If there is someone chimpanzees in Brazil should make a tribute for by the struggle for their survival and living conditions, this is Milan Starostik. Over the past 15 years with Milan, a citizen of Czech origin, who set up at Parana, south of Brazil, a powerful industrial group – Cia Providence, we had the privilege of working together for the passion that brought us together: chimpanzees.

Milan began to have chimpanzees a few years before us. He stopped a few years later and when we met and he saw what we were starting in Sorocaba, he returned to take care of these primates in a sanctuary that he had next to his industry group in Sao Jose dos Pinhais, near Curitiba city.

Milan and his wife, Anita, who always supported him, at all times, saved, together with us, the lives of more than 100 chimpanzees, who used to be exploited in circuses, zoos and in private hands. When he decided to sell the Providence Cia, he built a house and a sanctuary to host the chimpanzees he had in the factory and others whom he would rescue in the following years.

In the struggle for the survival of chimpanzees, he had moments of anguish and pain, as when Beto Carrero, invaded his sanctuary using a court injunction with heavily armed police force and kidnapped several chimpanzees that were owned by the extinct Garcia Circus. These chimps belonged to us legally, as we had bought a farm with the 14 chimpanzees who lived there, owned by Carola Garcia.

When we ask for the help of IBAMA (Brazilian National Environmental Institute) in Brasilia, calling for its interference to recover the chimpanzees, who were in danger of death in a precarious installation of Santa Catarina Zoo, an unfortunate head of Ibama Fauna turned around and said that we should hire a lawyer. Milan took that challenge of a bureaucrat who forgot his fauna defender paper and hired the best available banking lawyers; He hits back in the circus, recovering the kidnapped chimpanzees and a newborn baby.

In the Sanctuary of Anami Institute, in Paraná, more than 20 chimpanzees and a orangutans enjoy a life of peace after years of miserable captivity.

One of the most complicated cases was Peter’s group. This chimp, who was still a baby when arrived from Switzerland, lived at the Zoo Buana Park, in Rio de Janeiro, with two females (Tata and Judy). When the Zoo was interdicted by Ibama because of the poor condition of the animals, Peter’s  group was negotiated by the direction of Ibama with a private zoo that was being built in Fortaleza – Paradise Lost. We had already arranged with the owner of the zoo in Rio de Janeiro that Peter’s group would come to Sorocaba.

However, the interests spoke louder and the group ended in Fortaleza, in a no shading enclosure, exposed a few meters from the public, where any primate would go nuts.

Milan negotiated several months with the owner of Paradise Lost, who soon came into financial difficulties and had begun to negotiate the animals. Two daughters of the group went to another sanctuary in Ibiúna, countryside of São Paulo, and Peter’s  group, with the oldest daughter, arrived in Paraná. At that time, Milan was already in the process of selling its industrial group and its sanctuary was not quite ready. Given the impossibility of keeping the Peter’s group, he sent them to the Great Primates Sanctuary of Sorocaba. The two females were very debilitated for the hard life in Fortaleza and we had to strive for their survival. Tata gave birth to two children in Sorocaba: Marcelino, now a teenager, and Miguel, still a child. A few weeks ago, she gave birth to her third child.

This baby – strong and smart a few weeks after his birth – is a tribute of Peter, Tata and Judy to Milan Starostik, for saving the lives of their whole family. The name of this baby will be Milan. It is the desire of the parents and dozens of other Brazilian chimpanzees that owe their existence to  the work without interest, deep and sincere of a man who devoted part of his life fighting for the species that is closest to ours and was very mistreated by mankind.

Dr. Pedro A.Ynterian

President, GAP Project International