DEVORE, Calif. — There’s an ape on the loose, a chimp on the lam. He’s a ribbon-cutting celebrity. But now he’s like a monkey gone wild.
Moe used to drive a car. He is now thought to be on foot. Lost? Hiding? Worse? He has been out there, somewhere, in the rugged, brushy, snaky foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles since June 27, when he escaped from his cage.
His frantic parents — that is what they call themselves — are weeping with worry. The authorities are not offering much help, though the folks at animal control do have a dart gun ready. The search continues.
Outside Devore on the way to Las Vegas, you get off Interstate 15 and cross a creek and railroad tracks and head up a gravel road that leads to the gate of Jungle Exotics, where Moe was living in a large, newly built cage with his toys, blankets and bananas. By all reports, a safe, sanitary, comfortable home.
According to its website, Jungle Exotics has been providing the finest in exotic and domestic animal rentals — dogs, tigers, iguanas, cats, lions, pigs, bears, rats — to the entertainment industry since 1982.
Moe was not rented out. At 42, he had long ago retired from public appearances. Joe Camp, the co-owner of Jungle Exotics, says that somehow Moe, at 125 pounds, had the strength, guile and desire to squeeze his way to freedom.
“We can’t figure out how he broke those welds and got out,” Camp says. “That cage should have been able to hold a gorilla.
“He’s a sturdy animal, and there’s food and water out there,” says Camp, meaning there are natural springs and wild berries, but no burritos with extra cheese, which Moe favored. “Sooner or later, somebody is going to see him.”
Then there’s the family.
“Oh, I just don’t know what he’s thinking. Maybe he’s scared to death. Maybe he thinks he’s in trouble. This is all so new for him,” says LaDonna Davis, who considers Moe like the son she never had.
She calls herself Moe’s mom. Her husband, St. James Davis, a retired NASCAR racer, calls himself Moe’s dad. When the couple married, Moe was in the wedding party. “He was my best man,” St. James says.
LaDonna shows a reporter an old photograph of Moe, wearing pants with suspenders and sneakers, making himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in their kitchen in West Covina, a city a few miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
“We always let him make his own choices. We let him decide. He has good sense. Now he has a choice to make, and we’re just hoping he makes a good one. We want him to come back.”
