Patty Khully has a great post today about the Xanax-chewing chimp that attacked his owner's friend, and was then stabbed with a butcher knife by his owner, just before the chimp was shot dead by the local police.
Right.
Just your typical ending to a "we got a chimpanzee... tiger... lion... bobcat... bear ... alligator... wolf in the house" story if you ask me.
Fools are a dime a dozen in this country, and it seems everyone with a few thousand dollars in their checking account thinks that cash money is all they need to raise a large and potentially dangerous animal.
"Bobo would never harm us ... we raised him from a bottle."
Right. Tell it to Siegfried and Roy.
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Monday, February 23, 2009
That Chimpanzee Went Chimpanzee
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6 comments:
Male chimps are particularly dangerous because some of them consider women to be of the same species. That's why the males are always separated at a certain age from people.
These things go "on war parties"-- making mafia style hits on enemies.
They are too much like us for us to ever be safe around them.
I noticed that once it came out that the chimp owner bathed and slept with it, much of the news coverage stopped ... no small feat to skeeve out even the press.
M. Evans
Great post. I took a Dolittler commentor's advice and visted http://www.janegoodall.org/chimp_central/conservation/issues/as_pets.asp and http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0916_030916_primatepets.html#main. The articles, particularly the second one, were nothing I hadn't heard before in regards to the foolishness of keeping large cockatoos as pets (see my mytoos.com). People get in over their heads with an intelligent wild animal who absolutely must be in the wild with its own kind. Every time I see a captive Moluccan cockatoo's black eyes regarding me from behind bars, I think, "What have we done?" This goes tenfold for primates.
I wrote a post on the issue and went into many things when the Davis chimp incident (2005) happened.
Having worked with chimps and other apes I found chimpanzees to be the most volatile (the others are no less dangerous--chimps just fly off the handle more easily).
Anyway, in case you have not heard "the magic is back" and Siegfried & Roy hit the stage FEb 28, 2009.
It is supposed to be a one night gig but I somehow doubt it.
I don't know if I can add links here but here is the URL:
http://www.siegfriedandroy.com/news/entry.php?id=202"
I own two parrots, one wild-caught, so of unknown age and origin, and one I raised myself from the age of 28 days. I love them, most of the time understand them, take good care of them, and occasionally get nailed by them. The cockatoo site mentioned above is excellent, truthful and is at points hard to view.
I train horses and people for a living, so I have a lot of experience with both. As docile as my horses are, selected in large part for their tractability and kindness, I take no needless risks. I don't like mistakes and I don't like pain, but both will happen eventually if you engage long enough. It's all about risk mitigation.
Having ANY animal has its serious risks and rewards, but to ignore the DNA-driven behavior of any creature, man included, is to increase the risk dramatically. To elevate that risk further by electing to "share your life" with lions, tigers and chimps, oh my, and expect them to adjust and embrace the sort of "domestication" the owner of the attacking chimp attempted, well, "whiskey, tango, foxtrot" (as Patrick might say) can one expect? The tragedy is that this will not be the last time something like this will happen. There is a disconnect with some people that no learning curve can ever overcome.
Seahorse
Hi Seahorse,
What an excellent comment. Your second paragraph in particular was exactly what I was trying to articulate.
I have three parrots -- two rescues and one I raised from a baby -- and agree that the occasional bite is part of parrot ownership. Unfortunately, most people do not understand this, and take it personally when their bundle of feathers tags them. I take it in stride. I love and am fascinated by my birds. I do not believe that you can be a good parrot owner (I differentiate between parrots and truly domestic animals) unless you understand the loss associated with a flashy jungle creature sitting in a living room and speaking English.
To "step up" (as my red-belly Belle says) to a primate or large predator is to go too far.
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