Travis, Tragedy and the Other Chimpanzees

In February 2009, when the police arrived at her home in Connecticut, they found Travis, a 14-year-old chimpanzee owned by Sandra Herold, attacking her friend Charla Nash. Travis had shot and stabbed Charla, causing severe injuries to her hands and ears. Herold, who was the owner of Travis, tried to stop the attack but was unable to save Charla.

Authorities were aware of Travis’ potential threat, yet took no action, leading Nash to file a $150 million lawsuit against the State of Connecticut. Nash has once again made headlines this week, over four years since the incident occurred.

The state permitted individuals to own chimpanzees during the period when she was assaulted, and the claims commissioner asserts that her chances of winning this recent lawsuit are slim due to the state’s general immunity to legal actions. Nash has already been awarded $4 million from Herold’s estate, who passed away in 2010.

The work of the Nonhuman Rights Project offers some poignant background to our argument that chimpanzees, like humans, have a fundamental right to bodily liberty and should not be kept in captivity. It gives us a distressing insight into the tragic long-term consequences and the wrongful nature of something when it goes against this fundamental right and brings ownership of chimpanzees into the world.

In 1995, Travis came into the world at a self-proclaimed “sanctuary” in Missouri, and just three days after his birth, he was separated from his mother, Suzy, in order to be “adopted” by the Herolds in exchange for $50,000. Suzy had spent the majority of her existence at a zoo. Coco, Travis’s biological father, had been taken from the rainforest in Africa when he was young.

Coco was recaptured. One of the boys pulled out a shotgun and killed Suzy. The teenage boys lunged at their car and ran into a nearby housing development. Suzy and Coco remained in Missouri, escaping in 2001.

Travis continued to live out her desires by sleeping in her bed, enjoying lobster at the table, sipping from a tall wine glass, and exhibiting other semi-human behaviors. Both narratives are included. In Germany’s Hanover Zoo, 2,500 frightened human visitors were evacuated while five chimpanzees managed to break free and explore their surroundings. On a separate occasion, she had previously escaped before C.J. Was captured again and sent to an Oregon sanctuary, while Buddy was tragically killed by a police officer. In July 2012, Buddy and C.J., Another chimpanzee pair, found themselves in a similar situation as they roamed the suburban streets after escaping from the cage that served as their “home” in Las Vegas.

Travis was brought up as a semi-human pet, dressed like a child, by the Herolds, spending much of his early life watching TV shows and commercials, going shopping with them, and traveling around.

In New York magazine, his narrative is recounted in somber yet captivating intricacy. Whatever illusion she held about him, Sandra Herold presumed that everything was fine, as Travis still slumbered in her bed, dined on lobster at the table, sipped from an elongated wine glass, and exhibited various quasi-human behaviors. We don’t always comprehend their thoughts, similar to how it is with adolescent humans. Chimpanzees mature and develop independent thoughts, just like their human relatives. Travis could be confined as long as he remained a young individual.

Travis, a fully sexualized adult with the strength of five men, had become a cause for concern, especially after primatologists alerted the animal control department. While he was labeled as “playful,” police officers agreed that this should have served as a warning sign. Consequently, Travis led the police on a two-hour chase through town, jumping on cars and rolling around in the road. He even lunged at a pedestrian and managed to unbuckle his seat belt, letting himself out of the car. Sandra, who was taking him for a drive around town, had her first encounter with Travis’s unruly behavior in 2003 when he was just 8 years old.

And then he lost control.

According to an article in New York magazine, when the initial police officer arrived, Travis struggled towards his vehicle and unlocked the door. Sandy hurried to her vehicle and dialed 911. Sandy even repeatedly stabbed him with a kitchen knife, but he refused to cease his actions. When Charla arrived, Travis assaulted her. Sandy added a Xanax pill into his tea and contacted her friend Charla to request her assistance in calming him down. On his final day, at the age of 14, and excessively overweight at 250 pounds, Travis appeared restless after consuming a meal consisting of fish and chips and ice cream cake.

The officer lurched. He struggled to remove his gun from its holster. His body became wedged against the center-console computer. Travis stared into the car, baring his blood-streaked teeth. In one swift motion the officer at last released his gun and fired four rounds. Travis staggered backward, screeched, defecated, and ran off.

The officer got out of his car. Huge chunks of scalp and fingers lay scattered around the yard. He walked slowly to the body. With the stump of what remained of her arm, Charla Nash reached for his leg.

As another group of officers set out into the woods to look for him, Travis scampered unnoticed into the house. Leaving a trail of blood, he knuckle-walked through the kitchen, the bedroom, and into his room. Then he grasped his bedpost, heaved forward, and died.

Charla Nash’s injuries were overwhelming. Travis had bitten or torn away her eyelids, nose, jaw, lips, and most of her scalp. He’d broken nearly all the bones of her facial structure. He’d fully removed one of her hands and virtually all of the other. He’d rendered her blind.

Travis was cremated, and when Sandy Herold passed away, his remains were laid to rest in the casket alongside hers.

However, despite her blindness and lack of hands, Charla has undergone numerous extensive surgeries, including facial reconstruction, since the assault.

It is a true tragedy in the sense of the word that the condition of human arrogance, presuming to “own” other animals who belong in their own natural homes, leads inevitably to the ruin and destruction of nature and our own blindness to our own true nature.

Tragedy will unquestionably ensue as a consequence. As we persist in this hubris, it is also a narrative that has been recounted repeatedly in the experiences and demises of numerous other chimpanzees and their captors. Moreover, it continues to loom over all the survivors as a malevolent hex – a reminder of the destiny that befell them all. Amidst this, the tale of a single chimpanzee unfolds, encompassing both his biological family and the humans who raised him.

The government decides that more medical experimentation is needed – Fifty will remain. The National Institutes of Health announced this week that the 310 chimpanzees who are “owned” by the government and currently exist in laboratories around the country will be released to sanctuaries, continuing Charla Nash’s plight.

“Chimpanzees are incredibly unique creatures. They are our nearest kin,” expressed Francis Collins, the director of NIH, during a press briefing. “We firmly believe that they warrant exceptional regard.” They warrant exceptional regard, believe we. Collins Francis, the director of NIH, said this at a press conference. They are our nearest kin, and chimpanzees are incredibly unique creatures.

They are currently detained – and for any possible reasons – in any type of confinement. And that last group of 50 individuals, comprising every single one of them, without any dissenters or exclusions, they certainly comply.

As we persist in this sense of superiority, disaster will inevitably occur.