THE emotional moment a chimp says goodbye for the last time to the zookeeper who saved his life a quarter of a century ago has been captured in heartbreaking footage.
Video shows the zoo head talking tenderly to the primate, who embraces him and seems reluctant to let him go.
Touching footage of the pair’s final farewell shows the zoo director at the Nicaraguan National Zoo Eduardo Sacasa saying his goodbyes to 38-year-old Pipo the chimp.
Eduardo – who is also the zoo’s chief vet, gives the chimpanzee a tender kiss as he explains to him that he has to go.
The pair are being split up after Nicaragua’s government secured the takeover of the zoo.
As he squats down in front of Pipo’s enclosure, footage shows Eduardo speaking with him before the two hold hands.
He then tells the chimp in Spanish: “I’ve come to say goodbye to you.”
Eduardo goes on: “We have had such a long time together…and now I come to say goodbye to you. I have to go.
“Marina [Sacasa’s wife and colleague] and I are tired, and I’ve come to say goodbye to you, did you hear?
“You behave well when we are not here, and be calm. We are going to talk to them so that they always give you love.”
He adds: “Pipo, I’m sorry to leave you… Very sorry. It hurts so much to leave you.”
As the footage ends, Pipo and Eduardo share a kiss before saying goodbye.
Eduardo later explained how he had gotten to know Pipo, and how he saved his life 25 years ago.
“He came from a zoo in Havana, Cuba,” he said. “He was just 11 months old and is now around 38 years old. I met him in 1997 when we took over the management of the zoo.
“From the day we met, we had good chemistry, and I gradually gained his affection and friendship, because he is also very angry, and with the strength of almost five men, he can be very dangerous.”
I only hope that just as we took care of him for 25 years… the new ones who will be in charge of the zoo continue to do so
Eduardo Sacasa
When they took over the zoo, they discovered Pipo had suffered a horrendous accident that went unnoticed by the previous management.
“We saw that in the small cage in which he was at that time, he had suffered an accident,” Eduardo said.
“The roof, which was made of pure iron rods, fell off and crushed his little head, leaving his face shattered and fractured.
“A neurosurgeon practically rebuilt him, but there were injuries such as the loss of several teeth or his ‘little sideways eye’ or – as we call him – cross-eyed, but always with incredible intelligence.”
Eduardo said Pipo’s injuries had made him more aggressive over the years, and they had built a bigger cage for him.
In 2012, the chimp suffered another horror accident after slashing himself with a knife that a zoo visitor had thrown into his cage in a backpack.
“A youth from a school threw a backpack at him and there was a large knife inside,” he said.
“With his intelligence, he opened the backpack, took out the knife, opened the blade, and accidentally cut both his legs, causing very large injuries to one of them.”
Eduardo said the incident made Pipo even more aggressive and would pull the sutures out of his wounds making the healing process last even longer.
The frustrated animal would “bite the old wounds until pieces of flesh came off,” and had to be kept away from visitors.
“He could not see any group of schoolchildren, and it would be worse if they deceived him into thinking that they were going to give him food and in the end, they did not give him anything,” Eduardo explained.
But he added that losing Pipo was like losing a family member.
“With great pain in my heart, with tears in my eyes, I only hope that just as we took care of him for 25 years, giving him a lot of affection, a lot of love, pampering him like a son… the new ones who will be in charge of the zoo continue to do so because he is a very grateful little animal,” he said.
Chimpanzees are highly intelligent creatures and can build remarkable bonds with human beings in their lives.
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