A baby chimpanzee named Baby Mussa has won the hearts of thousands of people thanks to an adorable video that was uploaded on Instagram recently. Although the video is overflowing with cuteness, the story behind it is anything but lighthearted.
A video was recently uploaded by Lwiro Primates, a sanctuary for chimps and monkeys in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and it quickly went viral, being shared thousands of times.
Anthony Caere is the pilot in the minute-long clip, and he is making a very important trip – transporting Baby Mussa to the Lwiro Primates sanctuary. The baby chimpanzee was rescued from a poacher that was also in illegal possession of protected reptiles.
“Unfortunately his family is dead,” Lwiro wrote in a comment on Facebook. “We do not know how many, maybe only the mum, but most likely several members of his family were killed.”
In the video, Baby Mussa fiddles around with the pilot’s throttle and gazes in awe out the window, then even takes a nap. It’s impossible not to swoon.
Mussa is the third chimpanzee that Lwiro Primates has rescued just this year, and they currently take care of 80 chimps and 100 monkeys of various species, according to Itaso Velez del Burgo, the group’s technical director.
Although he is safe and in good hands, the baby primate is still adjusting to his new surroundings, as well as the other orphaned babies he’s now surrounded by.
“At the beginning he was a bit scared of them, probably because he has spent lots of time alone without seeing another chimp. But now he is much more confident playing with them and laughing, even if he is still very attached to the keeper,” Velez wrote in an email to Today.
Mussa’s life has been a hard one and everyone couldn’t be more grateful for his rescue, but they also seemed to take quite the interest in pilot Anthony Caere as well.
Caere is the head pilot for the park’s four-plane Air Wing. The Virunga website says that he’s frequently inspecting poaching sites and carrying out medical evaluations on rescued animals. And thankfully, all kidding aside, Baby Mussa is going to be just fine.
“He has some intestinal parasites but we are already treating it. He is a beautiful chimp! His eye expression is special.”
After the video went viral, and Baby Mussa’s story raised awareness about the horrible practice of poaching, Lwiro posted another heartfelt message with an update video of Mussa and how he’s doing now.
“Well, you have all by now seen the viral video of the rescue of little Mussa, and we thank sincerely the people who have gone to lwiroprimates.org and supported us. We are sincerely hopeful that this story will help create some awareness about the traffic of these babies from Africa.”
“Mussa has joined Nishuli, Kashebere, Kalima, and Busakara in the baby quarantine group,” Lwiro Primates shared.
The latest video that was uploaded of the rescued baby chimpanzee showed great promise of his future. He and the other chimps seemed to have been getting along just fine, even grooming one another.
We couldn’t be happier that Baby Mussa is safe, however, the battle is not over – in fact, far from it. Lwiro Primates needs all of the help and assistance they can get. You can help this extremely important cause by making a direct donation from their Facebook page or website.
The pilot uploaded another video that we hope goes viral as well because the message is powerful and important. Watch his message in his video below.
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