Rescue Rebels
From hermit crabs, to horses, Rescue Rebels covers the good, bad and the ugly of the modern age animal rescue craze. Is it a lifestyle, hobby, a scam or something entirely different? We're here to flip your ideals upside down and break into a whole new idea. Rescue is Rebellion.
Rescue Rebels
020 | BONUS- Humanzee Mania
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Hey Rebels! We are on vacation! Season two is coming in September. Until then, we have a back log of three episodes to send your way during our break.
TW: This episode contains themes of animal sexual and physical abuse, firearm use, maulings and child abuse. Please take this into account and listen with caution.
We took four hours out of our life to watch Chimp Crazy, and we still can't decide how we feel about it all. It traumatized us. Literally. In this episode we discuss the insanity that is Chimp "Ownership"- Fake Sanctuaries and mental illness surrounding this "Craze" of primates as household pets and entertainment.
TL:DR- It's abuse.
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Special Thanks to Nick Panek for music sourced through Pixabay.Com
This episode is intended to be for educational purposes and personal opinions only. The content herein does not reflect on organizations mentioned within the episode.
Hey guys, it's L and it's Abby, and welcome to Rescue Rebels. Trigger warning. This episode contains discussions of firearm use against animals, mauling of animals and humans, the sexual abuse of chimpanzees, and more. Please take this into consideration when listening to this episode. Alright, so it is the week of Mother's Day, and we were chatting about what we're gonna do for Mother's Day, and Abby pretty much said she has zero plans.
SPEAKER_02I didn't even know that it was Mother's Day.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so for all of you out there that are mothers, happy Mother's Day, but trigger warning. This episode is gonna be about really horrible mothers.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, chimpanzee motherfuckers.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so we just want to give you guys human chimpanzee. Yes, we want to talk to you guys about the chimp crazy documentary that you can get on HBO Max. And you probably also rent it, I'm sure, in other places as well. But that's what we watched it through. And it's a docuseries, it was four episodes long, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, about an hour each.
SPEAKER_05Yep. And we took a deep dive into it and we're gonna talk about it.
SPEAKER_02So you watched it, so you don't have to, but you should probably watch it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I don't know. So if you haven't watched it and you want to watch it and be thoroughly traumatized, like we were X out of this lovely little podcast. Yeah, because spoil.
SPEAKER_02We're gonna spoil.
SPEAKER_05We're gonna spoil this shit out of it. And we're we're gonna rant. There's gonna be a lot of ranting. So that's what this whole episode is about. So if you need to go and watch it before you listen to this, so that you can be just as pissed as we are. Yeah, do that now or later or whenever, and then come back to this episode. So this is your thorough warning that we're gonna be spoiling chimp crazy for you and all of the twists and turns about all of the horrible uh things that these chimp mommies did.
SPEAKER_02And there is a TV show. Remember that one I was looking up, and it's that TV show said chimp mommy, and it was that woman that raises baby chimps out about that. Man, I was looking just I just watched like 10 minutes of that first episode and I had to stop because like I was like, I think I watched this when I was a kid.
SPEAKER_05I don't remember anything like that.
SPEAKER_02Well it came out in like 2009 or something.
SPEAKER_05Okay, that would have been the year I graduated. So I was weird. It was called Chimp Mommy. Yeah, so gross. We're gonna get even grosser things with this documentary. So I I just don't know. I I really don't, but we're gonna jump into some animal news just so that we can break up this tirade of chimp ranting. And our news from worldanimalprotection.org this week is Brazil lights up to challenge JBS at AGM. So these are two organizations that are apparently in Brazil, and it sounds like they took out a large uh billboard or light-up billboard campaign to showcase the damage that the meat giant causes. And it sounds like a lot of people are paying attention. So it's essentially a direct action campaign to try to get the word out about a lot of the issues that these meat producers and operations that they are, you know, using to provide the meat and the cruelty behind all of that. So uh JBS is the largest meat processor in the world, generating around $77 billion in annual revenue, and it operates in 20 countries with products sold in more than 150. So it's they include McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, and and things like that. So it sounds like Brazil did a campaign to kind of raise awareness about this issue, which I think is pretty cool. It's a win for the animals. Anytime we're able to get the word out on a mass scale through billboards and campaigns and stuff like that, it's definitely gonna make waves, I think, in the animal activism community. So you know, that's kind of cool. The picture that we see on the news website is of somebody taking a picture of the billboard. And so the billboard, at least in this photo, says JBS is making a killing animals the planet.
SPEAKER_02Uh huh. So facts, facts, facts.
SPEAKER_05Yep. So, all right. Well, without further ado, I mean, I don't really think there's anything to talk about unless you have anything to talk about. No, sure don't. We're gonna jump in.
SPEAKER_02I'm like preparing myself to relive it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I asked after we had watched it, I asked Abby as we were heading upstairs because we watched it at her house in her little basement theater. I said, you know, how are you feeling? She goes, I need to process. And then I get here and she just gives me this look like, so I don't think you processed.
SPEAKER_02I don't, but I don't think I had time to because my life is pretty busy, like to like sit down and sit with your emotions and think about it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Just go, here we go again.
SPEAKER_05So yeah, Chimp Crazy by the makers of Tiger King.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So that was interesting. I did watch Tiger King. You know, obviously it's infuriating anytime that you see animals being abused and mishandled on a wide scale level like that. But I felt like this one was crazier.
SPEAKER_02I don't remember a lot. I know I watched Tiger King, but I'm like the chimp crazy over overshattered. I I watched it and then something happened to me mentally when I was really sick, where like my like I got clean, slight swiped. Like, I can't remember a lot of stuff that happened you know, a few years ago. Like it's just like a blurry dream. Yeah, yeah. So I would have to re-watch it to like relate. I just remember the one of the workers that worked there that like got mauled like several times.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And she like had like half of an arm. And still was like, it's fine, whatever.
SPEAKER_05People are crazy. All right. So I want to just start by saying that your daughter watched a few portions of this with do not watch this around children. Yeah, don't watch it around children. Z is very mature, very much.
SPEAKER_02And she was kind of on her iPad, too.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and we we did have her leave the room for some stuff, but yeah, definitely don't watch this with your kids. It's rated mature for a reason. But the funniest part about the beginning when she was sitting there and we're watching, so it starts off with one of the beautiful people we've been talking about lately. Tonya. It wasn't even Connie Casey, but it was Tonya Haddad, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, why do we say Tonya?
SPEAKER_05I don't know. It's just Tanya, whatever. And she sits like a Tonya in this bedroom dressed in all pink. The whole room is painted pink, the beds are painted pink, and there's a baby monkey just crawling around on this bunk bed, right?
SPEAKER_02It doesn't even look real.
SPEAKER_05No, it and you can tell, like, she's like hair, makeup, big like eyelashes, fake tan, Botox. Oh, and I'm not even talking about the fact that Botox you do you boo. I'm not anti-plastic surgery, but sometimes you need to know when to stop.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_05She didn't know. No, no, she had no self-awareness of what she looked like, and it it was a bit much.
SPEAKER_02She all the eyelash glue making her go blind.
SPEAKER_05I know. It was so funny, is like one at one point she's crying and we won't be able to do it. She but she couldn't open her eyes and we're like, what's happening? We're like, maybe her lids are glued together. But your daughter said she gives me the wrong touch.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, because we were talking about she meant to say she rubs me the wrong way, but she said she gives me the wrong touch.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, she's like, oh, she gives me the wrong touch. And it was so funny. Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_05Um, but I don't know where you even started with your notes because we took notes.
SPEAKER_02I started it was literally like not even five minutes in, and she's talking about how her love the bond is deeper deeper than any monkey, monkey love is deeper than any love with your kid. Your own flesh and blood. She's saying that and then later on they interview her son, and he like literally tells, like, oh yeah, the animals are more important than me.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's crazy.
SPEAKER_02And you can just see like how like he is so like what is it, like conditioned. Yeah, he's been groomed to think that this is okay.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And he just seems totally fine with it, which is and there's another family that is in there too, that same situation.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_02And that poor man.
SPEAKER_05The thing that bothered me, I think, the most about Tony Haddock's and Tonka is when she said, We just found one another. Do you remember her saying that we just found one another? No, you bought him off the black market, exactly, and he was wild caught caught. Which means he was taken from his mother from the African jungle, his native land, and you just found each other. That's not just it's not like you were on Craigslist one day looking for a chinchilla and you were like, Oh, look, a baby chimp.
SPEAKER_02This is a situation of finding each other. There's a story of a woman who got kidnapped and she escaped in the jungle and made a family with monkeys. That's finding one another.
SPEAKER_05Tonya wouldn't last.
SPEAKER_02No. No. Could you imagine her wig falling off? Oh my god.
SPEAKER_05She can down her face. Oh my god. But you know what? She's in jail now, so it's gonna it's gonna be a smear campaign. We're gonna make fun of her. I'm sorry. That's just if she wants to come after us, watch watch the freaking documentary because we're not the only one. You don't have to try that hard to make her look bad. So then we meet somebody named Pam Rosair who is still performing.
SPEAKER_02She's like pushing 80, probably.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And you'll see her with probably teenage-esque chimp. He's probably not even 10 years old, but he's wild and acting crazy and getting excited like young chimps do. She's got him tied up around the neck with a like a leash. Yeah. And she's like, you can tell like how she's like so mean and nasty to him.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah, she doesn't seem like a very pleasant bra. No. And we'll get we'll touch on that because in the fourth episode, I got some bad vibes from Miss Rosaire.
SPEAKER_02She's not cool either.
SPEAKER_05But it sounds like she's still performing to this day. And I believe at the end of the episode, she puts out a plea for more chimpanzees, which is wild. So then, was she the one that had the preemie chimpanzee that that nursed? Or was that the other lady? There was there was somebody that said it was her.
SPEAKER_02It was her. Because they go back to like her whole history, and her husband was like, walked in.
SPEAKER_05And she was breastfeeding the chimp.
SPEAKER_02Both her baby and the mother.
SPEAKER_05I wanna make it very clear that I do not disagree with like breastfeeding or nursing someone else's child. But the thing that I don't like about what happens here with Pam Rosaire and this premature chimp is that number one, that chimp should not be with a human. That chimp should be with its mother.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_05Their mother. I shouldn't say it, because it's not an it, but sometimes, you know, due to the way we were brought up, you know, occasionally we slip into that it uh mentality. But they should be with their mother. The thing that bugs me is it further humanizes the chimpanzee. And Pam herself brought up that whole topic of the humanzy phrase, saying that these chimps are half human, half chimp, which is just uh it's vile because it is preconditioning people to excuse this type of behavior where they take wild animals who belong in the wild and they think it's okay to treat them like a human when we very obviously have evidence through multiple attacks and issues of welfare that these chimps are not thriving. They're not humans. They cannot thrive in human environments.
SPEAKER_02But the whole humansey thing came where we're I've looked into humansies, people were saying that it is when a human and a chimp have a baby together, right? That's a human. I think that's part of it, yes. So is there another culture out there saying that like chimps when you condition them and train them to be humans, they are like humansies?
SPEAKER_05I think so. I think they're trying to blur those lines.
SPEAKER_02Because I've only heard of the humansies as a one term, and I watched this was probably a year ago, about how there was like a famous chimp that was everybody, the guy scientist, whatever, was saying he was a humansey, and they had to do like all these like DNA tests on him to show that he was not, like he had no human DNA.
SPEAKER_05And that's probably just coming from the overconditioning of the humanization of chimpanzees.
SPEAKER_02And you know how Yeah, because they were like he walks up straight all the time. Well, he was probably trained to do that.
SPEAKER_05Yes. It was he a circus chimp?
SPEAKER_02I don't I think he bounced around. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05So, you know, the fact that she's breastfeeding this chimp, I think is just is so problematic in that it's furthering this glurred line between human and chimpanzee and making people believe that this is an acceptable practice. When in reality, you know, am I saying that her saving the life of the chimpanzee by breastfeeding the chimpanzee is wrong? That's a little gray for me. What I don't like and what pisses me off is that the baby should have never even been in her possession, first off. Second off, it's just furthering her delusion and her mental instability.
SPEAKER_02You gotta think of how she's bonding with it now, like a mother and child would be bonding.
SPEAKER_05Correct.
SPEAKER_02And that's not healthy, no, and that's warping her mental state.
SPEAKER_05Yes. That's that was the issue that I had. And then on top of that, you are showing that chimpanzee that it's equal with your daughter.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And all of these other things. And that's that's really which can be very devastating in situations you will hear. Yeah. So some of the other interesting tidbits that I found out really interested me. And just jump in with your notes if I'm going too quickly, but like I was writing like a fiend.
SPEAKER_02You wrote a lot better than me, but I was just like she was stunned.
SPEAKER_05I'm like, I couldn't dear in the headlights, couldn't process. Yeah. It was interesting that they actually had to go undercover because of the notoriety of the actual director. And because of the hatred that the exotic animal community has toward the director because of his work with Tiger King.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05They knew that these people were not gonna talk to him. So they they got a circus performer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And they had him become a proxy director and had him do all the interviews and act in the space of the director who then guided him in order to make this film, which seems a little deceitful, but at the same time, when we're looking at it as they knew something was going on and they knew it was wrong because we have our good friend, isn't it, Angela?
SPEAKER_02Oh yes, who was the whistleblower.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, you know, they already knew hokey shit was going on. And so they were just doing what they had to do to get the story. And I don't think necessarily when you're already playing with fire, I mean you gotta figure out how to dance around that.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah. And there were there were they're like, we're just we're just here to tell your story. And it's just like that's you know, maybe it, maybe not, you know. And it's just like I think that they just really wanted, I don't know where the director and the journalists sit at.
SPEAKER_05Like, I don't know if well, if we look at Dwayne Cunningham, who was the proxy director, he is convicted of exotic animal. Yes, in the past, yes. So, you know, looking at that, does he kind of understand the mentality of where they're coming from? Definitely, but I think I think he was a very useful tool in blowing the lid off of this thing.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and I think too, like you could see that like as he was uncovering stuff, he's like, This is not right. Yeah, like you could tell, like, even like what he's experienced through his life as a circus performer, like he learned and growed and was like, we shouldn't be doing this.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. So that yeah, that was pretty crazy. I think I think a lot of the the way that he bonded with the people, he kind of had a kinship with them a little bit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think it was.
SPEAKER_05You can tell he had compassion for the people.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_05And when I look at somebody like Tonya Haddock's, I have enough emotional maturity to say, like, girl, you need help. You need help.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And I don't hate her, but there is that like sense of like you need to be stopped. So, like, how can we like you kind of do have that compassion because she's she's sick in her head, and I I think that she truly believes her delusions. Like, I think she's so like bought into this that she's believing her own lies at this point.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_05You know, and so it's kind of hard to maybe when you especially when you get into these circles with these people, to like really say, you know, like you are the evilest of the evil. I mean, yeah, in theory, but he spent a lot of time one-on-one with these people and with these families. And, you know, at the end, I mean, they're they're hugging and apologizing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I think that was a very mature and respectful thing to do because that's what this is all about is like communicating and respect, you know, like we might hear some background. Somebody's moving a trash can to the street, and the dogs are like, somebody's breaking in.
SPEAKER_05Yep.
SPEAKER_02Stop, you guys. Stop.
SPEAKER_05So yeah, it it was weird. I think some of the most disturbing imagery throughout the entire thing for me personally was like all of the children that they allowed to be to be around the chimpanzees. Yes. And the weird like amount of like kissing that was happening.
SPEAKER_02And like and like, trust me. Not delicate kissing either.
SPEAKER_05I kiss my little truck jumper right now. I'm all over him. I'm because he's just adorable, but I'm not like opening.
SPEAKER_02Mouth to mouth with tongue with that little guy. Like there was not like kissing your dog on its head.
SPEAKER_05Like it was some uncomfortable images of like full-on mouth to mouth and just like trusting, like literally handing over infants to chimpanzees.
SPEAKER_02And then we cut to that one scene where the one that I talked about in the one episode I mentioned about how the one even grabbed the kid at his birthday party. They show that clip on there. Yeah. And how I was like, I didn't even know there was a clip out there.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I just read about it.
SPEAKER_05And you see it, and like everybody starts like briefly screaming, and then they're just like, Oh, he just wanted to give you meant no harm.
SPEAKER_02He meant no harm. He just wanted to give you a few. And here he is with half of his nose, like scarred on the floor. Literally. Like, it's like he meant no harm.
SPEAKER_05Nose loss. And that's Mike Casey, right? Yes. Yeah. So like Mike Casey, if you listened to our Chimps and Polos episode, lost his nose to having it bitten off by a chimp.
SPEAKER_02And then he's doing these parties with these children of with like his evidence right on his face of how harmful these animals.
SPEAKER_05People are just chill with it. That's like that's like being like, hey, I'm gonna come bring a tiger to your kid's birthday party, but I got no arm.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that girl with the no arm.
SPEAKER_05I just I don't get why that's a thing. That that was crazy.
SPEAKER_02So did you like lose your arm in the in a car accident or something? No, she bit it off a year ago.
SPEAKER_05That's crazy.
SPEAKER_02Like, what? I'm sorry, but if a guy with a scarred up face was anywhere near me with a chimp, I'd be like, nah. I wouldn't be anywhere near somebody with a chimp, anyways. But like, come on, like, does that just not shoot red flags?
SPEAKER_05No, a hundred percent. And these people are just like And like there was footage of them struggling to get them under control in public, and they talked a lot about Travis's story. Travis's story, yeah. It it filled up probably a whole episode, but there was I mean all the footage. So if you guys actually want to watch it, watch it to put images to the words of what we spoke on our Chimps and Polos episode.
SPEAKER_02I think it's like the second one.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it it I think it might be. I don't remember exactly what you know.
SPEAKER_02But you need to watch it all, get the whole context.
SPEAKER_05Yep, it it was crazy. Yeah, they've got him like just jumping around in public and they they even interviewed they interviewed the cop that shot him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And that's the cop that helped get that amendment started for mental health.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so that was crazy. And then some of the comments that really bugged me was the quote, and I don't have who exactly said it, which sucks, but I might remember. You can shape them into being you. Was that Tonya that said that?
SPEAKER_02I think so. Or was it the other girl?
SPEAKER_05But it was essentially them admitting to like we can groom them into being what we want them to be.
SPEAKER_02I think it was that one I think it was that one trainer lady that does what's her name, the other woman?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, maybe, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Who knows? If you guys watch it, you'll find which person that said that.
SPEAKER_05But that but that's so gross to me because that's like essentially being like, I'm gonna adopt an infant child only for the fact that I want to raise them to be exactly like me. The whole purpose, if you really want to humanize a chimp, okay, think about it this way. If you really wanted to humanize a chimp, and I'm like using hair quotes right now, for the for the right reasons, you want your kids to be better than you, right? Like your hope as a parent is to say, I hope that my kids grow up to be better than I was. Yeah, I want them to be kinder, I want them to be smarter, I want them to be more brave, I want them to do all of these things better than me. And like that's our goal as parents. So if you really love this chimp as much as you say you do, why don't you want the best for that? Yeah, why you can shape them into being you.
SPEAKER_02So weird. That sounds like- I know that that when that happened, that really you like jumped up and down on the couch.
SPEAKER_05You were like, That is I'm like, fucked up, dude. And then the whole Tonka had a stroke thing.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, and he's like talking about yeah, and she's like, he's locked in the cage right now, he's not allowed outside access because he had a stroke and he can't be climbing, and he's like climbing all over the cage, and jumping up and down, yeah.
SPEAKER_05So some things that I didn't know was Tonka was in George of the Jungle, which was one of your favorite movies.
SPEAKER_02I loved George of the Jungle. I did not know that.
SPEAKER_05And uh was in Babe Pig in the Big City, yeah, which I never seen. I didn't see Babe either, but you know that those are some interesting little tidbits because just thinking of like how famous he is and even the guy that worked with him, yeah, and that all that the actor. I don't I never wrote wrote his name down, which sucks. Did you? I even want to watch, but he was in a lot of movies, Alan Cummings, yes, Alan Cummings. So like he obviously had a real big attachment to Tonka, and they even told him like he'll be able to go and retire and live at this huge, beautiful place and have everything he wants.
SPEAKER_02It's a sanctuary, and they sold him this lie that you know, when Tonka retired, because apparently they don't work with him after five years old.
SPEAKER_05Like the cutoff seems to be five years old. Yeah, because they'd become a lot of people. They become sexually mature, they get more aggressive, they start to get into the 200-pound range. It's like fighting off an adult human, yeah, you know, so they don't put them in movies anymore past that age. And so he thought that Tonka had retired to this beautiful sanctuary, having everything he wants, and then come to find out he's stuck in a cage, not allowed to go outside, not allowed to see grass. She said, you know, he's not an outside chimp, he's a sick chimp. Yeah, like and then she's in there feeding him freaking McDonald's, yeah, and red powers. Yep.
SPEAKER_02Talking about where I said earlier giving chimps autism. For real.
SPEAKER_05But it's crazy because they were giving him cupcakes. Yeah, it's it's really bizarre, just the the level of like the Lulu happening here.
SPEAKER_02It's so wild. And they're like, I get it, like handing them things to like open up and stuff is like enrichment, but to a point it's not anymore because they know what the heck they're doing.
SPEAKER_05But but think about it in this in this regard, enrichment in a natural sense is supposed to mimic natural behaviors. I know, but they're like So, what you should do in that case, if you really want to enrich, take a giant log, hollow it out with like, you know, a bore chisel.
SPEAKER_02Slick in that thing with bugs, bugs, put bugs in there.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, like throw some freaking honey in there and and some, you know, mealywort, whatever, I don't know, whatever they eat.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but it looked like they were trying to pass off the junk food as in like our enrichment.
SPEAKER_05Oh, 100%.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05They thought that they because they like it. Well, yeah, no shit. It's sure what animal doesn't get addicted to sugar. If you gave Rocky your dog a donut every day for the rest of his life, he'd gonna be waiting for that donut, he will like clockwork, and he's gonna go crazy for it. I mean, occasionally, very little amounts, we will give our pigs bread as an enrichment treat. We they don't get bread every day, they do not get it. I mean, maybe twice a month, and it's mixed in with fruits and vegetables because it's a grain, you know, they love it, dude. They go nuts for the bread. And then when it's gone, they're still squealing for more. It's like, no, no, when it's gone, it's gone. You know what I mean? We've had we've done funerals where we've given chocolate crib cakes, you know, things like that. So like they they love it, obviously, for very obvious reasons, but that's not a natural not at all a natural enrichment item at all. But you had you had made the comment because they were like, Yeah, we're trying to mimic their natural habitat and their natural behaviors. And you were like, Do you see cinder blocks in Africa? Yeah, it's really funny.
SPEAKER_02I was so impressed. I was like, Do you see cinder blocks in Africa? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But it seems like the thing that I noticed, and did you if you maybe you notice it too, is that the chimps who don't do the parties anymore have the shittiest cages. Like their bars weren't painted. They didn't, they were they were like, Yeah, these are the older chimps that don't do parties anymore. They're retired, and all their bars are grimy, dirty, nasty.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's all the stuff they were getting in trouble for. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_05But you the chimps that do the parties had the nice painted ones, the young chimps.
SPEAKER_02You know why in the night? It's because the people are coming to look at them, probably. Holy that just clicked in my mind.
SPEAKER_05It was like night and day. Yeah. And they're all like towards the back in a different building. Where people can't see them in a completely different building with like nothing. Yeah, and then there's the nice and then the the little baby ones and the the young ones that they're using for the parties get the blankies and the murals painted on the walls and the tire swings and the hammocks, and then the other ones just get the front of the metal bars cage with nothing. Yep, metal bars. That that was gross. And then the other thing that killed me, and I I I made this connection, and you were like, dude, you're right, was that they were only selling the baby boys.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Because you can have one father and multiple be the father of multiple different pregnant mothers. So they wanted to keep the females because the females can get pregnant and the gestation is longer.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So if they can just keep cranking out the baby boys keeping the baby girls, girls, so they can just they're making more money. It's like the dairy industry. You know, they don't want the baby boys because the baby boys don't make milk and they don't get pregnant. So they have their breeding stock, which is the males, because that was the only available choice.
SPEAKER_02And I bet you the females are so more docile and they're just like aggressive.
SPEAKER_05We'll just call her, we'll call her Lena. Do you remember when Lena pointed out the way their rear ends looked?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, awful, like all blown out because they're just pushing out babies. Yeah. And sitting on cage bars.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. It was awful, disgusting. But yeah, they were baby boys were $30,000. And then later on in the episode, they said it was up to $65,000.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. It got up higher and higher. Like, because I think Travis's price was like like yeah, like half half of a hundred thousand.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty crazy. Flipping through my pages, you guys can probably hear it here. So yeah, and then they ended up doing making bedroom cages so that they could do more young chimps. So they were just turning bedrooms into cages with bars and you know, all of those things. It it's crazy. And then the 2017 lawsuit for the escaped chimpanzees, and how when they brought in Tonya after Angela, so Angela came in, she was the whistleblower.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05She was volunteering, and then Tonya took it over. She had no formal training.
SPEAKER_02None. And just to think, too, like she had so much confidence. Like, I'm gonna get in here, I'm gonna keep this place clean. Just me, keep this whole place in order. I'm gonna get all these charges dropped, and everything's gonna be fine. And she's the one that ends up.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, no training, no nothing. Yeah, no prior experience other than her own personal experience. Yes. Which wasn't very much. And that that was crazy, you know. And then we're coming up into 2020, and that's when the animals were seized. They showed that, which was pretty funny. I th I thought it I thought it was good. So the sanctuary, the chimp sanctuary that came in to seize all of the animals from the Missouri Primate Foundation, which was the sanctuary. I'm using quotations that was disguised as the chimp breeding that Tonya had took over. Right. So at this point in time, she's telling people Tonka's dead that he passed away.
SPEAKER_02And this whole time, the whole night before they come, she tranks him who met who knows how many times. Yeah. Shoves him in like an extra large dog crate, plastic dog crate that you can take.
SPEAKER_04I thought it was metal. I think it was like a plastic. I thought it was a battery cage.
SPEAKER_02I don't know. The the picture that they got of her and whoever else hauling in this 200-pound cage up the steps in a in a motel eight or whatever.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, a hotel that they put him in the bathroom because they didn't want him wrecking the hotel.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. She says he had the pee.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like, he's tranked.
SPEAKER_05What do you like Yeah? So they actually ended up stealing him. They told everybody that he was dead. And then that that's where shit really started popping off. Because you're we'll we'll get into that. Like we'll dissect that a little bit more. But she told everybody Tonka was dead.
SPEAKER_02Multiple times.
SPEAKER_05So they came in for the seizure. The guy and they ended up putting hidden cameras in.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the guy that we gotta shout out to P the die freaking savage man.
SPEAKER_05Oh, what was his name? The lawyer?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the lawyer who just would just like smell what a wonderful human being.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, he was pretty cool. But it was pretty funny because you know, she's crying and wailing and making this big dramatic thing that these animals are gonna be gonna be chased and shot, and it's gonna be so painful for them, and they're they're gonna be so stressed and they're gonna have to run around and made it out to be this thing.
SPEAKER_02And then literally, like the chimps were so excited to see new people that they were able to poke them through the cage bars without like little the one film and was so cute because he was like, You got me.
SPEAKER_05You poked me. Did you bite me? And then they started, you know, slowly getting sleepy. There was no stress, no stress thing playing with them while the drugs were taking effect, yeah. And then they did beautiful veterinary exams to make sure everybody was safe to uh be ship and healthy, so smooth and so professional, and you know that they didn't know those cameras were there, so it it's interesting to me because it's like if they thought they could get away with something, they would have done it then. But they didn't.
SPEAKER_02They did it Yeah, because the sheriffs were telling the documentary team, like, no, you can't film this. Correct. So the like week before, they were like, Well, we're gonna put up cameras if you're not gonna we're gonna film it one way or another, which is good job for and and nobody knew, but but the property owner.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and it was pretty funny because you know they're they're watching it and they're saying, Oh, you know, making it out to be like they've abused these chimps, and it just it it was the most ridiculous, like literally they're so dil disillusioned with what was actually going on. People who are trained, yes, professionals for work together as a team, people who aren't trained professionally. Yeah, it was crazy. It was so professional, and at that point they realized we're missing a chimp. And that was Tonka.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And at that point, that's when Tonya said he was in heart failure, he passed away. And so she proceeded from that point on after MPF goes down to start brokering exotic animals because she's lost the property to do it, right? So now she's brokering. And what that means is she is the liaison of getting these exotic chimps, monkeys, what have you, two owners and they pay a finder's fee. So she's just raking in the freaking profit.
SPEAKER_02And she's not shy about it either.
SPEAKER_05And like the crazy part was like how many pictures of like people just naked with these animals, naked in the tub with the animals, naked on the mountainside with the animals, topless women with the animals. Like, there was a lot of that weirdness going on. Yeah, it was really weird. And like I've I've gotten out of the shower and my dog's come up, he's been like, Hey mom, and I put him and I love him. I'm gonna kiss him as I'm getting out of the shower, but I'm not like, let me just take my clothes off to hang out with people.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and like take pictures of it. Oh, it's so gross.
SPEAKER_05To me, it's like they're like kids, they have the mental capacity of children, they're like children. So to me, it's like abusing a child because you you do that to a child, that's the Epstein files, my guy. Yeah, I mean, not I mean the Epstein files are worse, but like that type of behavior is like Epstein type stuff, right? Yeah, I feel the same way with that is like just throwing a titty out and hanging out with this chimp.
SPEAKER_02I'd be so scared that the chimp would rip off my titty.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and then we're going back to the humansey thing, and she's starting to say that Tonka's a human.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah. Tonka just gets me. I get Tonka.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And then remember when she said that she was talking about Tonka masturbating in front of her?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And how she would like kind of like encourage him. Yeah. And then the producer was like, wait, like he was and she's like, Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And she's like, but he was shy about it. He would hide under the blanket. Yeah. He was so cute. Like, what?
SPEAKER_02I'd be so freaked out. I would not want to be the but like you never see her with him. Like the picture of him and her on the front, that's totally Photoshop. There's not one scene in the whole thing of her and him one on one. Right. You're right. She's scared to be by him. Right? That's crazy. Not one scene. So see, the only time she would be is interacting through the cage. Is c through the cage. Yeah. And even then, there's a moment where like he grabs her and pulls real hard, and she pulls away real and she's like, you can see like that split second of like fear in her. And then she's like, gotta, she's gotta compose herself.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's it's something so the thing that got me was in 1973, captive chimpanzees were left out of the ESA, which is the exotic animal act. So which chimpanzees were left out of the correct okay, they were left out on purpose so that circuses and laboratories could could continue their mistreatment of them. Okay. The only thing that didn't include it was zoos or any type of business that was attempting to like help with the preservation of the species, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So I think that that was why a lot of this stuff, because you're seeing a lot of footage from like the 70s and 80s during this thing, because they're talking about the past and the and present and how they're kind of seeming to blend together. I think that that might be why a lot of this was so easy to get away with. Because it wasn't until 2015 that these laws were enacted for all chimpanzees, whether they were, you know, for laboratory testing, circus, whatever. And so that's crazy. But now we get to all of this is happening and they're they're going back and forth, which is why this is so disjointed, and we're just conversing about it. It was the cremation of Tonka. And so she's showing us his ashes.
SPEAKER_02And we're joking that it looks like what? Brownie mix. Yeah. Because it had like this fine, fine, tannish, brownish, powdery, like it was almost reddish.
SPEAKER_05Like it looked like powder.
SPEAKER_02It did, it kind of looked like clay almost, maybe like there was some like red clay dirt in there.
SPEAKER_05It was too fine.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And now obviously, we know how it ended. We know that she's hiding the chimpanzee in her basement. So we know that that's the end of this. But she had a letter sent because they were asking questions, and that lawyer was questioning where's Tonka? We know he's somewhere. You don't have proof, you don't have veterinary proof that he was put down or that.
SPEAKER_02She has no proof of anything. She was saying he had an enlarged heart, he had a stroke, you know.
SPEAKER_05Yep.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So her husband wrote a letter saying that they cremated him on a bonfire at 165 to 173. Like, are you stupid? So then the lawyer sends the letter back saying that doesn't work, right? That's not possible. We hired a forensic analyst to tell us that this is not possible. And she starts threatening the lawyer and all of these things. And, anyways, they send a letter back and they add another zero on the end of it, and they say, Oh, it was a typo. We forgot to add the ending zeros, so it was actually 100.
SPEAKER_02So at your bonfire, you have a thermometer or a temperature gauge in a contained area that can tell that it's going up to thousands of degrees.
SPEAKER_05Right?
SPEAKER_02Wow. And just to think too, I made this comment that night. If you it don't matter, like, I don't know. I'm guessing within like a few mile radius, you could be able to smell flesh burning.
SPEAKER_05200 pound, yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05100%.
SPEAKER_02So if you're burning something on an open fire outside and it smells like flesh burning, somebody's gonna call. And then one like, hey, uh, there's a bonfire around here and it ain't smelling so right. Yeah. Somebody like, I'm sorry, but if I witnessed something, I would be calling. I'd be calling somebody.
SPEAKER_05Like, somebody murdered somebody.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But so obviously Lena, who was watching it with us, said, you know, test the ashes. They ended up doing it, but the whole joke through the whole night was, ma'am, this is Brownie Mix.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Because we were we were.
SPEAKER_05We were just waiting. We were like waiting for the. And it was worse though. It it ended up.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it's war. It's coming. She's like, she's like, I forgot about that. That guy is a total creep.
SPEAKER_05I know. And he lives in Ohio.
SPEAKER_02Oh we should do a story on him.
SPEAKER_05Oh my god, he'd probably come after us, dude.
SPEAKER_02Do you think he would?
SPEAKER_05I don't.
SPEAKER_02Freaking know he looks he does look like he might. Maybe we won't. Let's keep his name out and everything because I he's too close to home.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. So, and then it's just bugging me that we got chimps in cages down in freaking southern Ohio. Ugh. Anyways. So, yeah, she's she's losing Haddock's by this point is losing her fucking marbles. Like she's gone, right? She's just grasping onto straws throughout this whole thing, and now we've gone from look at what I'm doing, I'm so great, to I gotta hide my chimp from the crazy people and fight them in a court of law to like I will do anything.
SPEAKER_02Do you have the zoom meeting thing in there?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I I think I mentioned it, but so at the end of episode two is when we see that Tonka is in the basement and she shows it and she lets the dock crew down there and admits to everything.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because they're doing the zoom meeting for the court thing, and she's like, We won! We won! We won! And it's just like, no, you just bought some time, and she's like And then she goes and she runs down to the basement and she was like, Oh, we got we got more time.
SPEAKER_05And she's like, he's fine down here, he's never seen grass, he's never seen sunlight, he's living in a basement. She's like, he's got a tablet, yeah, and then she was like, He's got his own email. If he emails people, it is what it is.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like you were just on a Zoom court call.
SPEAKER_05You said you you you he's dead and you're crying, you're like sobbing, your eyelashes are falling off.
SPEAKER_02Yep, literally, he was right under you the whole time.
SPEAKER_05That's so crazy. And then after the film crew left at 3 a.m.
SPEAKER_02Yes, they're like, What are we gonna do? This is bad.
SPEAKER_05Yep, and she starts to talk about everything that she did to keep Tonka away.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's when they show everything.
SPEAKER_05Yep, she admitted to everything. So she she admitted to getting him sedated, getting him to the holiday in, and then taking Tim to Wilkesville, Ohio. Mr.
SPEAKER_02Creepy, if you listen to this, don't come for us.
SPEAKER_05We won't say the name. So in Wilkesville, Ohio, there's a lovely little place.
SPEAKER_02But he's gonna know it's him in Wilkes.
SPEAKER_05Karen, I'm not saying his name. That's fine. So there's this place in Wilkesville that has chimps and agreed to hold Tonka away from the authorities.
SPEAKER_02And he's a felon too, isn't he? Doesn't he have a few?
SPEAKER_05I do think he has some sort of correct. So what he agreed to do was he had a chimp named Ricky who passed away. And he allowed Tonya to dig up Ricky's ashes and use them as Tonka's ashes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and they were saying, What an honor for Ricky to be able to be a part of this. Like, what?
SPEAKER_05It's crazy. So then we start learning about another gym. Because there's like six story after story. There's like six families involved in this craziness. And we learn about Buck, Buck Pendleton, and Buck's nanny, who he says such, she's such but you remember you're like, is she in a sex swing? And then we were like, the only person in this whole thing is the tatted sex wing girl who knows what's up.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, she's like the only person that's like like legit the realest person.
SPEAKER_05She was. She was really smart, but she ended up being Buck's nanny, and her name was Jamie. And she somehow got roped into this, but she said that Tamara Brijotti potentially was sleeping with her chimpanzee.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05After her husband died. She would dress Buck up in her husband's clothes. They would sleep in the same bed together, drink coffee in the morning together. A bunch of weird stuff. And at one point, as she got older, she supposedly allowed her daughter to move in to help take care of everything, right? Or maybe she moved back in because she was struggling, but she had a system. Buck would come down in the morning and have coffee with Tamara, and then they would have to put Buck away before her daughter could come into the house because Buck would get volatile.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Like it was like, who's coming into my space?
SPEAKER_05Well, apparently they forgot to lock his bedroom door. And he got and he attacked Tamara's daughter. And Tamara said when she called 911, you gotta shoot him and you gotta shoot him in the head.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And she screamed.
SPEAKER_02I mean, he's like, You gotta make it right. You gotta shoot him in the head. You gotta do it fast. It was like at least she was like being honest. Like, I don't want to. Here's the thing to like.
SPEAKER_05He was not volatile. He he should, in my opinion, he should have never been shot. Now we look at, let's compare. We look at Travis. Travis was very obviously in a rage. He severely mauled someone.
SPEAKER_02Okay. If they were there was no sign of stopping. Correct. So he started to go after the officers.
SPEAKER_05Bucked had retreated, and when the officer showed up, he was in a different area of the house.
SPEAKER_02Like she was able to get him out of. And he did not come up to the officer.
SPEAKER_05I mean, they were trying to draw him out, do you remember? And he and he kind of was just like toddling on over. Yeah. She was she was mauled, don't get me wrong. I'm not excusing it, but she was not like she was not like she just had a big old chunk ripped out of it.
SPEAKER_02And the brother said, too, that like he mauled her and then he turned around, and the mom said he looked like, oh no, what did I do? Correct. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And a lot of people are saying that Tamara used that situation to get rid of Buck.
SPEAKER_02Probably.
SPEAKER_05Because she was tired of taking care of him and he was getting too volatile.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So, anyways, we go back to good old ponyaddocks.
SPEAKER_02There was even I think it was someone who was friends with Travis's mommy. What was her name? Sandra. Yeah. Because they had her friend on there. And she was saying that. Good. If it comes back to me, yeah.
SPEAKER_05I I think I talk about that because we talk about Sandra getting another gym. So we're back to Tonka finally being discovered towards the end of this, right? And he because she's talked to multiple people about Tonka. And it gets to the point where when the director finally goes to the authorities and said, I know where Tonka is, I've got all the evidence. Here it is. And they finally come to seize them. She doesn't even know that it's the director that ratted her out.
SPEAKER_02She's got no clue.
SPEAKER_05Because she's talked to so many people about Tonka.
SPEAKER_02She's going and getting groceries.
SPEAKER_05And texting people about it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And she's like walking past a friend on the street, and they're like, Oh, what are you doing? Oh, I just got getting groceries for Tonka. Like she's flaunting around that she's got this chimp locked in her basement.
SPEAKER_05Yep. So at this point, he's removed by U.S. Marshals and he goes to a sanctuary. And the sanctuary is absolutely stunning.
SPEAKER_02Amazing.
SPEAKER_05The life that you totally wish for a chimp if they had to be at a sanctuary is this freaking place. It's beautiful. And by the end, you see him, the actor Daniel Cummings, whatever his name was, he gets to see him and he's in tears because it's so beautiful. He's like, This is what I had imagined.
SPEAKER_02Alan, Allen.
SPEAKER_05Alan. But the crazy part is that at the end we find out a few crazy little tidbits. So Sandra was Travis's owner. Travis is the one that almost fatally mauled Sandra, who lost her face in both of her hands to that really horrible Charla. Charla, sorry.
SPEAKER_02Carla or whatever you were calling her.
SPEAKER_05Charla.
SPEAKER_02Charla. That's what they call. Jeez, Louise.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, sorry. We're we're struggling with names. There's a there's so many moving parts in all of this. And so we get to the point where we find out that she ended up co-owning a chimp after all of that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05With Pam Brigati.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And Pam, it just seemed like Pam needed help getting the She had no money. She had no money. And then she was like, she even bragged about like when Sandra would come over to have sleepovers and stuff. She was like, he never wanted to sleep with her. He always wanted to sleep with me.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And it's crazy because she was ordered to never be able to own a chimp.
SPEAKER_02Own a chimp, yeah. She had, yeah.
SPEAKER_05And so, but the crazy part was that Pam was bringing this chimp over to Sandra's house. There's there's photos of him on the floor.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Just absolutely insane levels of like, we're just gonna do whatever we want to get our our fix.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And at the end of it, we find out that one of Pam's chimps passed away. Very weird.
SPEAKER_02It was the young one that was running around jumping all crazy. Yep. She was like, he was young too. And then she says, I think it was something wrong in his in his head.
SPEAKER_05Yep.
SPEAKER_02Like what you blew his freaking brains out.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And then she's crying at the end saying, if anybody has a baby chimp, yeah, let me know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And it's just like, girl, you're about to kick the bucket yourself and you But it's just crazy because it's like if you really miss them that much, like I lose an animal, I'm not rushing out to get another one to replace that.
SPEAKER_02No, no.
SPEAKER_05Now, do I usually end up with an animal? Yes, because they need me and they need the services that I can provide through rescue.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But it's not, I'm not seeking them out.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05They just find me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they do. That's a legit. Yeah. They just find me. They do, yeah.
SPEAKER_05And then at the very end, we find out that Miss Tonya had it. Got mauled herself by a chimp.
SPEAKER_02Half of her ear is missing. And she's like, it's just a little bit. Girl.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02The whole half of your ear got ripped off, and you're just like, She's got bruises everywhere. She comes crippling in, walking in all. And then she was like, I'm going to answer this for you because I already know that it's coming. So she like cuts everybody off and she was like, You're going to ask me, would I own another chimp again? Or whatever, however she words it. And she was like, Yes, I would. I would own another chimp. Even after all this happened to me, I would own another chimp. And we're like, girl.
SPEAKER_05Even though she didn't even have that close of a relationship with the chimp she was taking care of, anyways, because she could barely manage them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. It's like she wants the cute babies. And then once they're gross, don't be a gross chimp, mommy. So crazy. So yeah, watch it.
SPEAKER_05Or don't.
SPEAKER_02Or don't.
SPEAKER_05If you think it's gonna be traumatizing to you because it was traumatizing to us. But we've been talking about this for an hour.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Yeah, let's start it. So yeah.
SPEAKER_05We hope that you guys have we hope that you're not a weird chimp, mommy.
SPEAKER_02And seek help if there's voices in your head.
SPEAKER_05It's telling you to do this. If you think this is okay, please seek professional help and counseling for your problems because this is not cool. And remember to follow us on Instagram, Rescue Rebels Pod. If you want to send us a suggestion for one of our next episodes, we will be pumping them out until June 1st. Once June hits, we're going to be taking three months off, so you won't be hearing from us. But please go back, share some of our old episodes, make sure you stay up to date. We'll probably still be active on social media. And if you want to get a free sticker because you decided to leave us a rating, send us your email, rescueblespod at gmail.com.
SPEAKER_04We really can't wait to see our number of don't know if we have a ball.