MARLOTH PARK – Coming across a chimp called Missy on a farm in Liberia in 2013, was the start of a heart-wrenching journey for Gail Gillespie-Fox and led her to write a book about her experiences.
“I don’t think there will ever be anything else to equal it in my life,” said Gail. She ran her own dog-grooming business in Johannesburg for 18 years, a career she treasured but gave up to move to Liberia to join her partner, Mark.
Her life changed when she met a woman carrying an orphaned baby chimpanzee.
The tiny creature had been captured by bush-meat hunters who had murdered her chimp mother and family.
The orphan’s name was Missy, and Gail wrote a book Her Name is Missy, about the experience.
Gail picked the chimp up and it clung to her.
“I saw her trusting eyes and was mesmerised by the look she gave me.”
Her life changed. After seeing Missy on other visits to a farm where she lived, she vowed to find Missy a sanctuary where she could live with her own kind.
Eventually she could take Missy home from where she was living to an apartment in the compound where they were staying.
“She was as delightful as a mischievous toddler.”
Then, just as she was about to get Missy a new life in a sanctuary, Ebola struck in 2015 and no animals were allowed to be exported out of Liberia.
There was also an advertising campaign which gave the perception that chimps gave humans Ebola. This increased the number of chimps being killed.
She often had to hide Missy, could not get her to the vet easily and with Mark had to live like a criminal on the run.
She started to look for a sanctuary, and Chimp Eden near Mbombela agreed to take Missy in but then Ebola broke out and South Africa as well as most countries banned any animals entering their country. This was in 2104.
When people started dying of Ebola in Liberia and Guinea, the threat to Missy became greater. She had to be confined to the apartment.
Looking around for a sanctuary became a priority. She had to take flight to Missy’s vet’s house, until Gail got the idea to smuggle her to a sanctuary in Guinea.
The Chimpanzee Conservation Centre agreed to take her in, even though they only took in Guinean chimps. An arrangement was made with the government.
The Chimpanzee Conservation Centre
See how chimps are integrated into the group at the Chimpanzee Conservation Centre
On their final morning “my heart was pounding like a train but I had to say goodbye to my precious girly,” says Gail.
Today Missy is legally in Guinea, safe and well cared for in the sanctuary.
The biggest consolation for the couple, who now live in Marloth Park and run the Foxy Crocodile Bush Retreat guest house is “that she is with her own kind.”
• Read Gail, Mark and Missy’s remarkable story in her self-published Her Name is Missy. Available on www.amazon.com. Mail for orders: gaillyngillespie@gmail.com.
