S7. E1: Jenny Desmond: Chimpanzees Forever
“We didn't want to start a chimp sanctuary. I mean, it's the most extreme really… they're the most, at least in my mind, they're just so socially complex and their needs are so complex and they don't really go back to the wild - ever. And they live to 50 or 60 years old and they have very complicated social groups. It's a lot. It's a lifetime… So, we were like, that's not what we want to do. So here we are. That's what we did.”
- Jenny Desmond
Jenny Desmond and her husband, Jimmy are the founders of Liberia Chimp Rescue and Protection.
Jenny’s interest in wildlife rescue and protection was sparked during a trip around the world at an orangutan sanctuary in Indonesia. Since then, she and Jimmy have lived in many countries throughout Africa and Asia and have worked with monkeys, gorillas, orangutans, and chimpanzees. And, until they lost her this past year, their dog, Princess worked right alongside them.
In 2015, the Desmonds got a call from the Humane Society of the US, that 66 former laboratory research chimps had been abandoned on some islands in Liberia — could they help? Soon after they arrived (and helped), it became very clear to them that there was a much bigger chimpanzee problem happening throughout Liberia.
Currently, the Liberia Chimp Rescue and Protection is home to 73 orphaned chimps, and not only are the Desmonds and their incredible team mothering and caring for 73 babies, but they are also working to end the bushmeat and pet trades that are creating so many orphans in the first place.
Western Chimpanzees are on the critically endangered list. Their population has declined by 80 percent in the past 24 years. At this rate, they will soon be gone. And, it’s not just the bushmeat and pet trades pushing the chimps toward the extinction list – it’s the fact that their habitat is getting smaller by the day.
With much grace and humor, Jenny shares what it means to ensure that the chimpanzees in her care thrive, and what we need to do to get behind her so that these animals don’t disappear.
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Transcript:
Jenny: [00:00:15] We don't want to start a chimp sanctuary, I mean, it's the most extreme, really. They're just so socially complex, their needs are so complex and they don't really go back to the wild, ever. They live, you know, to 50 or 60 years old. They have very complicated social groups. It's just a lot. It's a lifetime, you know? So we were like, that's not what we want to do. So here we are. That's what we did.
Elizabeth: [00:00:50] Hi, I'm Elizabeth Novogratz. This is Species Unite. It's October, which means it's our 30 day vegan challenge. If you didn't sign up for October 1st, you can still sign up. You can sign up any day in the month of October, and it will start at day one and you'll be honored to win either one of four sets of AirPods for better podcast listening or a Vitamix for better plant based eating. So if you haven't signed up, go to our website Species Unite and click 30 Day Vegan Challenge. You will receive 30 days of recipes, tips, information on all things plant based. If you're already vegan, sign up anyway, because it's really good info. If you have no interest in ever being vegan, just do it for ten. Go to our website SpeciesUnite.com and click 30 day vegan challenge. This conversation is with Jenny Desmond, Jenny and her husband, Jimmy, are founders of the Liberia Chimp Rescue and Protection. For many years, Jenny and Jimmy and their dog Princess traveled the world working to protect many species, including orangutans, gorillas and chimpanzees. Then, seven years ago, they got a call that sixty six former lab chimpanzees had been abandoned in Liberia, could they help? Soon after they arrived, it became very clear to them that there was a much bigger chimpanzee problem happening in Liberia.
Elizabeth: [00:02:37] Jenny, thank you so much for being here today. I'm really, really excited to have you.
Jenny: [00:02:42] How are you doing?
Elizabeth: [00:02:43] I'm really good. It's good to see you.
Jenny: [00:02:44] Yeah, I have the worst headphones ever because the chimps break everything. Jimmy just took Mary Beauty away. It would be like her jumping on me, pulling the earphones out, jumping on the computer. They eat all the earbuds, you know, they don't swallow them, but they take them immediately and it's like they spot them from like a mile away.
Elizabeth: [00:03:05] I guess that would be like a lot of stuff in your house too, right? You have to.
Jenny: [00:03:08] It's pretty much have nothing in our house. I mean, we started with some stuff and then it slowly kind of. When we had little babies then it was kind of like moving things higher and higher and then basically we removed everything like we have a completely empty house.
Elizabeth: [00:03:24] I want to get up to today and the fact that you have seventy-three chimps right there with you. I want to start and kind of work our way to how you got there, how these chimps got there. And so let's go way back to really how it all started.
Jenny: [00:03:40] Yes. So we were in Kenya at the time, working at a place called Colobus Conservation, which is a fantastic rescue center for monkeys in Diani Beach in Kenya and they do a lot of great work. We were living right on the beach, Jimmy, Princess and me. It was a gorgeous place and we were asked to go to Liberia for five weeks to help and do some crisis intervention. In a situation where former research chimps who had undergone 30 years of invasive research for human vaccines, in Liberia had been basically abandoned on these islands that were kind of considered retirement centers. These retirement islands have been set up for them by New York Blood Center, which is a blood bank based in New York. They had done these decades of research and then they left the country, but they left kind of a small skeleton team here to feed the chimps every other day, to make sure they had some water.
Elizabeth: [00:04:38] Would the team go like in boats to the island?
Jenny: [00:04:41] Yeah, they would go in boats every other day. They were a local team here. They basically just kept getting money from the New York Blood Center to do this. But no real oversight or management. There is no one from the blood center here on the ground anymore. There was no one even at the lab anymore. So it was just kind of this crazy system for 10 years. I always say who decided every other day, like, how often should we feed them? I don't know. I mean, once a day, almost once a week, I don't know. Let's go with every other day. It's kind of in the middle. The islands have no trees, really. They have a few. I mean, they have some trees, but no large trees. They really don't have shelter. They built no infrastructure on them at all. I mean, every sanctuary has some infrastructure, like a night dorm or some shelter, or because the islands are not where chimps would live, they would never live there. I mean, they don't have food there for them. They barely have trees.
Elizabeth: [00:05:36] There's nothing to eat until the boat comes.
Jenny: [00:05:39] Nothing to eat. The islands are estuarine islands. So the water around the islands is not even drinkable. There are few, like in the rainy season, there's water that you know, from streams that form on the islands, but they set up these kind of water systems. I mean, it's literally a tub. What do you call it, a barrel that's on a stand out in a little bit of way because of course, the chimps would knock it if they were on the island. And then there's a system that goes under the water into them. They have a little tap where they can get water, but someone has to fill those with fresh water. If no one fills them, they don't have water. So after 10 years, the New York Blood Center pulled out. They said, we funded what we said we'd fund, and the Liberian government really should be taking this over. They said they would provide lifetime care for those chimps, and certainly, they're still living and in fact, they're still having babies. It's just such a mess. But they left it in a mess and created a worse mess, of course, by walking away.
Elizabeth: [00:06:37] So they just bailed out. So now there's no one to feed them, right?
Jenny: [00:06:40] No one, no money coming in, no team in existence basically. They not only pulled out to feed the chimps, but they don't. They're not paying all these people who worked for them for 30 years. Some of the people worked for them for 40 years. So like, no income. So not just the chimps, but the humans.
Elizabeth: [00:06:58] Oh, come on.
Jenny: [00:06:59] Yeah, these guys. I mean, honestly, a big majority of the team, not necessarily the team who's still there now, but the team at the time who we came to meet, had many of them had worked for them for 30 or 40 years, you know, plus years and had known these chimps since they arrived as babies and suddenly nothing. They kept feeding them kind of as much as they could because they cared about them. And that's probably really what kept them alive. So they pulled out at the height of the Ebola crisis here, which I, we always think was potentially strategic. Like, maybe no one will pay attention. The irony of it is that one of the researchers who came in from NIH believe it or not, who was doing research here on Ebola, was alerted to the situation and raised the red flag. And then a big coalition of animal welfare and rights groups got together, and that's who contacted us. So we were contacted by this coalition to come in.
Elizabeth: [00:07:57] So they want you to come for five weeks. Yeah. What were you going to do in five weeks?
Jenny: [00:08:02] Five weeks we were going to. I mean, it was basically chaos because no one really knew what we were going to do or what was going to be done. I think everybody kind of banded together and just said, let's get some people over there to at least make sure the chimps are getting some food, getting fresh water, build a little bit of a team back up, at least a basic team, and then let's go from there. So it was kind of really a crisis intervention. And so we came and we saw in five weeks, you know, of course, that was a very short time. But during the five weeks, everybody kind of said, obviously this is an ongoing need that we need to kind of address. So then we were asked to come back for a year, basically a year minimum and which we agreed to. I don't know how we agreed to this, but yeah, I mean, honestly, it was like we were here in the worst rainy season. I mean, I've been in rainy seasons. I've never seen anything like what's here and the total crisis situation. And again, we were offered to stay in this beautiful beach house in Kenya, and we left and came here for our life sentence.
Elizabeth: [00:09:22] Not to mention, it's like the height of Ebola. But yeah.
Jenny: [00:09:27] You can imagine our family was like, luckily, we have a supportive family, but they were like, That's a really dumb idea. But you know, I think the way we saw it was, I mean, it was really actually a bit strange. I think it was again one of those moments that we had where we really aligned because I remember saying to Jimmy, I don't know, what do you think? I mean, I'm kind of feeling like we should go back, but I think it's really a stupid idea. And he was like, You know what? I'm thinking we should go back too, and I also think it's a stupid idea, but I think we should do it. And we were both like, Oh my God if we both think we should do it, we should do it. So we did it. When you look at turning points in your life, of course, it's, we know it's what we should have done, but we don't regret it. But I think we just think that was such a crazy decision. We had always said the one thing we don't want to do is start a chimp sanctuary. We always said that because we had seen what it entailed and we said that's really not what we want to do. We're happy to do chimp conservation and that kind of thing. But we don't want to start a chimp sanctuary. I mean, it's the most extreme really of what you can do. They're just so socially complex and their needs are so complex and they don't really go back to the wild ever. And they live, you know, to 50 or 60 years old. And they have very complicated social groups. And it's just a lot. It's a lifetime, you know? So we were like, that's not what we want to do. So here we are. That's what we did.
Elizabeth: [00:10:58] So how did it go from the island chimps to these chimps?
Jenny: [00:11:03] Yeah, that's a good question, because it was kind of it overlapped because when we were here in the five weeks, we were brought two chimps who were not related to the former research chimps, not related to that project. They were victims of the bushmeat and pet trades, and that was Sweet Pea and Gwei. And they're with us now. They were probably two when we got them and we've been here six years, so they're about eight and they’re our original two babies. I guess kind of the word got around that there were people who knew about chimps and were doing this chimp stuff. A woman who had been kind of following these two chimps who needed to be rescued. She came to us and said, Would you take these two chimps? And I mean, we were kind of like, yeah, again, like, you know what? What are we going to say? No, no, you know, leave them where they are in these horrible conditions. They had originally been in another rescue center, but there's no way they could keep them, and they were in a little cage thing. Which was better than where they had been, but it was not a permanent solution. So we took them in. Our goal in the five weeks was to take them back to Kenya with us because there is a great sanctuary there. Because of Ebola, we couldn't get the permits to bring them back to Kenya with us. So we hired a caregiver and left her here with the two babies, and we went back to Kenya and decided about the year commitment thing. And then once we decided on the year to come back, by the time we got back, within a day someone brought us a third chimp, that was Portia. So we were like, Oh my gosh, this is a big thing.
Elizabeth: [00:12:45] Did you have them in your house?
Jenny: [00:12:47] Yeah, for lack of anywhere else to put them, at the lab grounds which were still actually overlapped with on the lab grounds, there's no research going on there. New York Blood Center had built this kind of what they call the pavilion. We still call it the pavilion. It's like a big, big enclosure. I shouldn't say big, big. It's big for a few babies with some night cages, and they had built it when they were going to move the chimps to the islands. They had all been living in these isolation cages. They were horrifying, to put them on the islands they had to integrate. Because they weren't used to living in groups. So they had built this place, and of course, that's the one good thing we saw left of them. We used that area, that big enclosure. We've used it all these years to integrate our chimps as they get a little bit bigger. So yeah, we had three. And honestly, I don't even remember how long it was, but not shortly after, we had five. And then at that point, we really were like, obviously, there's a huge issue here. The scale of the problem is much larger than we've ever realized. There's a bushmeat and pet trade here that's rampant.
Elizabeth: [00:13:50] Will you talk about each of those a little bit?
Jenny: [00:13:53] So the bushmeat trade is not only chimps, of course, it's all wildlife and bushmeat. Yeah, I shouldn't. I shouldn't throw that term around. It's very common to us, but it's probably not to everybody. Bushmeat, I mean, really means wild meat. It's basically any meat that's wildlife taken from the wild. So it's not farmed here or anything. It's just taken from the wild. Chimps might not even always be the target. In fact, they're not. They're often not the target, but hunters can go in. And I like to also differentiate subsistence hunting where somebody is going in to get food for their family or their community. What we realize here, that's the biggest issue here is there's a commercial trade in bushmeat, which means basically that this is big business. And then there is what we still believe is a byproduct, which is the pet trade, which is so, so they're killing the mothers, they're killing the families, the adults. You cannot get a baby chimp without killing the adults, just like humans. They don't just hand over their babies and they don't drop them. And many people tell me, oh, we found him walking on the side of the road. I'm like, no. A one-year-old baby does not just walk around on the side of the road so people will kill the adults and then basically take the babies off the dead bodies to be sold as pets, which end up in people's backyards or in cages.
Elizabeth: [00:15:14] What about the chimps around you, at least, are they kept local, are they in Liberia, or are they also trafficked?
Jenny: [00:15:20] I mean, we'll focus on chimps. But bushmeat, of course, is impacting many, many species. It's devastating to species. It's a cultural preference In Liberia and in West Africa. People eat bushmeat. That's a very huge dietary preference. So of course, some people eat bushmeat just to survive. But the biggest issue that faces wildlife here is the commercial industry for preference. Now that's in Liberia. People will eat it. It can also go all throughout West Africa through our land borders to supply that demand for bushmeat. Then also, of course, the bushmeat can go out to Europe and the UK and China and the Middle East. And then we have the pet trade, which is again, pets like chimps and monkeys, really. So primates are the main pets that come out of the trade. They are in Liberia but also can go again regionally throughout West Africa. We also know they're going out of West Africa to China, the Middle East, and other places for zoos, pets, entertainment, that kind of thing. Both the meat and the live animals will go out of the country as well.
Elizabeth: [00:16:34] Are both trades illegal?
Jenny: [00:16:36] Yes, everything's illegal. So we arrived in 2015 and 2016. The wildlife and environmental crime law went into effect and it's quite a weak law. But it is clearly illegal to kill chimpanzees, to eat, consume, sell, trade any and all of that is illegal. We actually have just recently, the last two years I've been working on an amended, much stronger version of that law, which will go hopefully into effect by 2022. That will really help in that component of cracking down on illegal trade, especially commercial trade.
Elizabeth: [00:17:17] How much is being enforced and how much was being enforced when you started?
Jenny: [00:17:20] Zero was being enforced when we started because of really multiple reasons. But part of it is if we talk about chimps specifically, as you can imagine, people could be reporting chimps in people's backyards. But what are the wildlife authorities going to do with a chimp, a live chimp? They live 50 years, they grow to be big. They're strong, and even as babies, they require a ton of care and it's expensive. So basically, they were left where they were, even the head of the Wildlife Authority at the time, who is no longer the head, but said to me, look, we turned a blind eye because we didn't know what to do. It's not because we didn't want to do something. So the law was there. So it was also for lack of awareness. People didn't know there was a law, they didn't know it was illegal. So you have that issue to fight, people saying, Oh yeah, you say you're not supposed to have that. Well, I didn't know that. So right, then the authorities are reluctant to enforce the law because they feel bad, this person has a chimp, but they don't know it's illegal, so let's just take the chimp and you know, it has taken all these years, which is actually not that long. It feels long to us, but it's actually not long. We've actually had 16 now this week where we are working on three additional cases that have come up that are wildlife crimes convictions, 16 successful convictions in five years.
Elizabeth: [00:18:41] That's amazing. Congratulations.
Jenny: [00:18:43] We've built up a wildlife crime task force. We've done a lot of awareness, so I don't want to leave that part out. It is important that people are aware that they're breaking the law. As I say here, ignorance is not an excuse for breaking the law, but it of course, impacts if you go in and tell people this is illegal, but they've been doing it for, you know, since the beginning of time. It's difficult to enforce that and it puts everybody in an awkward position. But once the law becomes very clear to everybody and you can be pretty sure that someone knows I'm breaking the law and I'm still choosing to break the law, then you can enforce the law. You know, some of it's really simple, but it's important.
Elizabeth: [00:19:20] It's very important. Do you have any idea on numbers like how many chimps are killed a year?
Jenny: [00:19:25] It's estimated that for every chimp who arrives in a sanctuary or rescue center like ours, 10 chimps are killed. It's not scientific. So what we try and look at is if we have 70 plus chimps, we're looking at potentially 700 chimps killed. We also have to look at the fact that all of those chimps came from mothers. So those women are not having more babies. So we're losing numbers there. And then half of our chimps are girls, they will not have babies. And so you lose versus there again. And then we, of course, there's all the unknowns we have no, we really don't know the extent of killings we’re not seeing. Liberia has an estimated population, we need a new census, but of about 7000. Basically, what I'm looking at now is 10 percent, since I've been here, of the population has gone. I mean, we can't say that scientifically, but we can look at it as an estimate and it's frightening. So I always say, we're here for five years. We have another five years to stop this or reduce it drastically because we don't have 10 or 20 years to play with right now.
Elizabeth: [00:20:35] No, no. And they're on the endangered species list, correct?
Jenny: [00:20:38] They're critically endangered. Western chimps are critically endangered. The subspecies who live here, so all chimps are endangered. Western chimps are critically endangered. So the next step for them is extinction. Or hopefully, we save them.
Elizabeth: [00:20:51] And your chimps can't. Chimps can't be returned to the wild. Why is that?
Jenny: [00:20:54] It's very complicated, and the reason just to make it kind of basic is that you need a lot of habitat. People always think the reason they can't go back is because they've been with humans, but that's actually not the case. That's your least worry, except for the fact that they might go into human communities. So you need to make sure they're released or reintroduced in a place where there are very few humans. There aren't communities nearby where they might go in to look for food or, you know, travel to those communities. They need to have, of course, enough food sources and those wild habitats. And then you have to make sure there aren't other chimps, chimp communities who might be competing for food in those areas or competing for territory. But even if we had all the money in the world and we had a perfect habitat that was away from communities and no competing chimps, we'd never do it now because they're still being killed every day. So there's no safe place for them right now.
Elizabeth: [00:21:51] So to build numbers, you have to stop the killing. I mean, it's not like you're going to build numbers there.
Jenny: [00:21:55] No, no. For me, when I look at zoos saying, OK, no, they're trying to maintain genetic diversity and breeding chimps in zoos, I'll be criticized for saying this because a lot of zoos like to say they're doing chimp conservation, and maybe they are on some level. But for me, I don't like seeing chimps in zoos. We're doing everything we can to keep them out of captivity. So I don't like seeing them in captivity. But in my mind, it's like those chimps are never coming back to Africa, they're never going back to the wild. I mean, we can only dream of putting some of our chimps back to the wild, and we're here on site with chimps from here who have lived in those forests, who maybe could be some of them, some of them could be reintroduced. So.
Elizabeth: [00:22:42] Right, right?
Jenny: [00:22:43] Really, Yeah, it's all about keeping the wild chimps wild.
Elizabeth: [00:22:44] So let's talk about how you went from five chimps to seventy-three chimps.
Jenny: [00:22:48] Do we have to talk about that now?
Elizabeth: [00:22:50] 73? I mean, I can't even fathom what it must be like.
Jenny: [00:22:54] I can't fathom it either. And I live here.
Elizabeth: [00:22:58] Ok. First kind of set us up like how many chimps are in your house because a lot actually live with you when you first get them right?
Jenny: [00:23:05] Yes. It's not our choice to have them in the house. It's not good for chimps to live in human houses. As you know, we're fighting the pet trade. We don't want to have pet chimps, which people can think we have a pet chimp. If they came and saw chimps in our house, would they see me walking around with a chimp or something? But there really isn't a lot of choice because sadly they've lost their moms and chimps live with their moms till they're about four or five years old. Well, they live with them much longer than that, but they nurse and sleep with their moms and stay with their moms physically for up to five, six, seven years and often a lifetime. Chimpanzee mothers provide very, very intensive, nurturing, and mothering the first year. They don't ever even go physically away from their mom, like always within reach. And so in order to replicate that, we have caregivers, not just Jimmy and me, but of course, we have a team of 30 amazing caregivers who are the surrogate moms and the chimps they need that they're not likely to survive, but they also thrive. They're quite resilient. But we want them to thrive. We don't want them to just survive. So we try to replicate what they have. So yeah. Having surrogate parents for seventy-three chimps is a challenge. When they first come in, if they're really, really little, very young, they have a one-on-one relationship. We always have a backup who they learn to trust also, in case something happened to that surrogate mother so they don't have to have a complete trauma kind of again since they've already suffered huge trauma by the time they get to us. But then we try to look at like a two to one kind of two chimps to one caregiver, a three to one to one caregiver. And as they grow and get older, that ratio can change. But yeah, it requires them living in a building, in a house when we first started. And still, to this day, we have a lot of chimps in the house, but we have since just recently. We're relocating to our new site. So we have a night dorm for the chimps who can sleep at night all together without a human caregiver. But the caregivers stay outside and they sleep in the night dorm, but not inside. But we still have a nursery and a house filled with many, many, many, many babies who still require.
Elizabeth: [00:25:23] How old are they?
Jenny: [00:25:24] We have only two who are over the age of 10. We have only eight who are over the age of six. So all the rest are basically 60 plus are under the age of four or five. We have a few under the age of one and many under the age of three.
Elizabeth: [00:25:44] Wow. Yeah. And how old are they in the nursery?
Jenny: [00:25:47] So we have some different groups. We have our littlest littles who are kind of under two years old and they're not all defined. The groups aren't defined by age, they're also by development and personality and whatever. But those littlest littles are still in the house. Then we have the next group, which is our littles and they're in the nursery. Then we have the Biggles and they're going to the forest and they sleep in the night dorm. But they have their caregivers still sleep with them, but just not inside the room. And they're like, I mean, they can reach them if they need them. So then we have the older ones who basically are the biggest group who are with caregivers during the day in an enclosure, which they'll eventually go to the forest. We just haven't totally fully relocated. Ultimately, they'll all go to the forest every day and come into our night dorm at night. But those guys, the biggest group, are with caregivers during the day and then they sleep together at night. And they have security there. They're past the point of needing a caregiver at night. They sleep through the night and they're fine.
Elizabeth: [00:26:54] I know some are eight years old, but do they get to a point where they don't want to be around humans? Or are they going to be with humans forever?
Jenny: [00:27:01] Well, you know, because of the situation, they'll be with humans forever. Really, what we're providing is like a semi-wild habitat. So the goal is ultimately that as they all become adults, they go to the forest on their own without humans all day. And the reason we have them come back in is partially so we can just monitor them and make sure they're safe and also provide any care we need. Give them food in the forest they'll be fed. But we also want to just make sure they get everything they need. So when they come in at night, they would get something that just to make sure if somebody didn't get what they needed that day, they can get something. Also, because this is just kind of a logistical issue, chimps make nests and trees. And while we have a really great forest, that's 100 acres that will not last long if we have them making nests every night, you can see their destruction as you go through the forest like you can, you can find the group. But if you just follow the broken branches, you know. So we want to rotate them around in different parts of the forest, and we'll need bigger forests. We'll need more space. Our next phase of development is what we call our wetlands habitat, but it's a forest. It's just not quite as big, it has not got as tall trees, that will be an area of the chimps can go. The 100-acre woods will be an area that the chimps can go, which they go now, and then, we may even have to expand outside of that. So we have to basically be planning for all of these adults and whoever comes next, to go to the forest all day long without humans. And we are their family, I mean, the reality is chimps have very strong family bonds, so the humans at a rescue center, a sanctuary, are important because we'll always be their family and they'll always be our family. So the goal isn't like they separate from us and we never see them again.
Elizabeth: [00:28:51] Right, right.
Jenny: [00:28:52] I'd love for that to be the goal if that was possible, but it's not.
Elizabeth: [00:28:53] No, that makes sense. But at some point, hopefully, you're going to start getting less babies.
Jenny: [00:28:58] I mean the goal is we don't get anymore. I mean, we hope the numbers start going down. This has always been important for us to make the point to people, whether people are supporting us or, like donors or governments or policymakers, everyone should understand that when you come in and you start taking action, your numbers are going to skyrocket up because you're doing your job.
Elizabeth: [00:29:20] Well, and there's a place to put them.
Jenny: [00:29:22] There's a place to put them and then you're enforcing the law and you're raising awareness. We've seen the way chimps come in, change and evolve over time, which I think is really interesting. At the beginning, it was us kind of pushing for it and hearing about things, getting word of mouth and then pushing to get things to happen and building capacity, but also understanding and awareness. And now, most often we get a report from someone in Liberia, a Liberian who reports something to the authorities or to us. And then our team goes out and confiscates it. So that's really awesome because that means that we're starting to permeate.
Elizabeth: [00:30:05] There's a community.
Jenny: [00:30:06] Yeah where people say, oh, hey, that's not allowed, that's not good. Not just not allowed, but it's not good.
Elizabeth: [00:30:10] Does that get dangerous, ever?
Jenny: [00:30:11] Yeah. We've been able to step back from that part of it. At the beginning, we really were the ones going along with the authorities as much as we could. But now really, we don't go. I mean, we will help and support the operation, but we won't go because it's really not our place to go. I mean, we're not law enforcement and we're not the authorities, which is how it should be.
Elizabeth: [00:30:37] It's awesome that it's all working.
Jenny: [00:30:39] Yeah, and it can be dangerous for them. I mean, this, it's not just chimps. I mean, we have our Wildlife Crime Task Force, it's for any wildlife issues and it can be for dead animals or live animals. Bushmeat, again. We just have this week three cases at checkpoints where huge hauls of just I mean, it's horrible. Piles of dead animals, skulls of chimps, monkeys, pangolins, antelope, just piles of animals, dead. Some of them are fresh. Some of them have already been smoked and dried, which is why we call it dried meat here. That's the way people like to eat it here. And then along with those came live animals. There was a baby monkey, there were two live pangolins, and then another case this week where we just had two elephants who were killed, and that's going to court this week. Our wildlife authorities are not armed, so one of the things we've done is build partnerships with the police and military and those kinds of groups so that they go along with them.
Jenny: [00:31:40] And I mean, the hunters are armed. We have some high-level people who are corrupt, who are doing some of this commercial trade and they have all their security with them and they have a lot of money and a lot of force. And we have our guys out there, two or three guys trying to make these busts. And all of a sudden comes this fleet of cars with guys who have guns on them. It can get pretty scary and it can get hostile and of course, the community stuff can get hostile. That's why we're trying really hard to work with communities to understand. We're talking about commercial trade. We're not talking about subsistence. We're also talking about endangered species and protected areas. We're not trying to take away your livelihood personally. I wish no one, I mean, I don't eat any meat, so I wish no one ate meat. We won't be successful if we come in and just say everything you're doing is wrong and we're just going to stop you.
Elizabeth: [00:32:34] Right, of course
Jenny: [00:32:36] We know that it's not going to be successful, so sometimes communities can get pretty hostile. So some of that has been working with community chiefs and community leaders to talk about, what's OK and what's not OK, what we're trying to do and what you know, who we're targeting and what we're targeting, and why we're targeting it versus just going in and laying down the law.
Elizabeth: [00:32:59] And I know five, six years in the big picture is actually a really short time in terms of shifting mindsets and communities and everything else. But are you starting to see a shift within communities?
Jenny: [00:33:10] Yeah, I think we're seeing a shift in terms of crime and certain species, but the big issue of the bushmeat trade here. Gosh, it's tough. I mean, it's a clear preference where we've made an impact. I say we mean the Liberian authorities and the people we work with and with our partners. I mean, we have a very collaborative environment here, which is really great. I think that's why we've had an impact because we all work together for kind of a common goal,
Elizabeth: [00:32:59] Right.
Jenny: [00:33:46] What we've seen a big impact on is this when we first got here, I mean, if you drove around, you would see bushmeat being sold everywhere, dried meat and live animals and animals being held by the tail and swung around being sold everywhere, I mean, everywhere. And you don't see it because now it is not lucrative to do. People know it is not allowed. Now that doesn't mean it's not happening, but it's been pushed underground, which of course, provides a whole new set of challenges. And it doesn't mean the problem's gone. But it does mean it's not quite as lucrative if you can't do something out in the open and sell your stuff way down the street everywhere to all that huge market of people who are passing by and you have to do it on the sly and you have to do it in the back alleys so you may choose another occupation. We've also gone to the markets of some of the biggest bushmeat sellers locally in Liberia, where there are these women's groups, these women's associations, and there are these single women feeding their kids, and it's part of a very big commercial trade. Of course, they weren't getting all the benefits. You know, there were people above them getting bigger benefits. But we've been able to work with them and talk with them about changing what they sell, changing their occupations, and offering some stipends for them to do community awareness. They're starting to do some theater stuff, so they go around to villages and do dramas about why it's not good to eat protected species. So we are making an impact in that way. And most important is for local people to think, Oh, wow, this might actually deplete our forests and our, you know, our unique heritage, but also our actual food sources and our actual source for everything we do and all our livelihoods will eventually be gone.
Elizabeth: [00:35:34] What can people outside of Liberia do to help you help chimpanzees?
Jenny: [00:35:40] So, of course, donations help for us to keep doing our work. You can support chimpanzee projects and chimp conservation and chimp protection and help us stop wildlife crime and help us look at conservation programs and community programs that help with chimp conservation. That's great. But if you take it completely away from chimps and just talk about reducing our impact on the planet, because in the end, that's really what is going to save chimps and every other species. And it's really what's going to save humans is reducing our impact on a global level on the global scale, our negative impact on a global scale on the planet because habitats are being destroyed and the demand for things like we talked about bushmeat, but even the demand, we look at factory farming, I mean, the demand we put on this planet for our products that we want and the scale and convenience we want right, is not sustainable, as you know, simply not sustainable.
Elizabeth: [00:36:44] The land has gone. I mean, it's all going for factory farming and feeding those animals.
Jenny: [00:36:48] To look on the positive side. I think we actually can turn the tide. I think we can. Each one of us can do something right today. I mean, we could walk out our door today and say, I'm not going to consume that or I'm going to take that positive step or I'm going to reduce my impact in this way. I think there are so many things we can each do, and I don't think it matters where you are. I mean, certainly you don't have to be here in Liberia to save the chimps in Liberia's forests.
Elizabeth: [00:37:15] No, but I'm so glad you said that because I do think that is the connection. Like, that's the missing piece. If you eat less meat or no meat, if you're vegan, you're helping wild animals in Africa. Yeah, I know you're helping.
Jenny: [00:37:28] Truly and this is proven by science. This isn’t just my opinion. Truly, the one simplest, quickest, easiest, most global thing that everybody could do is reduce their consumption of meat, whether that's wild or domestic, or whether that's a factory farm or not. Or reduce our use of animal products. All of that. It literally could change the world in a year. You know, it's pretty simple.
Elizabeth: [00:37:58] Thank you. Thank you for everything that you do on the planet.
Jenny: [00:38:02] Thanks for everything you're doing. I love Species Unite. I love what you guys do, it is so important.
Elizabeth: [00:38:16] To learn more about Jenny, to learn about the Liberia chimp rescue and protection. Go to our website SpeciesUnite.com. We will have links to everything we are on Facebook and Instagram, @SpeciesUnite. If you have a spare minute and could do us a favor, please rate, review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps people find the show. If you'd like to support the podcast, we would greatly appreciate it. Go to our website SpeciesUnite.com and click Become a member. I'd like to thank everyone at Species Unite, including Gary Knudsen, Caitlin Pearce, Amy Jones, Paul Healey, Santana Pokey, Bethany Jones and Anna Connor, who wrote and performed today's music. Thank you for listening and have a wonderful day.
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