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  • From: Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>
  • To: monkeywire AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [monkeywire] Abandoned boy adopted by apes
  • Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 11:37:44 -0500

The Gold Coast Bulletin
April 16, 2002, Tuesday

SECTION: WORLD BRIEFING; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 217 words

HEADLINE: Abandoned baby adopted by apes

BODY:

A DISABLED Nigerian boy believed to have been adopted and raised by chimpanzees for 18 months is in care in a specialist children's home in the northern city of Kano.

Named Bello by nursing staff at the Tudun Maliki Torrey home, he was brought to them six years ago by hunters after being found with a chimpanzee family in the Falgore forest, 150 kilometres south of Kano. Believed to have been aged around two years when he was taken in, Bello is probably the son of nomadic ethnic Fulani people who travel through the region, said Abba Isa Muhammad, child welfare officer.

Mentally and physically disabled, with a misshapen forehead, sloping right shoulder and protruding chest, he was probably abandoned by his parents.

Such abandonments of disabled children are common among the nomadic Fulani.
"We do not know exactly how long he would have been with the chimps. Based on the traits he exhibits, we estimate that he would have been adopted when he was no more than six months old and nursed by a nursing chimp," the welfare officer said.

When Bello was brought in he walked in a chimpanzee-like fashion, moving on his hind legs but dragging his arms on the ground.

Still today he leaps, chimpanzee-like, claps his hands over his head repeatedly, cupping his hands, as monkeys do.




  • [monkeywire] Abandoned boy adopted by apes, Carrie McLaren, 04/24/2002

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