Mayos the baby chimpanzee

Born Free has created a digital mosaic of Mayos, a four month old chimpanzee whose life in the wild has been brought to an abrupt end.

Just four months old and weighing less than 3kg (6½lbs), Mayos (left) is a baby chimpanzee. So young, her teeth have only just come through and her hands and feet are still soft and pink. She should be clinging to her mother in the forest, too small to have taken her first steps.

But her mother is dead. Shot by a hunter and chopped up for meat in the forests of eastern Cameroon, on the west coast of Africa. Mayos’ life as a wild chimpanzee was brought to an abrupt end. The hunter kept her alive hoping to sell her as a ‘pet’. But her chances of survival were bleak.

Every year hundreds of chimps are illegally killed to supply the commercial ‘bushmeat’ trade. Chimp meat is sold in cities worldwide as a luxury food for wealthy people. Entire families of these intelligent, sentient creatures are hunted, killed and eaten on a daily basis, their traumatised babies sold as exotic pets.

This sickening trade threatens the chimpanzee’s very existence. One hundred years ago there were more than one million. Today fewer than 150,000 remain. Heading for extinction, chimps - our closest relatives - are being eaten to death.

Fortunately, Mayos is one of the lucky ones. She was rescued. After a long and arduous road trip the distraught baby was brought to Limbe Wildlife Centre (LWC) in southern Cameroon. Terrified and very weak, Mayos needed specialist 24 hour care. She is one of the youngest infants LWC has ever cared for.

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Last updated: Wed 13 May 09