Saving Manno
What a baby chimp taught me about making the world a better place.
By #1 bestselling author Spencer Sekyer
In a zoo in Iraqi Kurdistan, a small-town teacher met a trafficked baby chimpanzee — and couldn't walk away. The true story of an unlikely bond, and the international rescue it set in motion as ISIS closed in.
Spencer went looking to help in the world’s hard places. Then, he found a friend.
Spencer Sekyer grew up in a small town chasing a future in sport, became a teacher, and started spending his holidays where help was scarce — Sierra Leone, the West Bank, Afghanistan, Haiti. Each trip sent him home a little wiser.
Then, after stumbling into the Duhok Zoo in Iraqi Kurdistan, he met Manno — a baby chimpanzee kidnapped from his family in central Africa and sold into captivity. Alone and a long way from anything resembling home, Manno was living in conditions no young chimp should.
Spencer formed an unlikely bond with him — and decided he would not leave him there. What followed was a years-long effort through animal-trafficking networks and government bureaucracy, against the backdrop of a region at war.
An inspiring, true account of a teacher’s travels — and his refusal to leave one chimpanzee behind.
Four stops between a cage and a family.
Manno’s story is a map of the illegal wildlife trade — and of the people who refused to let it have the last word.
Central Africa
Born in the wild and torn from his family, Manno was trafficked into the global trade in exotic animals.
Duhok Zoo
Sold into captivity, he lived alone in bare concrete cages — far from anything a young chimpanzee needs.
The Rescue
Spencer enlisted activists and, through Dr. Jane Goodall, a sanctuary — racing red tape and a war to get Manno out.
A New Family
Manno reached a chimpanzee sanctuary in Kenya — and, for the first time in his life, the company of his own kind.
An introduction from one of the world’s most celebrated primatologists — who helped open the door that brought Manno home.
Dr. Goodall helped connect Spencer with the sanctuary that would become Manno’s home, and wrote the foreword that introduces the book.
Bring Manno's story home.
The true story from #1 bestselling author Spencer Sekyer, published by Simon & Schuster. Available in hardcover, paperback, and ebook — with a foreword by Dr. Jane Goodall.
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