In ’77, a chimp named Evelyn came to live with us. Ev came from the nearby Liberian Institute for Biomedical Research, a station overseen by the NY Bloodcenter that for a long time used chimps for scientific research.
For two years Evelyn was part of our family. Most of the kids that lived on our compound were my age, so I had a solid pack of little friends. But my brother Andrew was a couple years younger than the rest of us and a bit of a lone wolf. He and Evelyn were practically inseparable…
The chimps that were once housed at the research station now live on islands off the coast near a fishing town called Marshall. There are still 63 animals at six different locations. This week we went out a couple times with the team assigned to feeding them daily. There was no sign of Evelyn, but Andrew did meet DJ – he may has well have been 4 yrs old again…