It is estimated that she was born in Africa in 1960. In the first record, in the United States, she appeared as a resident for 22 years at the Oklahoma Institute of Primate Studies, where she must have learned to communicate by signals.

In 1982, she was sent to the Medical Torture Center called LEMSIP in New York State, where she spent 14 years undergoing experiments of all kinds in a suspended ceiling cage along with dozens of other chimpanzees in misfortune.

In 1996, she was transferred to another Torture Center, New Iberia, in Louisiana; Four years later her tragic fate began to change and, along with her friends Stu, Andrea and Ursula, was transferred to a precarious Sanctuary in Texas known as WAO. In 2011, WAO broke financially and the Save the Chimps Sanctuary in Florida was able to rescue her with 10 of her companions.

For the first time, Mona managed to enjoy something of life with her friends and could walk on the grass, climb on toys and lie down in the Floridian sun.

Her body had the marks of life of suffering at the hands of humans who had abused her for years. But her spirit was never broken, and she always had faith that someday she would be delivered from that miserable life of torture and loneliness.

Surrounded by many blankets a few days ago, she never woke up again from her dream full of nightmares of the past. She survived for 57 years to human exploitation, was the eldest of the Sanctuary, and all who knew her thanked her for having endured a life of torture and violence, and not carrying with her the hatred that some humans would deserve.

Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian

General Secretary, GAP  Project International