Welcome to the Penn and Teller bulletin board, a great place to keep in touch with
fellow Penn & Teller fans or ask questions about the guys. We welcome your thoughts!
Monkey Tuesday, between the laughs, did a great service in pointing out to people chimps et al don't actually make great pets. Despite what BJ and the Bear taught us, these are still wild animals and can be extremely dangerous. I know whenever I'm at zoo these days I keep my arm sockets well out of range of the chimp enclosure.
There's a great post here from scienceblogs about why chimps are not pets:
#1 Chimpanzees are wild animals. Animals that make good PETS like dogs and cats, have been domesticated for millions of years. There has been selection on them against aggression, which is why a dog, unlike a wolf, will not automatically tear you to pieces. Anyone who has a pet chimpanzee for long enough will eventually no longer be able to control them and will either get a body part bitten off or will have to use extreme force to control them. Chimps live to be 50 years old and grow almost as big as a human male. They have extremely powerful muscles and are 5-10 stronger than a heavy weight boxer.
I feel compelled to mention that as far as I know domestication hasn't been going on for millions of years...More like tens of thousands at best. But the point is still valid.
I also wanted to thank you, MindMe for mentioning the This American Life podcast somewhere else in this thread. I listened to the episode you mentioned, and a couple others and I'm absolutely hooked! I feel silly saying this considering that as far as I can tell it's a popular show on NPR, but I had never heard of it before. I'll chock it up to being Canadian. But thank you for the new listening material!
The zoo keeper in me compels me to point out that chimpanzees are apes, not monkeys. Now, REAL monkey maimings--those done by actual monkeys--are usually fairly funny. Take, for example, the evil monkey that stalked and bit Mike Rowe on Dirty Jobs.
Chimps aren't funny when they attack because they have crazy strength and are pure evil. Apes in general are evil and scary and should never be near other species of apes, especially humans. It's just a bunch of facial maimings and stabbings waiting to happen. The woman who owned this chimp was dumb and was asking for some serious horror in her life; it's awful that it happened to her friend, though.
Anyway, the point here is, DeBrazza's guenons have Charles Darwin beards and they can jump like motherfuckers. Now it's REALLY funny when those guys go berserk. I'd laugh at a guenon attacking somebody any day.
ok, for the record, this wasnt any regular ape. The owner slept with it, gave it alcohol(?), it wasnt exactly of the greatest mind (nor was the owner). And it wasnt the owner that got disfigured, its someone else, other wise id probably laugh too.
||Chimpanzee collects ammo for "premeditated" tourist-stoning
Swedish inspectors found several stockpiles of missiles hidden in a local zoo. Apparently, the arsenal had been gathered together for the express purpose of being used against civilians. And who was the mastermind behind this collection? A 19-year-old chimpanzee called Santino. ||
Even more interesting this week's This American Life podcast has an amazing story about chimp retirement homes. As Monkey Tuesday proved out, chimps owned as pets or entertainers become dangerous after their childhood is over. There are also hundreds of chimps that have been raised for medical experiments. Because chimps are "near humans" protocols don't allow for them to be euthanized. The USA built some retirement homes for such chimps. Quite a fascinating listen.
