Escape from Chimp Island!
30 chimpanzees escaped from their "Chimp Island" enclosure at a British zoo into a keeper area. Yikes!
More than 5,000 visitors were asked to leave Chester Zoo, near Liverpool, shortly after the break-out as keepers rounded up the chimps.
"In the interests of public safety Chester Zoo was evacuated today, Sunday 5th July, as a precautionary measure. This decision was taken due to an escape of chimpanzees from Chimp Island into a keeper area," the zoo said.
Listen, I know they're cute and funny and all that. But if you ever see an escaped chimp, run for your fucking life or shoot to kill if you're so equipped. I'm not kidding.
Dr. Maureen Martin of Kern Medical Center told KGET-TV of Bakersfield that the monkeys chewed most of Davis' face off and that he would require extensive surgery in an attempt to reattach his nose. Chealander told The Bakersfield Californian that the chimps also tore off Davis' testicles and foot.
And that was at a monkey birthday party. More recently you may have heard about this:
Charla Nash, the woman who suffered horrific injuries earlier this year as a result of a chimpanzee attack in Stamford, Conn., feared Travis the chimp might hurt someone, the Associated Press reports.
Nash's brothers, Stephen and Michael Nash, have spoken on their sister's behalf since the February incident and now say she felt Travis was mean before he apparently snapped and attacked her. Further, they told the Associated Press that Charla Nash described him as so strong that she had to repair his cage on more than one occasion.
snip
In March, the Nash family filed a $50-million lawsuit against Herold, accusing her of effectively allowing the attack to happen through her own negligence. The lawsuit describes Nash's injuries, including the loss of both her hands and "traumatic facial injury [including loss of her nose, upper and lower lips, eyelids and the bony structures in her mid-face]," as catastrophic. Herold's attorney said his client should not be held liable for the incident, calling it a "tragic accident".
Tragic accident my ass. Chimps are strong, unpredictible, and mean. They actually make war against and savagely mutilate each other. If you stupidly keep one as a pet, you're responsible if it rips your friend's face off.
I sure hope that zoo figures out how 30 of them escaped.
When you're right ...
... you're right. Chimps should not be kept as pets. I would go as far as to say the elephants, snakes, wolves and big cats, among others, should not be kept as pets.
Wild animals should be left wild.
Now on to politics.
The last paragraph of the last link in your story is quite interesting.
Hmmmmmm ... now that would make for a .... polarizing system of government.
'Course lots of nasty armed conflicts aren't wars. The Korean Conflict was called a "police action", to avoid having to declare a war.
Wild animals
Hey ya Willy!
I know of someone who has a tiger sanctuary. They are very, VERY cautious, never go in with the cats unless absolutely necessary, and always have a loaded gun handy just in case. They are ultra responsible and because of them, there have been laws and standards applied in the county where they are regarding the keeping of exotic animals. For one, by law they must be sterilized so they can't breed. Have to have a vet available who can deal with that particular animal, stuff like that. Unfortunately I think they are a rarity. Seems that we're more often hearing about some moron whose "pet" tiger mauled or killed their girlfriend. Or even a Sigfried and Roy situation - a tiger or other big cat can easily kill or maul you by accident.
Interesting about the primates at war, isn't it? I fear it's in our nature. Well, men's nature more specifically but some women, too. I try not to think too much about it because I just don't see it changing any time in the foreseeable future. Sigh.
About those Chimps...
Good thing humans are so much more evolved... LOL
Taking a slightly different tack here. Primates are so close and comparable to humans right?
Yesterday I came across an sceintemific article about social behaviour in chimps. As a test scientists in Scotland trained a chimp to do something and then video taped the whole thing to show the footage to other chimps. To see if they would learn from that and accomplish the same feat. Lo and behold:
What I think to be more interesting though; The animals that figured out the trick to reach the food all by themselves had no problem re-configuring the tool for different circumstances.
The ones that learned from the video, always used the tool in the same way.
And THAT my friends, is the power of the light box (TV).
(Imagine what would happen if
humanschimps would be shown nothing but violence and mean-ness and sex and torture and racist acts and ...............)They are now planning on doing the same tests with young children. "Save your money" I can tell you the results right now!
The idea of actually removing road space is kind of an outrageous one. But we're finding that when traffic facilities *are* removed, most of the traffic actually disappears. (From PBS e2 webcast)
It is amazing
how smart they are, hey? I've seen programs where they make tools out of sticks to get at the inside of an ant hill for a crawly snack of yummy ants.
My point about them being strong, unpredictable and mean was just so anyone considering keeping one would know that it's a very VERY bad idea. And yep, humans in many cases are not all that much more evolved, that's for damn sure. In fact, two of those lesser evolved specimens just recently vacated the White House.