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[Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

washingtonpost.com > Metro >      Maryland
Pet Monkey Bites the Hand That Feeds Her
Zsa Zsa Quarantined After Injuring Owner's Friend in Dinnertime Mishap

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 1, 2004; Page SM01


The behavior was quite unlike Zsa Zsa.

Sure, she has been known to nip at a shirt button, and she likes to 
wrestle around. But she has some manners. She'll eat pizza from the 
table, drink out of a straw, and what's more, members of her family 
say, she knows right from wrong.


So when Jeffrey Bennett approached Zsa Zsa, a 6-year-old pigtailed 
macaque monkey, to give her the evening meal of baby formula on 
Saturday, he had no reason to expect his left thumb would be the main 
course.

But that's what happened, said Bennett, a 39-year-old man who stays 
at the Calvert County home of Tracey Summers, the owner of two 
monkeys. Bennett said Zsa Zsa most likely was intrigued by his 
silver-colored watch when she decided to chomp down on his hand.

"I feed her all the time. She's a real good monkey. She's never done 
this before," said Bennett outside of the St. Leonard home on Monday, 
his hand wrapped in a bloody bandage and his thumb supported by a 
splint.

Police responded to the house on Kings Road for the rare monkey bite 
call at about 10:30 p.m. Saturday, taking Bennett to Calvert Memorial 
Hospital for treatment. The bite, which occurred at the base of 
Bennett's thumb, did not cause serious injuries.

It is legal to keep monkeys as pets in Maryland as long as the owner 
obtains the proper permits. Zsa Zsa came from Dallas, said Summers, 
as part of arrangements to rescue her from an abusive home. More 
recently, Summers bought Isabel, a 2-year-old pigtailed macaque, on 
the Internet as a companion for Zsa Zsa. Don Baugher, who lives with 
Summers, said the monkeys cost about $3,500 each.

Pigtailed macaques are brown monkeys native to Sumatra and Burma. 
Females generally weigh 12 to 20 pounds and can grow up to two feet 
tall. Some have been trained in their native lands to climb palm 
trees and harvest coconuts. Summers said her monkeys live in large 
steel cages and play in a swimming pool outside.

"They're very good girls. They play rough sometimes, but they're 
very, very smart. Zsa Zsa knows 'time out,' and 'no teeth," said 
Summers, who works at a hair salon and was away from her home when 
Bennett said the monkey attacked. She believes that Zsa Zsa would not 
do such a thing, and said a more likely explanation for the wound was 
that Bennett cut himself with a knife.

"Nobody's been able to provide proof that it happened," she said, 
adding that "I don't want some animal rights organization camping out 
on my doorstep."

For now, Zsa Zsa is being kept in quarantine inside the house for 30 
days, and county Health Department officials will make periodic 
checks on the health of the animal, said Ashley Conway, a public 
health nurse in the disease surveillance and control unit. Conway 
said there have been "a couple" of monkey bites in Calvert during the 
past year. The main concern from a health standpoint is that monkeys 
can transmit the herpes B virus to humans, she said.

"There are concerns when people start to keep wild pets. Even though 
they were born in captivity, they are wild animals," Conway said. "A 
good rule of thumb is not to mess with exotic animals. If you see a 
cute monkey, don't pet it, don't feed it, don't pick it up."