Morganton, GeorgiaJermaine was having trouble walking. The 30-year-old chimpanzee’s right foot was dripping blood and “extremely swollen,” according to a former employee at Project Chimps, a 236-acre sanctuary for retired lab chimpanzees in northern Georgia.

A high-ranking member of his 14-member group, Jermaine had been injured in a fight with another chimp in January.

If the injury had been addressed right away, says Crystal Alba, a former veterinary assistant at Project Chimps who cared for Jermaine in the days after the incident, it would have been “a very treatable wound.” Instead, days later, the wound leaked foul-smelling pus and appeared infected, she says.

What happened next would make Jermaine’s case an example of what Alba and 20 other current and former employees, interns, and