A GORILLA, a baboon and a monkey were sitting in an apartment.
That might sound like the start of a joke but it was one Cottingham conservationist's reality for a fortnight in Equatorial Guinea.
Juliet Wright found herself landed with the hairy housemates after they were rescued from an owner keeping them illegally.
While a sanctuary was being lined up, the animals stayed with her.
"I gave the gorilla one-to-one care – it was almost like child-minding," said Juliet, 29.
"I watched her gradually destroy the apartment. At the end, the bathroom in the flat was full of our belongings and everything else was ripped apart."
The PhD student spent two years in Guinea campaigning against the killing of gorillas for bush meat.
She also worked to stop baby animals being sold as pets to the country's growing army of ex-pat oil workers.
She was tipped off about Afangui, a baby western mountain gorilla kept to amuse the customers at a Spanish-themed restaurant.
"She was kept in a wooden cage on the beach in the dark," Juliet said.
"The only thing in the cage was a football. That was her only source of comfort."
By the time she was freed, Afangui was very depressed.
But rather than snatching her themselves, the conservationists wanted to see the Government enforce a law banning primate ownership.
After weeks wrestling with red tape, officials swooped on the restaurant to take the baby away.
The plan was to immediately drive Afangui to a sanctuary in neighbouring Cameroon.
But when the cars met Juliet, she got a surprise.
"We didn't realise at the time the owner had more than one primate," she said.
"When the convoy of vehicles came back there was a gorilla in the back and the press vehicle had a baboon, which was quite big, and a monkey."
There were no permits to transport the mandril baboon and moustached guenon monkey, so the only option was to house them all in Juliet's apartment while the forms were sorted out.
"We just had to improvise in typical African fashion, so we built a cage quite quickly for the mandril," she said.
"The monkey we put in the bathroom and we left her to it because she was an adult and didn't want to be disturbed."
Eventually, the paperwork was sorted out and the convey left for Cameroon.
Afangui is now a happy growing gorilla staying with other members of her species at the Ape Action Africa sanctuary.
"It's always difficult when you have to leave them, because they've been abandoned and when they find one person they trust, they latch on," Juliet said.
"But now she's really settled and she's doing really well."
