Eugene Cousins Interviews - Individual Chimp Stories
June 26, 2008 by Healthy Shana
Animal Planet’s hit series Escape to Chimp Eden, which focuses on the plight of the African chimps and Eugene Cousin’s quest to rescue them is now over. Over the course of the season, many of you had questions about how to help Eugene or how the chimps came to be in the situations that they were in.
Eugene has taken the time to answer some of these pressing questions. I thought I’d post some videos regarding some of the questions that you all have been asking. The fourth question that we’ll tackle from this season is “What were some of the individual chimp stories?” In this video clip Eugene speaks about his relationship with chimps Jao and Cozy. He speaks about how close he came with Jao as well as the struggles that Cozi faced due to his age.
Watch the video clip below to receive your answers. Keep pulling for the chimps by watching the show when it re-airs next season.
Eugene Cousins Interviews - Risks to Making Chimp Eden
June 23, 2008 by Healthy Shana
Animal Planet’s hit series Escape to Chimp Eden, which focuses on the plight of the African chimps and Eugene Cousin’s quest to rescue them is now over. Over the course of the season, many of you had questions about how to help Eugene or how the chimps came to be in the situations that they were in.
Eugene has taken the time to answer some of these pressing questions. I thought I’d post some videos regarding some of the questions that you all have been asking. The third question that we’ll tackle from this season is “What were some of the risks faced with making Chimp Eden possible?”
Watch the video clip below to receive your answers. Keep pulling for the chimps by watching the show when it re-airs next season.
What is the Bushmeat Trade - Interview with Eugene
June 11, 2008 by Healthy Shana
Animal Planet’s hit series Escape to Chimp Eden, which focuses on the plight of the African chimps and Eugene Cousin’s quest to request them is now over. Over the course of the season, many of you had questions about how to help Eugene or how the chimps came to be in the situations that they were in.
Eugene has taken the time to answer some of these pressing questions. I thought I’d post some videos regarding some of the questions that you all have been asking. The first question that Eugene will answer is “What is the Bushmeat Trade?”
Watch the video clip below to receive your answers. Keep pulling for the chimps by watching the show when it re-airs next season.
Escape to Chimp Eden: Episode 8 - Eugene and the Babies
June 3, 2008 by Healthy Shana
Alot of chimps that are at chimp Eden arrived due to the bushman trade. In this episode of Escape to Chimp Eden, Eugene is going to the Sudan to rescue five baby chimps. The twist of this episode is that he needs to make it back to his wife in time as she is 7 months pregnant and expected to give birth at anytime. This episode of Escape to Chimp Eden originally aired on April 11th at 9PM ET/PT.
It takes Eugene about 10 hours to fly to the Sudan. His wife is very scared because there are so many political issues going on in Sudan at the time of Eugene’s visit. When Eugene arrives in Sudan he is faced with alot of rain and flooding even though it is just the beginning of the rainy season.
When Eugene arrives at the local he now realizes that there are 7 chimps as opposed to the 5 chimp permits that he’d applied for. Eugene has to make the sad decision of selecting which 5 chimps he can take back with him to Chimp Eden. Eugene needs to get the chimps out as quickly as possible. The locals are very insecure and consider them to be a threat and addition thee of the chimps are babies.
Watch an itunes clip below as Eugene brings the baby chimps home.
Image Source: Brent Stirton / Getty Images (Eugene with rescued chimp Sally)
Escape to Chimp Eden: Episode 5 - Angolan Girls
April 10, 2008 by Healthy Shana
In this episode of Escape to Chimp Eden, Eugene and the team are working to release three females into the outdoor enclosure.
This is the first time that these chimps will have been able to feel grass under their feet or even able to climb trees since they’d been at the Eden.
Essentially, to give you a background on how things are set-up at Chimp Eden is that they have 2 enclosures, one of the adult males and one for the adult females. The males in the male sanctuary are very aggressive and none of the keepers really go in because of their aggressive behaviors to humans.
Now to the average person, this may not sound like a big deal, but it really is because these female chimps will now be living with three other male chimps and this could pose to be a challenge. These male chimps are big and strong and could literally tear the females apart. The staff at Chimp Eden’s goals are to get the males to accept the females into their sanctuary.
The 3 females are Gita, Mimi and Mika and they were rescued from Angola after Eugene tried for years to get them out of Angola due to the bureaucratic red tape. The lives that these chimps lived were absolutely ridiculous. Gita was chained to the outside of a nightclub for 6 1/2 years before she was finally rescued. Mimi lived in a cave for over 12 years and was never let out.
Its a no brainer that the lives they will be living at the sanctuary is so much better than anything they could possibly be offered right now.
Image: Brent Stirton/Getty Images
In the News: Chimps May Have a “Language Ready” Brain
March 8, 2008 by Healthy Shana
According to a recent report from the National Science Foundation chimps may already have a “language” ready brain. What this means is that scientist believe that chimps may have communication and language behaviors that are similar to humans.
The results of a study done by Yerkes National Primate Research Center suggest that there are similarities in which the ways our brains produce signals during communication.
This research is very interesting and fascinating because it is very evident and can be seen in the way that the chimps on Escape to Chimp Eden communicate with each other as well as with Eugene.
For more information on the study please visit the following website.
Who’s Who at Chimp Eden: Meet Cozi
February 25, 2008 by Healthy Shana
Cozi is an 11 year old chimp that was born in America and sold to a photographer in Italy to be used as a prop. Cozi had been with the photographer for a while, traveling with him to shoots and jobs. The photographer later dies while

Cozi is still a baby and gets left to be taken care of by the photographers girlfriend, who is later found out to be afraid of Cozi. As a result of this she locks Cozi up in a cage in a trailer home, locks the doors and the curtains and never lets him out again!
NINE YEARS LATER, JGI Italy receives information about this chimp that has been locked up in an trailer with no food, a darkened room and space barely enough to stand upright. As a result of this Cozi’s bone and muscle development has been severely stunted. Image if you’d been locked in a cage since the age of 2. How sad!
Since arriving at Chimp Eden, Cozi has made great progress and has developed alot of confidence. Meet Cozi!
Escape to Chimp Eden: Episode 2 - Angolan Rescue Part 2
February 22, 2008 by Healthy Shana
Chimp 
In the previous episode
Escape to Chimp Eden: Episode 1 - Angolan Rescue Part 1
February 15, 2008 by Healthy Shana
This Escape to Chimp Eden episode aired last Friday and it was part one of a two part series where Eugene is attempting to rescue a chimp named Josephine. Josephine is stashed in an abandoned warehouse in Angola where she basically tries to survive each day. Her owners plan of euthanizing her an basically throughout the episode Eugene is trying to race against the clock to save her. Its so sad and it breaks my hear to see how these animals are being mistreated just so someone can make a few dollars. In Eugene’s effort to rescue Josephine, and while he’s waiting for her owner to give her up he basically goes undercover looking for more chimps that he can rescue. He ends up finding two baby chimps that are in conditions that are so bad its hard to imagine. Its essentially like they are living the life of slaves! One chimp appears to be blind, as far as I could tell and they seemed to have pulled all his teeth out. I’m not sure how many episode of this i’ll be able to take. its such a sad situation. I never new things were this bad!
Escape to Chimp Eden Sneak Peek
February 14, 2008 by Healthy Shana


