Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions which some readers may find distressing.
A woman who had her thumb bitten off by a chimpanzee in a frenzied attack remarkably went on to live and ‘learn to speak’ with gorillas.
In 1994, researcher and biologist Angelique Todd was working at Port Lympne Zoo Park, near Kent, in the UK.
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Speaking in a documentary, she explained she’d been volunteering at the establishment for three years and had struck up ‘quite a good relationship’ during her tenure with a 33-year-old chimp called Bustah.
"Male chimpanzees in captivity in general, you have to be careful with them, they are one of the most dangerous animals in the zoo,” she told Our World in 2004.
“They can be very aggressive, very feisty so you always are cautious.”
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Despite being on good terms with the chimp, Bustah was allegedly in a ‘dangerous’ mood on the fateful day he attacked Todd.
It’s said that while the zoo keeper fed the chimp through the bars of his cage he plunged his arm through the small gap and grabbed her sleeve.
"He saw his opportunity and he took it," Todd recounted. “These kind of events, you go in slow motion, you're in shock, you're trying to survive.”
It’s said that Bustah had managed to find the woman’s coat sleeve and was trying to pull her through the bars.
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Unable to resist the captive animal’s strength, Todd admitted that she was just ‘watching herself being eaten alive’.
The primate bit off her thumb and index finger and severed her arteries, causing her to lose a ‘huge amount’ of muscle mass’.
“Almost all of it in fact,” she said. “And I still have tooth wounds on either side of my arm - but this is much much improved.”
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Despite suffering the injuries, Todd admitted that the 1994 incident hadn’t left a bad taste in her mouth where Bustah was concerned.
She said: "I think what he wanted to do was just get hold of me. I think initially, it was just 'I can get hold of her, I can see a hole, there's a way that I can grab her' and that's what his initial reaction was.
“After he bit my thumb off obviously the blood started spurting out, then it became kind of like a feeding frenzy.”
Following the incident, Todd continued to work at the zoo and routinely came face-to-face with the attacking chimp for ‘counselling reasons’.
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However, she claims that Bustah was unable to look at her in the face after the incident.
“He just had his head on the ground all the time and whether one interprets that as remorse or that he knows that he did a bad thing, I don't know,” Todd said.
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Years later, Todd left the zoo but continued to work with animals.
She studied to become a biologist and swapped Kent for the African jungle to become a researcher for the World Wide Fund For Nature.
She then spent the next decade living and ‘learning to speak’ the language of gorillas.
Todd later adopted the moniker ‘The Gorilla Whisperer’ due to her closeness with the wild animals and her work was later featured in the inspiring nature documentary, My Gorilla Family.
The latter, hosted by Colin Salmon, was published by National Geographic in 2012 and chronicled the movements of a majestic silverback called Makumba.
“There are definitely tough times, but to gain the confidence of a gorilla family in the wild is a real honor,” she told The Telegraph at the time.
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A synopsis for My Gorilla Family reads: “Angelique's persistence has been worth it and has seen her earn Makumba's trust, allowing her to get close to this 200kg great ape, his harem of three females and his eight offspring.
“But there could be trouble brewing for these mighty primates - at the age of 32, mighty Makumba is growing old. Can this weary warrior see off challengers to his reign, and keep the rivalries within his harem in check?”
My Gorilla Family is available to watch on YouTube.
Ella Scott