peace, love and compassion, feelings that here on Earth, among mean people who used her, she never found.

Rest in peace, Quennie, a survivor!

Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian
President, GAP Project International