The #1 source for news about monkeys and apes

[Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

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.