We don't usually have a lot of contact with wild animals.
If you don't have a pet of your own or live on a farm, the animals you get to interact
with might be just birds, your neighbour's cats, or your friend's dog.
On the other hand, there are some people who will have access to so many different species.
Tansy Aspinall was given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to grow up with gorillas.
She's clear on what makes them special, and hopes that people will see it too.
They finally came back to her, and something miraculous happened.
Watch on to reveal Tansy’s beautiful story, and to learn how their meeting unfolded.
Tansy Aspinall didn't really have an ordinary childhood.
When she was a kid, her parents owned and operated a facility that rehabilitated captive
gorillas.
The goal of the facility is to one day, get the gorillas back to their west African Homeland.
As you can imagine, Tansy youngest years passed in such a different manner than from most
of her friends.
She had fulfilled days in the facility with her gorilla friends and surely to her, the
world seemed like a perfect place.
However, Tansy had the opportunity to live with gorillas because of her parents.
Her father, Damian Aspinall, the founder of the facility lived to rehabilitate captive
gorillas and helped them lead a better life.
Once they are released back to the wild.
Damian had a very specific way of approaching gorilla.
He insisted that all his staff and his daughter as well, would interact closely with the wild
animals.
Although this method worked pretty fine for most of the time, in the eighties and nineties,
five employees were accidentally killed by the animals because of a misunderstood communication.
Despite these accidental attacks that ended fatally gorillas and Aspinall's facility were
quite calm.
Most of the encounters and interactions with gorillas, Damian had been very touching and
life changing.
Tancy spent a lot of time with gorillas when she was still a toddler.
However, although she was clumsy and didn't have coordinated movements, gorillas realized
that she was only a vulnerable kid and bonded closely with her.
When Aspinall's gorilla troop made of 10 gorillas were rehabilitated.
It was finally the time for them to go back into the wild.
Now they had to be released into the jungles of Gaben.
Luckily for the gorillas before being released, they were kept on a river island for a couple
of months for them to learn, to defend themselves in the wildlife.
When the day for the gorillas to leave finally came Tancy and her father were sad to see
them nervously walk away into a jungle, they didn't recognize anymore.
They eventually disappeared in the jungle and started leading new lives in the surroundings
they deserved a long time ago.
Tancy grew up to be a beautiful woman.
Now that she turned 25, she wished to meet her childhood friends.
So, she and her father decided to go to Gaben where they would reunite with the gorillas
that they raised for such a long time.
The two gorillas Tancy bonded the most with were named Djalta and Bimms, and 12 years
have passed since Tansy last saw them.
However, her and her father Damian didn't expect that something else might happen on
their journey to Gaben.
Damian Aspinall has previously returned over 80 gorillas to the wild, and he had experience
with returning gorillas to their Homeland.
But these two gorillas were a bit particular.
They belonged to a big family group that was released altogether.
This was a big experiment in animal rehabilitation, which is why the results of their reintroduction
to the wildlife weren't really easy to forecast.
So, Tansy decided to travel into Gaben and to meet two gorillas, she hoped, still remembered
her.
She was anxious to find out what way her childhood friends would react.
She came to the Gaben rainforest by boat.
When she finally arrived deep in the jungle, she was ready to meet the gorillas.
However, what she didn't know was that she was about to reveal something that she will
never forget.
It was more than 12 years that Tancy hadn't seen her friends.
Now she was a bit concerned about if they will recognize her and if they will have a
good reaction to her.
However, she had a feeling that everything was going to be alright and she strongly believed
everything would go just the way it should.
But little did she know!
That encountering gorillas wasn't going to be the only thing she will remember Gaben
for.
When Tansy came deep into the jungle, her father helped her find the gorillas more easily.
They headed towards the place the gorillas were hanging out.
They finally saw them!
Djalta and Bimms remembered her and ran to meet her.
They hugged her, jumped around her and started becoming a bit vocal to express their excitement.
Tansy was so happy and she could have stayed there forever.
However, she had to leave and when she was, it looked like the gorillas were almost begging
Tansy not to leave.
Although she loved meeting her childhood friends, Tansy, and her father couldn't stay forever
in the jungle of Gaben.
After a couple of days, Tansy had to say goodbye to her friends, to Djalta and Bimms.
She feared that she might not see them again, in the end you never know what to expect in
the wildlife.
But that's not the end of the story about Tancy and her ape friends.
Releasing an entire family of apes back in their natural habitat all at once carried
enormous risks.
Damian was well aware of it.
These gorillas didn't spend their entire life in the Gabonese Homeland.
So, there might be plenty of things that can hold risks for them.
For instance, eating some poisonous fruit could affect their health or they could catch
a jungle disease they weren't prepared for, but no one could forecast the bad news that
Tancy was about to get just a couple of months after their reunion.
The Gibbon reserved Djalta and Bimms lived in were actually taken care of by a group
of people that monitored, what happened in the jungles.
They could even trace animals throughout radio transmitters.
That's how they have discovered terrible news, the two female gorillas were missing!
First, they couldn't find them, but after a couple of days, they found their bodies.
When they heard the terrible news Tancy and her father were heartbroken.
They couldn't believe that they may have grabbed the last chance to meet Tancy's childhood
friends.
At first, they believed that gorillas were attacked by a leopard, one of the only animals
that could take down a fully grown gorilla.
But there were no signs of bites or similar wound.
So, then a leopard couldn't be the culprit.
Both gorillas had been battered and beaten in a very forceful way, most likely the culprit
of these deaths was actually another gorilla.
Unfortunately, the killer gorilla didn't stop there.
Soon after more gorillas from the same family group were found dead.
Another three gorillas were dead and the fourth one was missing.
They soon found out that the victims of the gorilla rage were Djalta's five wives, as
well as a small baby named Akau.
The gorillas that died during the attacks were named Tamki age 25, Kishi 16, Mumba 27,
Kibi 22 and Akau 3, Fufu 22, the missing wife, although it was clear that the killer was
another gorilla.
Now, everyone wanted to know about who precisely is responsible for everything that occurred.
They wanted to know if it was a poacher that broke into the reserve.
Speculations also arose because some people believed that this could be done by someone
wanting to sabotage the Aspinall's conservation project.
However, it looked like Tancy and her father were the ones that knew the truth about the
killer.
Apparently, it was a Silverback gorilla named Boumanga, one of the gorillas Aspinall’s
facility rescued from cruel Captivity.
Through no fault of his own Boumanga, wasn't taken care of enough.
And as a result of being beaten as a baby, hung upside down and being kept in a shed,
he became psychotic.
Tancy and her father are sure that it was his mental damage that incited him to go after
gorillas.
Although it is not something he chose to be, Boumanga is a dangerous gorilla that could
put the jungle out of balance.
That's why they are looking for a proof to realize if he is the real killer or not.
If Boumanga, is super unpredictable and violent, he might have to be put down.
On the other hand, if he is not that violent, then they might have to remove him to some
remote corner of the reserve.
Tancy was really upset when she realized how happy her gorilla friends were to see her.
It seems like the whole project is on shaky ground, but I think that Tancy's father will
rethink releasing an entire family group at once.
As we speak, the facility is looking for new ways to ensure the animals are safe and healthy
once they come back home.
And we're sure Damian and Tancy will do their best to provide these gorillas the best life
they deserve.