Western chimpanzee Jeje ripped a baby girl from her mother's arms and killed her in an attack in Guinea. Photo / Getty Images
Western chimpanzee Jeje ripped a baby girl from her mother's arms and killed her in an attack in Guinea. Photo / Getty Images
An angry mob has ransacked a zoo after a famous tool-using chimpanzee ripped a baby from its mother’s arms and mauled her to death in a violent incident.
Seny Zogba was working in a cassava field in Bossou, Guinea, when the chimpanzee came from behind and bit her before dragging the 8-month-old baby from her arms and into the forest.
The baby’s mutilated body was found 3km from the Nimba Mountains Nature Reserve, with witnesses fearing the chimp may have used tools to butcher the infant.
The attack has been blamed on famous mature Western chimpanzee Jeje, who belongs to a small troop in the region known for their human-like use of tools.
Western chimpanzee Jeje ripped a baby girl from her mother's arms and killed her in an attack in Guinea. Photo / Getty Images
Ape expert Gen Yamakoshi told the Times the killing isn’t a surprise as the chimpanzees in the area “no longer fear humans”.
“It is not clear if the accidents are as a result of food or excitement’, he told the publication.
“It is similar behaviour to how chimps treat one another. If they are excited they cannot control their behaviour.”
The shock killing angered locals with a violent mob storming the Bossou Environmental Research Institute, a facility that has studied chimps for decades.
Aerial of the Unesco site Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve, Guinea.
The mob brought the baby’s corpse to their door before ransacking and destroying the facility.
They set fire to equipment including drones and computers and destroyed over 200 documents.
It’s the sixth recorded attack on a human from a chimpanzee at the nature reserve this year.
Protester Joseph Doré reportedly told local media the “way she was killed” had “angered the population”.
The chimps’ use of technology to eat food has made them famous, with the group of chimps often seen using stone hammers and anvils to open nuts, the most sophisticated act ever observed of humanity’s genetically closest relative.
Over time the chimps have become boxed in a 16sq km pocket of forest and potentially have been cut off from mates living over the hill.
Villagers and apes ave lived peacefully together for years, but it is feared the chimps’ “over-familiarity” with humans and shrinking forest space has led to an increase in likely attacks.
Yamakoshi, however, said it wasn’t clear whether the attacks are down to food or “excitement”.
There are just seven chimpanzees left in Guinea’s Bossou forest.
In 2022, the oldest member of a chimpanzee tribe, Fana, died in solitude at 71, leaving behind two sons, Foaf and Fanwa.
