Talk about not monkeying around … no indication if the owner’s last words to it were, “Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!”
Who is this Damned Connecticut reader pictured at left with Travis? We’re not allowed to tell you her name, but she agreed to talk with us off-the-record about the time she spent with Travis when he was just a young chump. Read more…
Source: CNN
A woman has been hospitalized with life-threatening injuries after a pet chimpanzee attacked her at a friend’s home in Stamford, Connecticut, police said.
Charla Nash, 55, had just arrived at her friend Sandra Herold’s house when the chimp, named Travis, jumped on her and began biting and mauling her, causing serious injuries to her face, neck and hands, according to Stamford Police Capt. Rich Conklin, who said the attack was unprovoked.
Herold had called Nash to her house to help get 14-year-old Travis back inside after he used a key to escape.
While her friend was being attacked, Herold tried to pull the primate off her, but was unsuccessful.
She then called 911 before stabbing the chimp with butcher knife and hitting him with a shovel. Neither fazed Travis, who police said was like a child to Herold.
Stamford police later shot the chimp multiple times after he attacked an officer inside a police cruiser, Conklin said.
Travis returned to the house, where police later found him dead. Conklin estimated that Travis weighed close to 200 pounds.
The police captain also said this isn’t the first interaction his officers have had with Travis; the chimp escaped in 2003 and “wreaked havoc” on the streets of Stamford for a couple of hours.
In 2005, a different chimp escaped from California’s Animal Haven Ranch and chewed off a man’s nose and genitals.
During an interview after that attack, wildlife expert Jeff Corwin told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that chimpanzees are “absolutely powerful.” Video Watch Corwin explain why chimps don’t make good pets »
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“It’s often said that an adult chimpanzee weighing in at 150 pounds is three to seven times stronger than a human being,” Corwin said.
“The thing about chimpanzees is, we sort of look at them through our rose-colored cultural glasses of the cute little chimp in the ‘Tarzan’ movie. Those are very young chimps. Chimps grow up, they become very powerful. They are very complex in their behavior. They have a whole range of emotions, including violence and anger.”
6 comments
a CNN commentator made a good point about the impossibility of ever truly domesticating a wild animal, no matter how much a person might want it to to be domesticated
I’m no animal rights activist by any means, but I’ve always found it cruel that when people try to make pets or performers of wild-type animals (chimps, lions, elephants, etc.) and it horribly goes awry — you know, when the wild animal acts like a wild animal instead of a domesticated pet or human — the animal is the one who gets put down in the end.
My take on wild animals is that they should stay wild … or be eaten (if tasty). Nothing in between.
Kate will not be happy with that comment ….she is going to fling soy squares at you.
I have to sneak my meat into the house, I eat it in the bathtub late at night while she sleeps…Sometimes I cry.
Mmmm….garlic infused elephant with a reduced thyme and red wine glaze.
I’m leaving this damned organization and joining PETA. I’ll show all of you!!
Steve, You’re fuckin’ hysterical
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