Almost ten years ago, Guga, who was 7 months year old, used to live in our house in Itu. He had his room, his square and his toys and was part of the family. GAP Sanctuary did not exist yet. One day, a friend of my daughter Aline entered the house and Guga attacked and bit her in the leg. It was not so serious because we were able to get him out of her. In the day before she had visited us too and had played with Guga\’s toys, maybe keeping some of them for a while. Jealous about his stuff, Guga gave her a message in the day after.

A few days ago, I was in the "School" of GAP Sanctuary together with Guga, who now is almost 10 years old, Emilio, 9, and Claudio, 8. They were playing with magazines and were drawing in papers; I took a nap maybe for 5 or 10 minutes. When I woke up, everything was a mess: Guga was beating at the glass, Emilio was screaming and Claudio was running from one place to the other. The car of "Vigor" (dairy company) had arrived with the week package of yogurts and the driver was looking for someone who could receive the delivery and ended up waking me up. The chimpanzees would not accept that, they want him to go away not to disturb my sleeping. I calmed them down and got out to receive the delivery.

I tell this story so that it is possible to understand Travis\’ case and his unnecessary murder. Travis was a 15-year old chimpanzee who had already worked in TV commercials, such as some of Coca-Cola. He lived with the family that had raised him as a child and kept him in a house, with no security, in the city of Stamford, state of Connecticut.
 
Sandra Herold, the owner (according to current human legislation), was being visited by a friend, Charla Nasch, 55 years old, who Travis attacked unexpectedly, causing serious wounds in her face and hands, as long as it took some minutes until someone was able to get him off her. Sandra attacked Travis with a big kitchen knife and he did not attack his owner and adoptive mother back. He preferred to run away to an isolated place of the property. Sandra called the police while Charla was suffering a lot and bleeding to death.

When the police arrived, they formed a security area so that the paramedics could assist Charla, who was in a critical condition. On this same night she was operated and survived the attack. A few minutes after the police arrival, Travis came back to the attack place and the policemen, who did not have chemical or electric weapons that could control him, found refugee in their official cars. Travis punched the glass window of one of the cars and managed to open the door to hit the policeman who was inside. Then the man shot Travis more than once, with a lot of discharges. Hurt, Travis still had time and strength to come back inside the house and died inside his bedroom, according to Richard Conklin, Stamford Police Captain.

Among the several explanations tried to be presented, it was mentioned that Travis had Lyme disease and because of that was taking anti-depressive medicines, which could have changed his behavior. Travis used to live at Sandra\’s house as a member of the family. He had his bedroom, used the toilet by himself, wore clothes, ate at the table, even enjoying wine during the meals, brushed his teeth with "water-pik", watched TV using a remote control and had his own computer. In his non-typical life for a chimpanzee, Travis did not practice any physical exercise, weighted 90 kilos and had a extraordinary strength.

This chimpanzee was one more victim of selfishness and human imprudence. Dozens of similar cases had already made History. Our decision to home Guga in a sanctuary when he was one year old was taken based on what we had learnt with him during the time he lived with us. A chimpanzee inside a human family is like a fish out of water. He must live with his equals e have his own life. He can also be, together with his group, civilized, in order to make his and people who take care of him lives easier, but he can not share a life with humans.

Travis, as Guga, was a primitive being, with no ability to talk, which limited his learning and education process so that he can not live in the society, with other humans. This dramatic limitation forces us to give it up the attempt of humanizing them, which Sandra did to Travis and caused him never to understand his place in this sick world.
 
Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian
President, GAP Project International