Last Member Drive of 2025!

Your year-end tax-deductible gift powers our local newsroom. Help raise $1 million in essential funding for LAist by December 31.
$983,804 of $1,000,000 goal
A row of graphics payment types: Visa, MasterCard, Apple Pay and PayPal, and  below a lock with Secure Payment text to the right
Audience-funded nonprofit news
radio tower icon laist logo
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Subscribe
  • Listen Now Playing Listen

This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.

This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.

News

Moe the Chimp is On the Loose

Truth matters. Community matters. Your support makes both possible. LAist is one of the few places where news remains independent and free from political and corporate influence. Stand up for truth and for LAist. Make your year-end tax-deductible gift now.

A 34-year-old chimpanzee that was raised in a West Covina family's home for three decades escaped from a wildlife sanctuary in San Bernardino County Friday night.

Animal control officials and volunteers searched the nearby San Bernardino National Forest Saturday

St. James Davis brought Moe home from Tanzania in the 1960s, after the chimp's mother was killed by poachers, and he and his wife raised the chimp in their West Covina home as if he were their son. -- cbs2.com

In August 1998, Moe was shot with a tranquilizer gun after escaping the Davis's West Covina home. He was taken from the home the following year after biting a police offer and lived at Jungle Exotics in Devore for the past year. If you happen upon a chimp in the Inland Valley this weekend, do call San Bernardino County Animal Control at (800) 472-5609.

photo via AP/San Gabriel Valley Newspaper.

You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our connected community. We are free to tell the full truth, to hold power to account without fear or favor, and to follow facts wherever they lead. Our only loyalty is to our audiences and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen our community.

Right now, LAist has lost $1.7M in annual funding due to Congress clawing back money already approved. The support we receive before year-end will determine how fully our newsroom can continue informing, serving, and strengthening Southern California.

If this story helped you today, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.

Your tax-deductible donation keeps LAist independent and accessible to everyone.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief

Make your tax-deductible year-end gift today

A row of graphics payment types: Visa, MasterCard, Apple Pay and PayPal, and  below a lock with Secure Payment text to the right