“Get your gun!” Brauer yelled to her son-in-law, Mark Carruthers, who was at her home with his wife and infant son, Chealander said. Virginia Brauer gave chase, and soon found the chimps mauling the Davises, Chealander said. The male chimps - Buddy, 15, and Ollie, 13 - escaped. (Both are quite old for chimps, who rarely live past 50 in the wild or 60 in captivity, according to the Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation group.) She reportedly detained the two females, Suzie, 59, and Bones, 49. Hal Chealander, Virginia Brauer was at home Thursday morning when she was startled to discover that four chimps - two young males and two older females - had gotten out of their cage and entered her home. The ranch is owned by Ralph and Virginia Brauer and has been licensed by the state since 1996 to take in primates, usually from zoos that no longer want them.Īccording to Kern County Sheriff’s Cmdr. The chimpanzees were housed in outdoor cages at the Animal Haven Ranch, a private sanctuary tucked into a grassy fold in the hills a few miles south of Lake Isabella. “He stayed out of this one,” said Steve Martarano, a spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Game.Īmong the questions for which there were no immediate answers: How did the two chimps escape? And why did they attack? The attack ended when the son-in-law of the sanctuary’s owners shot and killed the two rampaging chimps. “James saw that, pushed me behind a table and took the brunt of everything else,” she said. One of the chimps pushed her against her husband, and at some point her left thumb was bitten off, she said. “I turned around and they started charging,” she said. Moe, according to other accounts, was still in his cage. Richard Conklin said.LaDonna, 64, said she was sitting at a table with her husband, getting ready to cut the chimp’s birthday cake, when she saw the two other chimps out of the corner of her eye. “Maybe from the medications he was out of sorts,” Stamford police Capt. Investigators said they were also told that Travis had Lyme disease, a tick-borne illness with flu-like symptoms that can lead to arthritis and meningitis in humans. Stephen Rene Tello, executive director of Primarily Primates, a sanctuary for chimps in Texas, said it is difficult to say what effect Xanax would have on a chimp, but he noted that chimps and humans have similar physiology. “Xanax could have made him worse,” if human studies are any indication, Coccaro said. Emil Coccaro, chief of psychiatry at the University of Chicago Medical Center. It can also lead to aggression in people who were unstable to begin with, said Dr. In humans, Xanax can cause memory loss, lack of coordination, reduced sex drive and other side effects. Police said the drug had not been prescribed for the 14-year-old chimp. Police said that Travis was agitated earlier Monday and that Herold had given him the anti-anxiety drug Xanax in some tea. He doesn’t look good,” he says, referring to Nash. “He ripped her apart! Shoot him, shoot him!”Īfter police arrive, one officer radios back: “There’s a man down. The dispatcher later asks, “Who’s killing your friend?” “The chimp killed my friend!” says a sobbing Herold, who was hiding in her vehicle. ![]() In recordings of calls to 911 dispatchers released Tuesday, Travis’ grunts can be heard as a frantic Herold cries that her pet is “eating” Nash and must be killed. A pet owner can be held criminally responsible if he or she knew or should have known that an animal was a danger to others. Police said they are looking into the possibility of criminal charges. ![]() Nash was in critical condition Tuesday with “life-changing, if not life-threatening,” injuries to her face and hands, Mayor Dannel Malloy said. Travis attacked 55-year-old Charla Nash as Sandra Herold frantically stabbed her beloved pet with a butcher knife and pounded him with a shovel. “At the end of the day, they are not human and you can’t always predict their behavior and how they or any other wild animal will respond when they feel threatened.” “It’s hard to say what exactly precipitated this behavior,” said Colleen McCann, a primatologist at the Bronx Zoo. Investigators are trying to figure out why - whether it was a bout of Lyme disease, a reaction to Xanax placed in his tea, or a case of instinct taking over. The 200-pound animal viciously mauled a friend of his owner before being shot to death by police. He brushed his teeth with a Water Pik, logged on to a computer to look at photos and channel-surfed television with the remote control.īut on Monday, the wild animal in him came out with a vengeance. He could eat at the table, drink wine from a stemmed glass, use the toilet, and dress and bathe himself. Travis the chimpanzee, a veteran of TV commercials, was the constant companion of a lonely Connecticut widow who fed him steak, lobster and ice cream.
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