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. 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.

Chimpanzee schleich