More couch potato than jungle swinger, Moe the chimp used to relax by watching animal shows at home on TV rather than romping through rain forests.
That's why his owners were frantic Monday to find the 42-year-old chimpanzee raised in captivity who apparently disappeared from a refuge into San Bernardino County's mountains.
A West Covina celebrity for decades, Moe is said to have been rescued from Tanzanian poachers in 1967 by St. James Davis. Moe showed up at local ribbon-cutting ceremonies and helped sell Girl Scout cookies, dressed sportily in the latest fashion.
But he was ousted from West Covina after several biting incidents. For the last decade he has lived in wild-animal refuges and centers.
Moe vanished Friday from Jungle Exotics, a compound near Devore. Searchers were continuing to look for the 125-pound, 3-foot-tall animal as Davis and his wife, LaDonna, fretted over his safety.
"This is a new environment for him, and we don't know if he can survive," said LaDonna Davis.
Added her husband: "He's more of a domesticated pet than anything wild."
Not that chimpanzees are fragile jungle flowers, as St. James Davis can attest.
The 65-year-old former NASCAR driver lost all of his fingers, an eye, his nose, parts of his cheek and lips, and pieces of his torso to attacking chimpanzees in 2005. The animals pounced after apparently becoming jealous that Davis was preparing to present a birthday cake to Moe at their refuge.
Davis sat in a wheelchair and struggled to speak as he told of the hunt taking place above Jungle Exotics, which houses wild animals used in the movie and television industry. It was Moe's fourth home since authorities removed him from the Davises' West Covina home after he mauled a police officer's hand and bit off a woman's fingertip in two 1998 incidents.
"From the helicopter they did find a couple of water holes up there," Davis said. "They did see three black bears. Moe's quite friendly with dogs and cats, but I don't know if a wolf or a bobcat or something comes up, what's going to happen. Hopefully he'll run away or get in a tree."
Davis and his wife met with reporters at lawyer Gloria Allred's Wilshire Boulevard office. She represented them in their earlier struggle to keep the chimp in their home.
So far the search has been a privately organized affair, although San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies and firefighters have joined in the hunt, according to LaDonna Davis.
