Boma was born in 1986 at an entertainment compound in Los Angeles. Her mother, Oopsie, had been a baby chimpanzee working in the television industry, and Boma was Oopsie’s first offspring. Boma was taken from her mother at a very early age, and like Oopsie, she was trained for work in television commercials and movies.

When Boma grew too large to be handled in entertainment, she was kept at the California compound as a breeder with other chimpanzees. She gave birth to at least one infant (Knuckles, who arrived at the Center in 2002).

When Boma’s owner retired in 2005 from the business of working and breeding great apes for the entertainment industry, she was sent along with the other chimpanzees at the California facility to the Center for Great Apes’ sanctuary in Wauchula, Florida.

Now at the sanctuary, Boma is part of a social group of seven chimpanzees – her mother Oopsie, her sister Jessie, Sam, Bubbles, little Kodua, and baby Stryker. Boma grooms, plays with, and actively interacts with other chimpanzees, but often nags the males in her group, frequently stirring things up with Sam and Bubbles. She is sometimes cranky and impatient with her niece Kodua who daily teases Boma, however she is a doting “aunt” to infant Stryker.

Boma has a hearty appetite for her regular diet of fresh produce, especially grapes, bananas, and frozen juice treats.