Sierra Leone police hunt killer chimps

By Christo Johnson

FREETOWN (Reuters) – Armed Sierra Leonean police are
hunting up to 20 chimpanzees which killed a local taxi driver
and injured three American visitors after they broke out of a
wildlife sanctuary, officials said on Tuesday.

The Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in forested hills outside
the Sierra Leonean capital Freetown where the incident
happened, has been closed since Sunday’s attack by the
screaming and excited apes, which mobbed and mauled the four
men.

“Some people had turned up at the gate before normal
opening time, and before staff could react, they realized
somebody was being attacked,” the sanctuary’s director, Bala
Amarasekaran told Reuters.

The animals killed local taxi driver Issa Kanu and bit and
mauled three U.S. employees of a construction company helping
to build the new U.S. embassy in Freetown.

The three Americans, Gary Morris, Paul Gregory and Donald
Ford, were flown to the United States on Monday to receive
medical treatment for their injuries.

Amarasekaran said the attack was the first incident of its
kind since the sanctuary was set up in 1995 to give shelter to
orphaned and abandoned chimpanzees. It is billed as one of
Sierra Leone’s leading eco-tourism attractions.

Amarasekaran said sanctuary staff and armed police were
still trying to round up about 20 of the runaway chimps,
including two adult males called “Bruno” and “Philip.”

He believes the males may have led the attack on the
visitors after more than 30 of the apes managed to break out of
their enclosure in the sanctuary.

“We humanize them but we’re referring to wild animals here.
Some chimps are highly territorial and can attack and kill.
They may have seen these people as intruders,” he said.

“Maybe the visitors panicked and threw sticks and stones.
Chimps mob people. If you try and defend yourself you can get
hurt,” he added. He advised any humans attacked by chimpanzees
to “be submissive, lie on the ground.”

Local villagers were keeping their children at home. “We’re
not letting our children walk on the forest road because these
chimpanzees could get hold of them and kill them,” Regent Town
village elder, Jonathan Harding, told Reuters.

The Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary had nearly 70 apes living
in a semi-wild environment in which they had access to fenced
enclosures of rainforest as well as large cages where they
spent the night.

Amarasekaran said he hoped to reopen the reserve for public
visits when security precautions had been tightened.

“Accidents can happen, you can’t guarantee that they won’t
where wild animals are involved,” he said.

“You can go into the Maasai Mara (Kenya’s most famous game
reserve) and be killed by a leopard,” he added.

(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher in Dakar)