Also yesterday, Judy went out first in the outer ward: she ate something and lay in the shade, until Davidino, the dominant chimpanzee, joined her. She got up to greet him and walked a short distance with him, before lying down for the last time under his tree.
At 9:32 am, the oldest chimpanzee in Europe, born in 1972, closed her eyes and fell asleep forever. At the Parco Natura Viva in Bussolengo she founded a historic colony, today orphan of its eleventh member. A primacy that Judy shared with Samy, her lifelong "friend", with whom on rainy days she would calmly walk to the shelter keeping one arm around the other.
A mother eight times and a grandmother once, the social role that Judy has exercised is testified by the immediate reaction of her life companions to her death, under the eyes of the public and the surveillance cameras: Tommy, another chimpanzee, approaches her, tries to wake her up energetically and tug at her, but without getting any reaction. Thinking of an attack, the others intervene to remove him but Tommy grabs her by the leg and leads her to cover in a cave in their ward. The last request for help, the group throws it to the ethologist in the meantime arrived on the public path, towards which it drags the lifeless Judy. At that point, the keeper Marco arranges an emergency return of all the individuals to the internal halls, where Tommy himself, once again, pulls Judy without leaving her behind.The veterinarian notes the death and thus ends the story of a chimpanzee that the staff defines as "strong in joining the other females in the group to give them the right support when necessary, but at the same time able to read the situations in which it was not need to get involved ".
Her venerable age had progressively put her eyesight to a severe test and "her way of looking at us after recognizing the voice - explains Caterina Spiezio, head of the research and conservation sector of Parco Natura Viva - squinting a little to recognize us better. , made his behavior even sweeter ".
Judy belonged to a species "threatened" of extinction in equatorial Africa according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and to one of the less represented subspecies in the zoological parks of Europe. His contribution was precious in life and it will be so even after his death: his genetic heritage will be perpetuated by Valentina, his daughter and by Giuditta, his niece,in a story that will continue to be told to the younger generations.