Alan Cumming offers $10K reward for missing chimpanzee Tonka

Hollywood star Alan Cumming has offered money for the return of an old friend.

On Thursday it was revealed by Variety that the 57-year-old actor will pay $10,000 for anyone who can locate the missing chimpanzee Tonka. PETA shared it would add another $10,000 to that number bringing the reward to $20,000.

Cumming has a soft spot for his ‘friend’ Tonka after the two co-starred in the 1997 movie Buddy along with Rene Russo.

Alan has even spoken out about the animal star in a statement shared this week.

Cumming said, ‘During the months we filmed together, baby Tonka and I became good friends, playing and grooming each other and just generally larking about.’

He added, ‘It’s horrible to think he might in a cage in a dark basement somewhere or have met some other fate, so I’m appealing to whoever knows what has become of him to please come forward claim the reward.’

At the film premiere in Los Angeles in 1997, he was seen beaming as he held onto Tonka, who was young at the time.  

Tonka was last seen in a cage, which PETA claimed was ‘filthy,’ in a breeding facility in Missouri called Missouri Primate Foundation.

The facility was where chimps were bred then sold to private owners; it is also where animals would be rented out for movies and parties.

It has since been closed and no one seems to be able to locate Tonka.

PETA has also offered an additional $10,000 reward for anyone who can find Tonka, bringing the total cash reward to $20,000 after Cumming’s amount is added in.

PETA had sued the Missouri Primate Foundation over the chimpanzee’s living conditions.

The organization said the enclosures were also ‘barren.’

PETA was then allowed to take Tonka and six other chimpanzees to a sanctuary.

But when PETA arrived to move Tonka in July 2021 the animal count not be found.

According to PETA: ‘Owner Tonia Haddix claimed that [Tonka] had “died,” but told various stories that didn’t add up and failed to prove that this was the case. She had previously stated that PETA would never get him. In January, a judge found that mystery surrounds the primate’s disappearance and that Haddix’s testimony was not credible, leaving PETA and Cumming to try to determine his whereabouts or perhaps his final resting place.’ 

Anyone with information should call PETA at 757-622-PETA or submit their findings at PETA.org/Tonka. 

The film Buddy was about wealthy eccentric Trudy (Rene Russo) who collects wild animals.

She then meets the sicky young gorilla Buddy and raises him as her own child, dressing him in up and training him. 

But as Buddy grows older and larger, Trudy is unable to restrain him from turning increasingly violent, according to the film’s synopsis.

The story is loosely based on a real life socialite from the 1920s who raised animals in her mansion.

She wanted to protest ‘inhumane zoo conditions,’ according to the Tampa Bay Times.