Chimp colony

This short documentary was actually part of a promotion campaign for the science fiction film “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”. Not sure why, since this material is real. Some of it is also rather scary!

The YouTube channel Motherboard takes us to Liberia, more exactly to a place known as “Monkey Island” where aggressive chimps show up in huge flocks, stopping people from going ashore. The locals at the mainland seems to believe that the chimpanzees have a taste for human flesh (or perhaps White human flesh) and generally avoid the place…unless paid around 80 dollars!

The reporter then reveals the truth about Monkey Island. It´s a place where a US-sponsored medical research facility “retired” chimpanzees infected by hepatitis during laboratory experiments. The Americans responsible for the operation stayed behind even when Liberia descended into a brutal civil war during the 1990´s.

Today, the facility is long gone, but some of the native care-takers still bring food to the stranded chimps, which are much less aggressive towards them than to the mainland locals. The contrast between how the chimpanzees approach the two groups of people is fascinating…

At least the people responsible for the research lab were just as helpful towards the human refugees during the uncivil war, as they were towards the apes. 

PS. Yes, I know, Pan troglodytes isn´t a "monkey".