[monkeywire] Fwd: Chimp editorial - Republican-American (Waterbury, CT)

Ritchie & Ron Laymon laymon.1 at osu.edu
Thu Feb 26 17:01:20 EST 2009


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>> Date: February 26, 2009 1:11:57 PM EST
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>> Subject: Chimp editorial - Republican-American (Waterbury, CT)
>>
>> http://www.friendsofanimals.org/news/2009/february/monkey-business-gets.html 
>>  - comments can be posted
>>
>> REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN Editorial — Waterbury CT
>>
>> BY TRACEY O’SHAUGHNESSY
>>
>> When the panicked Hollywood screen writer Joe Gillis flees into  
>> Norma Desmond’s gaudy mansion in the 1950 classic “Sunset  
>> Boulevard,” he is greeted by a peculiar sight: Desmond, played by  
>> Gloria Swanson, mourning over the corpse of her dead chimp.
>>
>> As a preface to the Babylonian creepiness to follow, the chimp  
>> functions brilliantly: Something is decidedly deviant in the home  
>> of Desmond, director Billy Wilder suggests, epitomized by a  
>> ghoulish funeral for a dead chimp.
>>
>> When Stamford police shot Travis, a 14-year-old chimpanzee which  
>> brutally mauled Charla Nash, many wondered whether it was actually  
>> possible to own a primate as a pet, and still more wondered why  
>> anyone would.
>>
>> The questions were made all the more piquant by statements by the  
>> chimp’s owner, Sandra Herold, that the male chimp “couldn’t have  
>> been more my son than if I gave birth to him.” The Associated Press  
>> reported that Herold, 70, fed the animal “the finest food, and wine  
>> in long-stemmed glasses. They took baths together and cuddled in  
>> the bed they shared. Travis brushed the lonely widow’s hair each  
>> night and pined for her when she was away.”
>>
>> While dressing a dog in a pumpkin outfit at Halloween raises nary  
>> an eyebrow, having a chimp brush its teeth with a Water Pik leads  
>> many to recoil. Nevertheless, says Harwinton’s Peter Brazaitis,  
>> former curator of the Central Park Zoo, the impulse is similar. “If  
>> you work with (chimps), you realize they’re little people in monkey  
>> suits,” says Brazaitis, who also served as superintendent of  
>> reptiles at the Bronx Zoo. “They’re intelligent. They have emotion.  
>> They parent their young. You’re dealing with something that is  
>> manifesting human behavior. It’s easy to impart affection and give  
>> affection. If you’re a lonely person, a chimp is going to be nice  
>> to have around.”
>>
>> Herold acquired the chimp legally in 1995. News reports indicate  
>> she bought it in Missouri. On Feb. 16, the animal attacked the 55- 
>> year-old Nash. Herold had asked Nash to help lure the chimp back  
>> into her house. The chimp subsequently attacked Nash, who sustained  
>> massive head and hand injuries in the 12-minute attack. Police, who  
>> shot and killed the chimp, said it appeared Nash’s face was ripped  
>> away. Four teams of surgeons operated on Nash for more than seven  
>> hours to stabilize the woman before she was transferred to the  
>> Cleveland Clinic.
>>
>> Owning an exotic pet like a chimpanzee is not as difficult as it  
>> may appear. Although current laws prevent them from being brought  
>> across state lines, a chimp could be bought in a state if the owner  
>> bred the chimp in captivity and had legal possession of the animal,  
>> said a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Law  
>> Enforcement Division. “People breed them; people have them in  
>> private ownership,” the spokesman said. It is typically left to the  
>> states to enact legislation about ownership, she said.
>>
>> “There are many sources, both legitimate and casual,” said  
>> Brazaitis of exotic animals. The problem comes when animals bought  
>> in states with less stringent exotic-animal laws are transferred  
>> into states like Massachusetts, which legally prohibits primate  
>> ownership. Even in Connecticut, permission to possess wild animals  
>> is left to the discretion of the Department of Environmental  
>> Protection. Herold did not have a permit for Travis.
>>
>> “In a state like Massachusetts that’s trying to protect the public,  
>> it can be frustrating because someone can buy a non-endangered  
>> primate in Florida and bring it in to Massachusetts, which makes  
>> enforcement difficult,” said Chris Dowd, of the U.S. Fish and  
>> Wildlife Service.
>>
>> Owners often are attracted to chimps because of their human  
>> characteristics. Others see them as “cute.” Still others believe  
>> the exotic animal gives them some kind of cachet, experts say.
>>
>> “They’re convinced they’re doing something good, that they’re doing  
>> the right thing,” said Dowd. “There’s this thing that they’re  
>> special, that they have some special relationship that allows them  
>> to bond with the animal. And among some people, it’s a status  
>> symbol.”
>>
>> “When you see chimps, you’re usually seeing them in a beer  
>> commercial or a soda commercial,” said Priscilla Feral, president  
>> of Friends of Animals, an international animal advocacy group based  
>> in Darien. “They’re all under the age of 6. They look adorable.  
>> What you don’t see is what happens 10 years later. These animals  
>> become sexually mature and extremely strong.”
>>
>> Friends of Animals runs Primarily Primates, a 30-year-old sanctuary  
>> that houses, protects, and rehabilitates 450 non-native animals,  
>> particularly apes and monkeys. About 60 percent of the animals come  
>> from the pet trade; the remaining 40 percent are from biomedical  
>> research institutions. Some of the chimps arrive addicted to  
>> alcohol, Feral said, because their owners habitually serve them  
>> alcohol. Chimps can fetch as much as $30,000 to $50,000.
>>
>> Before 2003, state law required people to get permits to own  
>> quadrupeds, such as deer, but the language was changed that year to  
>> the broader term of “mammals” after someone asked about owning  
>> bats. In 2004, the General Assembly amended the statute, exempting  
>> anyone from the permitting requirement if they had owned a non- 
>> domestic mammal, such as a primate, before October 2003, as long as  
>> it weighed less than 50 pounds.
>>
>> But a permit, says Feral, is not a ban, which she and Connecticut  
>> Attorney General Richard Blumenthal are now seeking. The state  
>> needs a complete ban on the possession of a wild animals, Feral  
>> said. “The state has no idea how many apes and monkeys are kept,”  
>> she said. “It has no idea how many bobcats or other wild animals  
>> are kept as pets….There is no prohibition. There were town  
>> officials, including police, who knew about this state. No  
>> chimpanzee can be considered un-dangerous.”
>>
>> Blumenthal agreed. “We require a permit, but there are no  
>> legislative standards for how permits should be granted,” he said.  
>> “Nobody knows whether a snake or a chimp will behave violently.  
>> It’s a wild animal.”
>>
>> In 2003, New York Police removed a 450-pound Siberian tiger from  
>> the Harlem home of Antoine Yates, after the 31-year-old Yates tried  
>> to pass off his arm and leg injuries as having come from a pit bull.
>>
>> Many animals, including chimpanzees, are protected under the  
>> Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species, an  
>> international agreement to ensure that international trade in  
>> specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their  
>> survival. But before its passage in 1973, hundreds of wild animals  
>> were brought in without any controls.
>>
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