As a 16 year old, I use to telephone Dr. Sandy Harcourt of the University of California in Davis trying to get myself to Rwanda to live with the Mountain Gorillas. Then the Civil War broke out in Rwanda and so I began to telephone Birute Gladikas to try to work with the Orangatangs of Borneo. Not having the resources to go to Borneo, I began to concentrate on my sports and as I grew older, I realized that I did not want to live in Africa or Borneo.
So there I was in California, pusuing my sports training when quite by accident I came across a baby chimpanzee rocking back and forth in his cage clutching a doll. I asked for his cage to be opened and he flew into my arms and when he was put back he reached for me with outstretch arms, screaming to be picked up again. Needless to say I spent the afternoon with him and other days as well. Sosa likes to play follow the leader with himself as leader and he will give discreet backward glances to make sure that I am following him. While in Hawaii and while Sosa was on tour, I telephoned him and he was making all these little sounds to me and the owner said that Sosa was really listening to me.
My fear is that Sosa will end up in a research lab once his usefulness as an entertainer has ended. Some trainers look after their chimps for life while other chimps face a bleak future. Sosa is an airforce chimp, his grandfather was "HAM" the first astrochimp into space paving the way for Alan Shepherd to become the first American into space.
The Holloman airforce chimps were sold to the Coulston Primate Research Centre in New Mexico which is where Sosa comes from and I have now found out about the horrible things which happen there. In addition to the terrible experimentation which goes on, the chimps are kept in small cages their entire lives which can be up to 50 years.
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