2023-04-29 17:20:18
Bubbles, the pet chimpanzee who slept in a crib in Michael Jackson’s bedroom at his Neverland mansion, turned 40 years old and he celebrated it with a party at his retirement home in Florida, United States, with a healthy cake and the presence of the caregivers.
“He got a cake, but it’s a special ape-healthy cake,” said Patti Ragan, founding director of the Center for Great Apes in Wauchula, Florida. the “retirement home” where Bubbles has lived since 2005. revela New York Post.
“We froze him with mashed bananas and added some blue food coloring … and then we wrote his name in blueberries,” Ragan said.
“We had bubble bath tubs. They had paper bubbles everywhere,” she added, alluding to her “Bubbles” name.
Jackson, who died in 2009 at age 50, bought the chimpanzee as a baby in 1983 from a Texas research center. AFP Photo
“He just wanted to see who was visiting,” she said. “He came over and looked at all the staff that had come to be there for the party.”
The sculpture “Michael Jackson and Bubbles,” by artist Jeff Koons, was displayed at the Chateau de Versailles, just outside Paris. Jackson died on Thursday, June 25, 2009. He was 50 years old. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, file)
The “We Are The World” fan club gifted Bubbles a photo blanket with her photos on it.
Jackson, who died in 2009 at age 50, bought the chimpanzee as a baby in 1983 at a Texas research center.
The Center for Great Apes in Wauchula, Florida, the “retirement home” where Bubbles and other famous apes spend their final years.
All great apes were raised by humans and do not have the basic skills to survive in the wild. They would not know how to provide themselves with food and the mothers are incapable of taking care of their young.
The CGA stands on a 100-acre wooded area in the rural town of Wauchula, surrounded by orange groves in central Florida.
The entrance does not attract attention. The trodden dirt paths meander through the trees, connected by elevated walkways that the apes can walk. In the clearings, the cages are built, like large aviaries, full of plants and games to climb on.
The sanctuary is also one of the few things that happens in Florida quietly, without the usual fanfare that usually accompanies the many tourist attractions.
View of cages and raised walkways through the trees at the Center For Great Apes (CGA), a non-profit sanctuary for orangutans and chimpanzees in Wauchula, Florida. AFP photo
It is not a zoo or a park, it does not promote itself or receive visitors. Only donors, by invitation, can go a couple of times a year to meet the apes. But even they don’t have permission to post photos on social media.
The foundation that Patti Ragan created happened almost spontaneously. She was living in Miami and volunteering at the zoo when, in 1990, she was asked to care for a baby orangutan because of her experience in the subject that she had gained in Borneo.
A year later, a baby chimpanzee joined the team, and in 1993 Ragan registered the sanctuary as a non-profit organization.
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