Chimp Shot Dead After Attacking Woman

Former Animal Actor Mauls Owner's Friend; Animal Experts "Baffled" By Attack

HARTFORD, Conn., Feb. 17, 2009 (AP)

Travis the chimpanzee, a veteran of TV commercials, was the constant companion of a lonely Connecticut widow who fed him steak, lobster and ice cream. He could eat at the table, drink wine from a stemmed glass, use the toilet, and dress and bathe himself.

He brushed his teeth with a Water Pik, logged on to a computer to look at photos and channel-surfed television with the remote control.

But on Monday, the wild animal in him came out with a vengeance.

The 200-pound animal viciously mauled a friend of his owner before being shot to death by police... .
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Chimpanzees have gotten too much bad press recently.

I'm here to defend these sad, misunderstood, maligned, and endangered creatures of the African bush.

We all read in horror the news story referenced above in which a 55-year-old Connecticut woman was severely mauled by a 15-year-old common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) named Travis. The unfortunate woman was visiting the animal's 70-year-old owner when the inexplicable attack occurred.

Travis was shot to death by a police officer that had been called to aid the victim of the savage attack.

And as if the Travis story didn't represent enough negative publicity for chimpanzees in a single month, several weeks after Travis was destroyed, animal behavior researchers in Sweden achieved great notoriety with a news story about Santino, a 30-year-old chimpanzee in a zoo there who had been seen gathering a cache of stones each day to hurl at zoo visitors.

Santino's behavior was said to offer the first proof that chimpanzees are capable of thinking ahead--of planning actions in advance and pursuing their plans when the time is right.

Uncaring and unthinking news editors dealt with Santino's story, like Travis', in a largely unsympathetic manner.

There were these dark, hairy, and funny looking "others" who were attacking innocent humans.

One of them--Santino in Sweden--actually had the temerity to devise a scheme for hoarding stones to throw at his tormentors when they visited the Furuvik Zoo where he is held.

How dare he!

In truth, Travis should not have been living as a quasi-human in the home of a human where he had to be kept in a secure steel cage the majority of the time. Travis was not a human. He was a wild animal native to equatorial Africa--one in whom instinctual behavior eventually overrode an unnatural and learned lifestyle in Connecticut.

Likewise, Santino, also a common chimpanzee, is a wild animal that should live on a warm African savanna rather than in cold and damp Sweden. Santino should not be imprisoned in a zoo where humans may point and giggle about his appearance and antics for the rest of his likely 50-plus-year life.

Nor should young chimpanzees that are forced by the advertising and entertainment industries to pose for "comical" but demeaning photos be so misused and abused. Greeting cards, children's books, films, and ads featuring chimpanzees are in poor taste--an abomination to sensitive and compassionate persons everywhere.

Chimpanzees are highly intelligent creatures--man's closest relatives, genetically speaking. Is it any wonder that they occasionally feel enough pain, chagrin, humiliation, and confusion while in captivity at the hands of humans to strike back?

Who could blame them? One can only marvel that such instances of chimpanzee rage are not more common.

Man's fellow earth creatures are not here merely for man's pleasure, man's use, or man's abuse. They are separate tribes entirely with an inherent right to live their lives in dignity--as free from pain, fear, humiliation, and angst as possible.

I disapprove of all wild animal captivity, but none more so than primate captivity. It is wrong and it is immoral.

More information on chimpanzees can be found at:

 http://www.savethechimps.org/chimps_facts.asp

D. Grant Haynes