Another Chimp Bites the Dust
The story of Travis, the chimpanzee, reminds me of a zoo where a visitor had climbed in with the polar bears, and got mauled. One bear was shot. A rather unfair ending, in my opinion.
Now there is another sad story surrounding a chimpanzee. Travis, a young adult male kept as a pet in Stamford, Connecticut, attacked a woman on February 16th, 2009, visiting the owner, and ends up shot and killed by the police. Under the circumstances, you can't blame the police, but this doesn't make the case less tragic.
Without going into the details of how well the chimp knew the human visitor, or what the effect may have been of the Xanax in his tea, we should consider that this was a 15-year-old male. This is precisely the age at which males begin to domineer females of their species and challenge more established males. If you have ever seen male chimps work on their status it is obvious that they are real risk-takers, employing their considerable strength to move up and not caring one bit about the injuries they may incur. Travis was a time bomb waiting to be set off.
Adult chimpanzees are totally beyond unarmed human control, and have been known to kill people. At a sanctuary in Sierra Leone, in 2006, a group of chimpanzees turned on a local driver and Western visitors, killing the driver and seriously injuring the others. Fatal attacks on humans have occurred at zoos as well.
Chimpanzees are smaller than us. On all fours, they only reach to our knees, so people often misjudge their force. You can see how muscular they are when they effortlessly scale a branchless tree. It's a feat of strength no human can replicate. The arm pulling strength of the male chimpanzee has been measured at five times that of athletic young men, and since apes fight with four "hands," they are impossible to beat. This is so even if they're prevented from biting as was done by a man I once met, who traveled carnivals with a chimp. Every macho guy was ready to wrestle the ape, thinking it would be a piece of cake. But even hulks the size of a pro-wrestler found it impossible to control the man's partner.
What makes apes so strong? Muscle density may be part of the answer, which would also explain why apes can't swim: they lack buoyancy. The pound-for-pound output power of ape muscles is estimated to be twice that of our own species.
It is well known to those who work with chimps in captivity that if one of them is able to get a hold of a human arm or ankle through the bars, there is no way to free yourself by force. The ape has to voluntarily release. A chimp can move its entire body up hanging by a single finger: don't try this at home!
It's tragic that perhaps the attacked woman will lose her life, or at least her face, not to mention the price that Travis paid for the incident. All as a result of lax laws that let people keep undomesticated animals at home. A chimp is no pet and will never make a good pet however well treated. People are lured into keeping them because they are cute when they are young, but this is naïve and irresponsible.
But there are other reasons not to keep nonhuman primates as pets. Chimps may be particularly dangerous, but even smaller monkeys are not made for a life in a human home. Hundreds of accidents happen every year in which monkeys bite owners or visitors, which is why many of them end up without teeth. Is this a way to treat our fellow primates: emasculated and detoothed?
This is why we need organizations, such as ChimpHaven, which take in animals like this, remove them from human homes, and release them onto large islands where they live a more natural social life. No diapers are needed here. They live in a green setting in which they mingle with fellow apes, doing no harm to humans and humans doing no harm to them.
-- Frans de Waal
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Been hearing a lot of chimp catastrophe stories. One of my favorites came from a woman who used to let her pet chimp groom her including her mouth. One day as the chimp was picking at her teeth she felt a piercing, burning pain in her jaw and when she opened her eyes she saw her chimp holding one of her molars between two fingers, examining it inquisitively.
She decided to get rid of her chimp.
I don't know if anyone else here has commented on this particular aspect of this issue, but when I saw the "owner" woman interviewed on the Today Show (and also the California couple who were attacked in a chimp "sanctuary" a couple years ago while visiting "their" former chimp--they appeared with their lawyer Gloria Allred), it was pointed out that these people had raised "their" chimps from infancy--literally from 5 days-old. Under what circumstances does someone obtain a 5 day-old chimp? Were these animals stolen from their mothers, or were they orphans? If the former, what effect is caused to the mother (and other members of a chimp group) by the forced taking of their offspring? The whole thing just reeks of abject cruelty to these highly intelligent and endangered close cousins of ours. I believe that these people who insist on possessing exotic (and dangerous) animals--apes, lions, tigers, crocodiles, pythons, etc.--have a screw loose.
I know what you mean. There are so many parts of these stories that shock and worry me.Like you said, what about the baby chimps mother? What about providing an adequate housing environment for a chimp (forested land with enough trees to hang out in and do chimp things but somehow enclosed to prevent their wandering into a bad situation with humans)? How would you provide your pet with opportunities to socialize with other apes (and not put yourself or others in danger)? Do these people not even think about these things? I mean to me they seem like basic needs for an ape, but most of these cases where people have them I don't see those needs being met. Also I wonder what kind of sense of abandonement these chimps must likely feel when they are dropped off at a sanctuary by their human who they have become so close to. That must surely be an issue. It all seems pretty sad.
Thanks for your insightful article. But I'm still really sad that a chimpanzee had to be killed because of his "owner's" negligence and ignorance. A primate from tropical Africa doesn't belong in Connecticut, how did this woman acquire the chimp? What a life Travis must have had, to be kept in diapers and exploited in commercials.
Hear hear.
It seems obvious to me that the woman who kept the chimp as a pet was doing so more for her own selfish desires than for any concern for Travis' welfare. If she really cared about him, she should have brought him, as you said, to a place like Chimphaven, or someplace with a reasonable approximation of natural chimp habitat.
To see the owner boo-hooing the fate of her pet on CNN this morning (after she had to stab him to try to stop him, she wailed that he looked at her like, "Mom, why did you do that?") , it is obvious that she valued an exotic pet over any regard for other humans. If I had to judge this case, I'd say that she lost a son and now has gained a sister. She should, as a fine for her indifference, be made to be the caretaker for the woman whom I hear has lost both eyes, her nose and part of her jaw, in addition to other injuries. That might let her know who takes priority in the scheme of things.
THANK YOU.
I can understand the wish to nurture a baby animal. But the combination of misguided mommy instinct combined with sheer stupidity in this case is massive. It's a shame that, as always, an innocent human is horribly injured and the animal winds up dead.
On a similar note, over time this can definitely change. If you start to select their breeding we would see an effect similar to how dogs have been bred to domesticated life through the centuries. Just select the most docile chimpanzees and allow them to reproduce, repeat, and in about 5 generations you would see the most wimpiest and submissive chimpanzees perfect for domesticated life. Just like modern labradors!
Not likely; it would take many more generations---and what's the point? Millions of dogs and cats are killed every year because no one wants them. Keeping an ape as a pet is about human ego, not forced adaptation.
Wild animals need wild habitat. They also need to be respected on their own terms.
Again, untrue. But do agree that there's little point to ape domestication. At least, at this time.
Hopefully you don't actually believe what you wrote. And hopefully no one else is as naive as to think this could or even should happen- even though breeders are and have been actively doing this right now, it won't create a "safe for (idiotic) humans to keep as a pet" chimp any time soon.
How many generations of human domestication have we had? All docile and wimpy and submissive now right?
Let's try to get back to common sense and stick close to it. Leave wild animals in the wild, and never as pets- thats abuse of the animal and any of its victims.
Has happened. See Russian Silver Fox experiments. And humans are pretty docile and wimpy compared to most primates. But...
Hehe, Wimpchimps.
Nope.
The only reason domestication works with dogs is because they're pack animals. We really haven't changed their basic nature much--we've just replaced the alpha dog with an alpha human.
It's for the same reason that we've domesticated horses but never zebras.
I am a big fan of your books frans, and have been following your career. Keep up the good work!
You have hit the nail on the head in this article.
"But there are other reasons not to keep nonhuman primates as pets".
What are the reasons to keep human primates as pets?
LOL!
Ask Mr. Fritzel and his fellow Austrians.
As long as she was willing, I'd like to have Jessica Alba as my pet.
Reasons obvious . . .
Bottom line: keeping wild animals as pets is gigantically risky. Even Siegfried and Roy couldn't do it, and the gal who owned the chimp is no Siegfried and Roy.
Amen. Well said.
This is sad for both the victims: the woman the unwtting victim of her friends stupidity, the chimp for the life he was given. Chimps shouldn't weigh two hundred pounds.
People should not have wild animals as pets - its just plain stupid and irresponsible
I agree, but ultimately, aren't even fairly domesticated animals?' To work with horses, for instance, you need to understand their hierarchy as a species, and to work with dogs, you need to understand how dogs (and wolves) operate as opposed to humans. And we, ourselves, are an animal species, fully dangerous, and often instinctive and primal - and sometimes, I think we forget that.
Treating an animal like a cute, mini/alter person is always a mistake. Dressing up a dog to look like a baby may not get you killed (maybe it should get you seriously slapped, however) - but dressing up an animal like a chimp just proves idiocy.
There is no reason to keep any exotic pet. Especially chimpanzees or monkeys. They may be cute and docile when young, but with each passing year they become more unpredictable and dangerous.
People keep big cats, alligators, bears and other dangerous animals as "pets". Doing so poses a hazard to the community, no matter how "domesticated" the owner says they are. Accidents happen. They even turn on their owners.
There are plenty of dogs and cats in shelters dieing for a forever home. If these people can't be satisfied with a dog or cat, maybe they're not fit to have any pets at all.
I couldn't have said it better.
This is absolutely true. Ask anyone in dog or cat rescue; they will tell you that there are loving pets out there waiting for good homes. It should be absolutely illegal to keep a dangerous animal as a pet. And a further thought: Travis appeared in commercials. With computer-generated images at such a high level of realism, no wild animal should be used in movies, commercials, etc.
Yes, people keep these pets out of ignorance. Friends visit out of ignorance. I would not enter a home with a tiger, bear, chimp or any other wild animal. We must educate and hold people responsible. Perhaps the laws must be reexamined.
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