The #1 source for news about monkeys and apes

["carrie mclaren" <brooklynite282 AT gmail.com>]

Stone for stone by chimp
December 26, 2007 The Telegraph, Calcutta, India
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071226/jsp/calcutta/story_8709069.jsp

A group of visitors threw stones at a chimpanzee in Alipore Zoological
Gardens on Tuesday morning, provoking the primate to pay them back in
their own coin.

The chimp kept pelting stones at the visitors for half-an-hour since
9.15am, prompting them to run for safety, ducking the missiles all the
way. Fortunately, no one was injured in the brick-batting between the
distant cousins.

The zoo authorities have deployed keepers around the cages and
enclosures to protect the animals, but on Tuesday, they were far
outnumbered by the record count of heads — 62,000 — the highest in
recent years on Christmas.

"It is only normal that the chimpanzee got irritated when visitors
threw stones at it. It may have chucked back a few stones, but we have
not received any complaints in this regard," said zoo director S.K.
Chaudhuri. "Such incidents are quite common."

They definitely are. On December 5, two chimpanzees broke open their
enclosure and ran amok on the grounds after a visitor threw a stone at
them.

The live-in partners pushed a woman and scratched another, swung from
branch to branch and ran around in circles for half-an-hour, till they
were chased back to their enclosure.

Following the December 5 incident, the zoo management had decided to
reinforce the locks and fences of the animal enclosures. The
chimpanzee home is now protected by two locks and a chain.

"Visitors should know how to behave in a zoo. Annoying animals could
be fatal, as had happened in the Guwahati zoo, where a visitor was
mauled to death by a tiger while he was photographing the animal,"
said an Alipore zoo official.