I met her in Bwana Park Zoo, in Rio de Janeiro, which was about to be definitely closed by the Environmental Authority for abuse of its collection of animals. Judy may have been more than 20 years old, constituted a family, with her friend Tata and her partner Peter, and her sons and daughters, who were born and would be born in the next decade.

On that visit I left confident that the family would come to the Sorocaba Sanctuary, since it was arranged with the owners of that private Zoo. However, an authority on Ibama who controlled the fauna at that time made a different agreement, motivated as always by interest, and these chimpanzees were sent to the Zoo Paradise Lost, in Fortaleza, which was about to be opened, as a point State tourism. Today this state also plans to display a giant aquarium to trap marine animals, but that possibly will never be finished, for the luck of many innocents.

In Paradise Lost, another innocent was waiting in a cage for months on end: Pongo, a male chimpanzee who was also negotiated with Belo Horizonte Zoo, robbed the right to live with his family and imprisoned for months in a cage, with no future.

The room where Peter’s family lived was a building to their death. Turned to the sun, with no retreat, only the night offered the possibility of a shelter, where a miserable food awaited them until the next day, with the same routine.

Pongo had no grounds to stay and one day Belo Horizonte Zoo, at the request of Fortaleza Zoo, offered us Pongo and so he came to the sanctuary, totally disturbed. He had hallucinations, spoke with his hands and with the walls, beat all the chimps we try to put together with him and ended up living alone. He was claustrophobic, never entered a dormitory, after the months imprisoned in a cage.

Judy had a family in Fortaleza, which was negotiated, just like the other two daughters of Tata, her friend and companion. Luckily, all ended going to the sanctuaries of Ibiúna and Paraná.

Judy arrived at the sanctuary a decade ago, could not walk 5 meters so weak she was. Tata was able to recover, and so was Peter. Judy was already diabetic, had two abortions and lived weakened, but was enjoying life with two nephews (Marcelino and Miguel), whom Tata had given birth in the Sanctuary.

Three months ago, Pongo stopped eating and we had no way to medicate him, only under anesthesia, as no one had intimacy with him. He always hated humans. His kidneys stopped working and then we had little to do; only wait for his untimely death.

Judy was surviving day to day, the vets accompanied her diabetes daily diabetes, her arthritis and her heart, which was no longer resisting.

The games with her nephews were already dangerous; any wound was difficult to heal. Three weeks ago we separated her from the others to heal a wound in her foot. We knew we would not return her to the conviviality of her family. Tata, desperate, accompanied every day. At first she had the strength to appear in the window and talked for hours, but a few days ago she began to surrender and no longer moved. She always ate very well, but she was not having the strength to do so.

Today, Monday, we found her dead in her bedroom. The keepers who live in the sSanctuary reported that ai 9:40pm on Sunday, an outcry of a few minutes possibly announced the death of the dear friend. We put her on a stretcher in the hallway, so Tata and her sons could look one last time and touch, to know she was no longer in this cruel world, which only brought suffering. Tata accompanied her with her sad eyes until she was placed in the vehicle that took her to the clinic in order to be done the autopsy and later to the cemetery of the sanctuary, where Pongo, from a few months ago, also lies.

Judy and Pongo are the latest victims of the cruel system invented by man to satisfy his pleasures and fun. These scenes will be repeated in all the captivity of the world, month after month, year after year, until the last Grand Primate that managed to survive in the face of human madness will be vanished.

Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian

President, GAP Project International