‘Parental’ Visit a Wild Reunion

Moe, the chimp, hooted as if he had just spotted a large bunch of bananas Monday when he saw St. James and LaDonna Davis emerge from a car at the Wildlife Waystation.

The graying, 37-year-old animal hadn’t seen the West Covina couple for almost a year.

The Davises waved and held up the Christmas stocking they had prepared for their companion of more than 30 years. Inside were such goodies as potato chips and a coloring book.

“I love you, Moe,” said LaDonna Davis, with tears in her eyes. “You’re the light of my life. I’ve missed you so much.”

Moe was exiled to the animal sanctuary near Lake View Terrace in 1999. The Davises had cared for the chimp at home since they found him in Tanzania in the 1960s, after his mother was killed by poachers. St. James Davis, a former NASCAR driver, held the infant chimp on his lap during the long flight from Africa to the United States.

Except for Moe’s unscripted enthusiasm and the couple’s visible happiness, the reunion was as spontaneous as an arranged marriage. The Davises were accompanied by celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, who read a prepared statement over the chimp’s hoots, explaining why Moe and the Davises had been apart for almost a year.

Calling the couple Moe’s “human parents,” Allred recounted how West Covina police, Los Angeles County health officials and others had taken Moe from the Davises. The animal was confiscated after he bit a West Covina police officer badly enough to require surgery, and chomped on the finger of a woman whose red nail polish, Moe advocates insist, reminded him of the red licorice the Davises gave him as a treat.

Moe has been at the Wildlife Waystation ever since, in a cage next to a 15-year-old hyena named Kassani. Waystation founder Martine Colette said the two often amuse themselves by playing games of chase.

On Monday, while the hyena paced, Moe demonstrated that he is intelligent, or well-trained, enough to eat banana-cream pie with a spoon and deftly open a bottle of orange juice.

Until the media arrived, Moe had been watching the movie “Babe” on tape. He likes films and TV programs about animals, they said, as well as magazines with colorful pictures, especially National Geographic.

“This was the first time Moe had been away from his parents,” Allred said of the ape’s 1999 confiscation. “The separation has been very difficult for Moe and for the Davises. The Davises have cried, vomited and suffered loss of sleep.”

Since Moe was taken away, West Covina officials have filed, and dropped, criminal charges against the Davises, and the Davises have sued the city. Monday, they declined to comment on past or pending legal actions involving Moe.

The Davises were able to visit the chimp every week until last year, when California Fish and Game and other agencies regulating animal facilities ruled that the couple’s visits amounted to unauthorized animal exhibition. A special arrangement was made so that the Davises could have this holiday season reunion.

Although neither Allred nor the Davises would give details, Moe will soon be moved from the sanctuary to a licensed animal-care facility in California. The Davises will be permitted to stay overnight at the new facility and visit Moe more often.

Still unresolved is who will pay the estimated $35,000 it has cost the waystation to board the chimp. Also unresolved is the question of whether Moe would be better off with other chimps than with human “parents.”

“We have been a family for over 30 years,” said LaDonna Davis, who thinks of Moe as her only child. “We want to complete our journey in life together.”

And she argued that Moe is different from ordinary chimps because he has spent so much time among humans: “Moe is separated from normal chimp life, but that doesn’t mean he’s had a bad life,” she said.

As for Moe, he dug into his banana-cream pie and wasn’t saying.