A few weeks ago, two chimpanzees from Zoo-Safari Sa Coma, in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, were killed. After escaping their enclosure and without an efficient chemical restraint plan, the police force killed them, after a two-day chase in the woods nearby the Zoo. Adan and Eve, the names of these unfortunate beings, add up to a long list of great apes slaughtered in every corner of the world, after the escape of Zoos and precarious captivity.

This weekend, Spanish news came again reporting the escape and death of two other chimpanzees, King and Felipa, from Zoo Oasis Park in La Lajita, municipality of Pájara (Fuerteventura), after a police action that ended with three injured humans, one of them seriously. A third chimp, who had also escaped, the female Cheeta, was anesthetized and survived.

The director of the Great Ape Project Spain, Pedro Pozas Terrados requested in a press release about the incident the transfer of Cheeta to another institution that offers greater security and urged the Canary Islands authorities supervise its zoos adequately, which in fact have no real conditions to exist.

These tragedies that happen often in the world, some reported and others not, make it clear that great apes should be removed from display in zoos and transferred to sanctuaries, with more appropriate security and environmental conditions, so the animals do not end up being hunted by police in their first runaway.

Great apes are intelligent beings, who became very disturbed with the exhibition they are submitted to in zoos and become aggressive beings, who think only of escaping from the environment in which they are imprisoned.

Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian

President, GAP Project International