Authorities try to determine how chimps got free to attack

HAVILAH, Calif. — St. James and LaDonna Davis raised Moe the chimp as their son. That was the word they used to describe him, and that was how they treated him — like a hairy, rambunctious child who was a pampered member of the family.

They taught him to wear clothes, to take showers, to use the toilet and to watch TV in their West Covina home.

On Thursday, the day they marked as Moe's 39th birthday, their love for the chimp nearly cost them their lives.

The Davises were visiting Moe at an animal sanctuary in eastern Kern County — where he had been banished in 1999 after biting a woman — when they were attacked by two other chimps and brutally mauled.

St. James Davis took the brunt of the attack, the ferocity of which stunned paramedics.

"I had no idea a chimpanzee was capable of doing that to a human," said Kern County Fire Capt. Curt Merrell, among the first on the scene. "It looked like a grizzly-bear attack."

Davis, 62, who remained in critical condition yesterday, was badly disfigured. According to his wife, he lost all the fingers from both hands, an eye, part of his nose, cheek and lips, and part of his buttocks. His foot was mutilated, and his heel bone was cracked. Authorities also told The Associated Press that his genitals were severely mauled.

"They don't think he's ever going to be the same," LaDonna Davis said from her home last night. She lost a thumb.

LaDonna, 61, said she was sitting at a table with her husband, preparing to cut Moe's birthday cake, when she saw the two other chimps out of the corner of her eye. Moe, according to other accounts, was in his cage.

"I turned around, and they started charging," she said. One of the chimps pushed her against her husband and at some point bit off her left thumb, she said.

"James saw that, pushed me behind a table and took the brunt of everything else."

The attack ended when the son-in-law of the sanctuary's owners shot and killed the two rampaging chimps. Moe was uninjured.

Among the questions for which there were no immediate answers: How did the two chimps escape? And why did they attack?

The animals were housed in outdoor cages at the Animal Haven Ranch, a private sanctuary. The ranch, owned by Ralph and Virginia Brauer, has been licensed by the state since 1996 to take in primates, usually from zoos that no longer want them.

According to Kern County Sheriff's Commander Hal Chealander, Virginia Brauer was at home Thursday morning when she was startled to discover that four chimps — two young males and two older females — had entered her home.

She reportedly detained the two females, Suzie, 59, and Bones, 49. (Both are quite old for chimps, who rarely live past 50 in the wild or 60 in captivity, according to Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation group).

The male chimps — Buddy, 15, and Ollie, 13 — escaped. Virginia Brauer gave chase, and soon found the chimps mauling the Davises, Chealander said.

Buddy was the primary attacker, according to Chealander.

Brauer alerted her son-in-law, Mark Carruthers, who shot Ollie, with no apparent effect. He reloaded with more powerful, fully jacketed ammunition, this time turning on Buddy.

Carruthers "kneeled down, got pretty close and shot the first chimp in the head," Chealander said. "When he fell off Mr. Davis, the second chimp attacked Mr. Davis and dragged him down a walkway by the back of the house. ... By this time, Mr. Davis was really torn up."

Carruthers followed, and shot the second chimp in the head.

Male chimps usually stand about 4 feet tall and weigh between 90 and 120 pounds, experts say. They are strong and aggressive animals who routinely kill and devour much larger animals in the wild. Their upper-body strength is five to 10 times that of the average human.

"These are vicious, vicious animals that can pick you up and throw you across the room," said Dr. Tom Jenkins, an area veterinarian who is familiar with the Brauers' sanctuary.

Officials said they have no idea why the chimps attacked the Davises. But ape expert Deborah Fouts, director of the Chimp and Human Communication Institute at Central Washington University, said the attack may have been prompted by an emotion that chimps may share with humans: jealousy.

"Chimpanzees have a real sense of right and wrong and fairness and unfairness," Fouts said. "It sounds like people were showering a lot of attention on Moe, birthday cake and the like. ... Perhaps the other chimps were jealous of Moe."

Los Angeles Times reporters Clauida Zequeira, Amanda Covarrubias and Patricia Ward Biederman contributed to this report.