The #1 source for news about monkeys and apes

[Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Chimp-Calling.html?ex=997086904&ei=1&en=853a6ea3ec5b06d2 


July 25, 2001

Chimp Uses Phone in London

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


LONDON (AP) -- The caller who woke safari park workers in the middle 
of the night didn't say a word, but his shriek gave him away.

One keeper recognized the sound of a chimpanzee, and the search led 
to the chimp enclosure at Blair Drummond Safari Park, near Stirling 
in Scotland, where Chippy had a mobile phone hidden in his bed.

His keeper, Gary Gilmour, recognized the phone as his own.

"We just thought what a clever wee devil he was," Gilmour said Wednesday.

Gilmour said he bought the phone recently, and had programmed only a 
few numbers into its memory. "Thank God it only contained the numbers 
of my colleagues here," he said.

Safari park workers are happy to be sleeping without interruption 
again, but Chippy is short one plaything.

"He is just like a kid now, he is sulking and moping about because we 
have taken my phone away. I guess we will just have to buy him a 
plastic one," Gilmour said.