Toti was born as Nahuel. The person who accompanied him since he was three years old, who is identified here as CL , tells the true and terrifying history of the life of this chimp, who is not 13 years old, but 24, and still waits alone in an inhospitable zoo, in southern Argentina, that the humans who abused and tortured  him allow a little peace and quiet with his brothers in Brazil.

Toti when he was a child

“I (I will call me CL) visited the Zoo called Cutini, a place very questioned for its cruelties. As a volunteer in 1993, I met a baby who was three years old and was born on August 29, 1990 . When I started as a volunteer there were four chimpanzees: Mark, male , Mariela , a young female, and Black, a female chimpanzee , mother of the only baby at the zoo –  called Nahuel , Toti today.” With these words CL begins the story by turning up memories into tears.

CL continues: “During the day the three adult chimpanzees remained in a cage outdoors, while the small Nahuel was alone in another cage. Occasionally, Nahuel was allowed to play with human children and adults who visited the Zoo. When evening came, the adult chimpanzees were transferred by their handlers to a room where there were three cages, which were called “beds”, and there spent the night. In the days of storm, Nahuel could stay with his mother, Black. During the day, Nahuel was in the cage, sometimes tied with a rope, sometimes loose to play with the visiting children. However, when they disturbed him very much, he used to come into my lap to play with me, to be tickled. The visitors did not like it, because immediately he saw me as one of the group, and came running and jumped on me to hug and kiss, and began the ritual of kisses and hugs, and tickles throughout his body.”

And still reports : “When I got to know the chimps and their situation, I realized that their well -being only interested to a group of volunteers like us, who were always with them. So I spent my time joining all kinds of objects for them to play, we used to draw, listened to music with headphones and danced. We took magazines and watched along with them. It was obvious that later they turned the magazines into pieces of paper. All these activities and other things we thought we did to entertain were used for a month and so, during which they were shut in their bedroom, locked in their beds, because the attendant who took them became ill. For this reason they were closed for a month in tiny cages. Nahuel and his mother shared the same be. As we could not get in, we helped them change the old milkweed, we gave them new and they accepted the new and put it in the right place. Imagine, after all this time mother and son were together, we helped each other to get the conformal and did everything as well as possible , so that they were closer together. However , after all this effort to keep them together, they were separated abruptly and sent to different places. ”

“Due to the one of the keepers illness, who was the one who carried the cages, it was decided to build a separate room with a glass window in the side of the cages, to see their reaction and and the public’s. And from this time, in 1995, Nahuel was completely separated from his mother, placed in a cage alone and used to be taken by night to sleep in another cage, they called “bed”, also alone. Nahuel cried every night as a child who is separated from his mother abruptly.”

CL continues: “Each time I went there, some of the keepers commented that the ones who led Nahuel gave him beer and cigarettes. And I found in him with cigarette burns, on his fingers. They also told me he used to be bitten in his back. At the time they would take the adult chimpanzees for the “beds” in the new glass cage, I asked how they would do it and they told me – as always, rebels took a shot. Conflicts in Zoo Cutini were often solved with gunfire. In 1996 and 1997, I cannot remember, I was very happy with the limitations of this feeling of being in a zoo, with the arrival of a new chimpanzee called Benito, a young male that came from a circus and joined with Nahuel. They did a good friendship, but unfortunately it did not last long. Benito was taken outside to do a TV commercial and finished the run in Palermo neighborhood. Benito was aggressive, could not control it and ended up being killed with 14 shots. This was the typical reaction of the Zoo Cutini: when a lion becomes a rebel, he passes by FAL ( high-powered rifle ), and then they sold the carcass of the lion. ”

“In one of the many visits I made, I always got comments of mistreating to Nahuel , as well as the list of dead animals (most were carayas monkeys (howler) and nails ) . When I went to see him, initially, we spent some time on grooming and I used to review his body. I always noted that the he had less hair, the skin was red , with recent healing of wounds . Nobody said anything , but between commentary and review of the attendants I could deduce from the blows that he had been spanked  – which can be seen in one of the photos I sent, on his back. After the year 1998, I lost the location of the chimpanzees Cutini Zoo and only now I saw the story of Toti and made a link.”

Thus closes the account of CL, and here is presented the story of DK , who spent some time with Toti more recently.

The Zoo Cutini was closed in 1999 and the chimps were relocated. DK says: “I worked at the Florencio Varela Zoo and went to Zoo Cutini to take Toti before closing it. There was only a few were keepers; the Zoo was no longer open to the public. Toti was again with her ​​mother and father. Toti was beautiful; he looked like a human child. At the time I was there, an old man came to take care of Toti in his cage. Toti started to cry profusely, like a terrified baby. It was awful to hear him. Toti hid in a corner, in the fetal position, covering his head. Sure he did  – that miserable old man took an iron pipe in hand and beat his forehead, forcing him to enter the transport cage. Thus he introduced him in a cage that compresses his body and Toti kept on desperately crying pressed to a point that he could not breathe. The old man tied his hands and feet with wire in the cage to immobilize him, put a chain around his neck and closed with a padlock. I asked the owner of the Florencio Varela Zoo that made the old man to stop the torture . Pulled away tens of meters to not see or hear the cries of Toti . When he arrived at the Florencio Varela Zoo, they did not pay much attention to him. He was left leaning against a small cage without trained people to care for him. I hope my story serves to open the eyes of some people.”

At Florencio Varela Zoo, his mother dies , leaving him alone , abandoned to his fate and ignored .

In 2008, he was brought to the Zoo Cordoba. He was put on a good enclosure. There was another chimps, an old one, called Coco, and Alejandra Juarez enters the scene and tells the newer part of the life of Toti. Both were joined, Toti was hyperactive , Coco did not accompany him, and, months later, also died.

At this time, Toti got an enemy. The director of the zoo had been bitten by Coco, years before, despite he had no teeth . Perhaps the director Villareal wanted to show himself in front of young students who did an internship and tried to provoke Coco. The gums of chimps end up being powerful through the years. When Coco died , the hatred of Villareal concentrated in Toti and he wanted to see him away from that place.

Here Alejandra account their past experiences , when she began to visit Toti weekly and convert it into a cheerful being, tearing the apathy that was sown in his soul , with so many abuses and torture he had been subjected to. In the end, he found a human companion who could understand him. Until that damned night, that a truck that took him secretly for hundreds of miles away, in order to separate him from his only friend and his only hope to someday be happy.

TOTI – NAHUEL , 24, is a symbol of the struggle of chimpanzees for their most sacred rights that are trampled by humans without conscience , who discharge in these extraordinary beings their life’s frustrations .

Defend  the life of TOTI – NAHUEL is a duty for all those who appreciate our primitive brothers, who are being extinct every day , every hour, from this planet that belongs to everyone of us.

Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian

President , GAP Project International