This has nothing to do with basketball, and even less to do with the Boston Celtics, except that I found a video of a tiny monkey jamming a basketball. Awwww.... anyway, back to my main point- read this article and then try to tell me that chimps aren't the scariest animals on the planet.
STOCKHOLM (AP) - A canny chimpanzee who calmly collected a stash of rocks and then hurled them at zoo visitors in fits of rage has confirmed that apes can plan ahead just like humans, a Swedish study said Monday. Santino the chimpanzee's anti-social behavior stunned both visitors and keepers at the Furuvik Zoo but fascinated researchers because it was so carefully prepared.
According to a report in the journal Current Biology, the 31-year-old alpha male started building his weapons cache in the morning before the zoo opened, collecting rocks and knocking out disks from concrete boulders inside his enclosure. He waited until around midday before he unleashed a "hailstorm" of rocks against visitors, the study said.
I like how this chimp is calmly smashing concrete apart to make his projectiles. What the hell- how strong are these things!? Now, this discovery is important because researchers previously thought that chimpanzees would only randomly fly into crazed homicidal rampages for no reason- now they realize that they are also capable of carefully planning out execution-style hit jobs. Then again, to look at both sides of this contentious issue- this might be a chicken-or-the-egg thing- in this case, what came first- the rage or the threatened castration?
For a while, zoo keepers tried locking Santino up in the morning so he couldn't collect ammunition for his assaults, but he remained aggressive. They ultimately decided to castrate him in the autumn last year, but will have to wait until the summer to see if that helps. The chimpanzees are only kept outdoors between April and October and Santino's special behavior usually occurs in June and July.
Damn. This makes the zoo sound like maximum security chimp prison! Which it... isn't?
"It is normal behavior for alpha males to want to influence their surroundings ... It is extremely frustrating for him that there are people out of his reach who are pointing at him and laughing," Osvath said. "It cannot be good to be so furious all the time."
In Connecticut last month, a 200-pound pet chimpanzee once seen in TV commercials mauled a woman trying to help its owner lure it inside and cornered a police officer in his cruiser before he shot and killed it, authorities said
The owner has speculated that the chimp was trying to protect her and attacked the woman because she had changed her hairstyle, was driving a different car and was holding a stuffed toy in front of her face to get the chimp's attention.
Lesson learned? All I know is that chimps are frikkin' crazy. I hate them and they freak me the hell out. You can try to make the case that they aren't the scariest animals alive, but I contend that people don't keep bears and sharks as pets. That chimp attack occurred in Connecticut, for crying out loud. We all might have chimps as neighbors and not even know about it. Then again, be grateful that you don't live in Kentucky, where people have full grown pet lions. Damn.Source URL: http://ledger-heath.blogspot.com/2009/03/public-service-announcement-chimps-are.html
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