A Chimp in the family book by Vince Smith

A Chimp in the Family by Vince Smith tells the story of Sophie, a baby Chimpanzee born at the Chester Zoo in England, who was abandoned by her mother and was raised by humans along side a human baby.

The infant chimp was taken to the author’s home and hand-reared by Vince Smith, something that is very common when chimpanzees and other great apes do not want to raise their children for themselves.  After six months of living with the young Sophie, Smith’s wife gave birth to Oliver, Sophie’s future playmate!

Vince tells the amazing story of how the upbringing of Olver and Sophie were remarkably similar.

What is great about this book is the fact that this happened very recently and the father was a very educated and impressive person, which means that there is plenty of very usefull scientific information gathered and shared in this book.  This practice of raising a human and chimpanzee baby side by side has been done before in the past, especially in the 1960’s, but alot has changed since the 60’s.  Jane Goodall had changed the deffinition of man at the end of the 60’s and by the time Vince Smith raised Sophie he had so much more of a foundation to really study the chimpanzee.

Another great thing about Chimp in the Family is the fact that Vince moved his family and Sophie to Africa to give the chimpanzee a better life!  There are amazing stories of trying to un-humanize Sophie and Vince does an amazing job to show Sophie what real chimpanzees do in the wild, including having to show her how to hunt for ants and termites.

If you are a chimpanzee lover, you really should check this book out.  Vince Smith has turned out to be quite the successful animal researcher and now is the regional director for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, managing their mountain gorilla conservation program for Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

For further reading, please check out all of the animal books that i have reviewed.  Also please feel free to check out some of my animal pictures that i have taken!