Escape to Chimp Eden Review

Overall 4.00 of 5 (by 1 user)

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Publisher's Circle

LauraBelle
South Elgin, IL

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Saving the Chimps, a Few at a Time

an animal lover, Entertainment Writer, A Big Giant Sap, a storyteller, mother of 2

Pros

Great, caring host, Enlightening

Cons

30 minutes isn't enough

APR

2008

My daughter is a huge Animal Planet viewer, so I had heard of Escape to Chimp Eden through commercials, but never paid it too much mind. I caught the host, Eugene Cussons, on Ellen, talking about his show. It just seemed so fascinating, I had to find it and TiVo to watch first hand. I now have a Season Pass to it programmed on my TiVo.

The intro to each episode of Escape to Chimp Eden has Eugene saying he wanted to be a software giant, something 9 to 5 where he'd actually get sleep. Yet, seeing the abuse of chimps, he was so taken by it, he knew he had to do something to help them. After rescuing these chimps, he brings them to Chimp Eden and rehabs them to get them back out in the wild where they belong, instead of in captivity.

Eugene actually does these rescues himself. He rescues them from personal property where they are being kept as pets, and anywhere else he sees them being abused. He doesn't just "take" them, though, always arranging for permits. He recently rescued five babies from a woman who was trying her best to save them and two others, but was ill-equipped to handle a full rehab as they grew. He applied for the permit when there were five babies, and by the time he got there, there were seven, yet he could only take five because of the permit, so had to make a difficult decision who to leave behind.

On Ellen, Eugene discussed some of the bad conditions he finds the chimps in, including one chimp that had been tethered to a short chain for seventeen years. After all this abuse, the chimps are very untrusting of humans. Eugene has learned a lot about how chimps communicate, and he interacts with the chimps to gain their trust. Yet, he doesn't get them too comfortable with humans, as his goal is to get them back out there in the wild, interacting with other chimps.

With the chimps already at Chimp Eden, there is a definite pecking order, as they've already figured out their social structure. They're introduced to new chimps slowly, under supervision, so that no one gets hurt, yet they're still able to be aggressive or non-aggressive with it, depending on their individual personality.

I only wish Escape to Chimp Eden were longer than a half hour. It seems every time I start to get into it, it ends. It's such a fascinating show to watch, to see how Eugene gains their trust and learns to communicate with them, as well as watching them interact with each other. With some things they are just so human like, which is absolutely why people make the mistake of thinking they can own them as pets. Once you see their natural aggression here, you understand why they can't.