Colombia today began transferring its last captive chimpanzee from a zoo in Pereira to a sanctuary in Brazil to live with other apes, after nearly two years of solitary confinement after two chimpanzees were killed in a shooting.
Male Yoko (38), weighing 60 kilograms and almost without teeth due to the poor care he received after buying on the black market, will travel to Sorocaba, in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo.
AFP follows the start of his journey, dubbed “Operation Noah’s Ark”, during which Yoko will stay awake and be accompanied by his vet.
A Colombian Air Force plane will first take him to Bogotá.
He will then be flown by cargo plane to Brazil, where experts hope he will be accepted by other monkeys and able to communicate with them.
Since 2018, Yoko has been living in the Ukumari Biopark in Pereira, where he arrived after the police caught him while smugglers tried to take him to Venezuela. At a very young age, he was acquired on the black market by a drug dealer.
Chita and Pancho, a male and female, escaped from this zoo in 2023 and were killed by security forces due to the risk they posed to nearby communities.
Those events sparked protests by animal rights activists. Raised as a human and used to watching television, Yoko had difficulty socializing with other chimps, his keepers said.
However, Yoko had a close relationship with Chita, so he lost touch with his own kind after the death of the ape.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature considers the chimpanzee an endangered species.
The territories where it lives are mainly located in Guinea, Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Out of eccentricity, Colombian mobsters acquire all kinds of exotic animals as pets or to maintain their own zoos.