Many of them have been traumatised after experiences that make it impossible to return them to their natural habitat of tropical forests in the Congo basin and west Africa. Unfortunately for many of the other chimps in the sanctuary, that is not the case. 'He plays, he moves around constantly, he is very excited by what we give him,' said Ngulu. In the meantime, Manno happily swings on ropes and plays with stuffed animals and balls in his room. Manno, who is believed to have been born in a zoo in the Syrian capital of Damascus, has not had any contact with his own kind since at least the end of 2013 when he was illegally sold to the Dohuk zoo for $15,000 (14,000 euros). To avoid unsettling the delicate balance within the troop, and the creation of deadly rivalries, Manno will be slowly introduced to the other chimps before joining them in their one square kilometre of fenced territory. 'Before joining the other chimpanzees, he has to remain in quarantine for a while,' to ensure that Manno does not have any diseases that could be transmitted to the reserve's 36 other residents, said Stephen Ngulu, a veterinarian and the chimp sanctuary's director. 'On the trip between Dohuk and Erbil airport, the convoy carrying him was, at the closest, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Mosul,' where fierce battles are under way between the Iraqi army and the Islamic State group, said Daniel Stiles of the Project to End Great Ape Slavery (PEGAS).Īfter several days travelling in a small wooden box, Manno arrived on November 30 at the chimpanzee sanctuary within the Ol Pejeta conservancy at the foot of Mount Kenya, which has been taking in endangered chimpanzees since 1993.

Then came help from several conservation groups, and Manno's days as a spectacle - and smoker - are now over after arriving at a chimpanzee sanctuary in Kenya a week ago. The four-year-old would also be dressed as a child and fed soda and sweets - giving him near permanent diarrhoea - before being locked in a small cage every night in a private zoo in the Kurdish city of Dohuk. NK News reported North Korea has stocked the zoo with exotic animals from countries all over the world, with many of the deals raising red flags among animal rights campaigners. The zoo has also been criticized in the past for keeping animals in extremely inadequate conditions and even instigating staged fights.Separated from his mother shortly after birth, Manno the chimpanzee was smuggled to Iraq and spent his days smoking cigarettes handed to him by amused zoo visitors and posing for pictures. To start, this is not the first time animal rights activists and campaigners have had their eyes on this zoo for questionable practices. In fact, according to The Guardian, visitors have been having quite a laugh at the smoking chimp, snapping photos for social media and generally having a ball watching the spectacle.Īs terribly sad as this whole situation is, we honestly can’t say that we’re all that surprised. To make matters worse, spectators at North Korea’s Central Zoo in Pyongyang are not all that upset about it. If this isn’t animal abuse, we don’t know what is. To say we’re skeptical as to how true that claim is would be an understatement.

The chimpanzee that zoo employees claim is not actually inhaling the smoke from this cigarette, just puffing on it.

Smoking chimpanzee