Chimp Attack Motivated By Jealousy

This
story just keeps getting grosser and more bizarre with every news
cycle. For someone who grew up wanting a chimp like Tarzan’s Chita to
replace
our
largely useless little brother, it is hard to adjust to Chimpanzees as
150-lb flesh-eating killing machines. At least the latest story from
the Los
Angeles Times hints at a motive…

HAVILAH, Calif. — St. James and LaDonna Davis raised Moe the chimp as
their son. That was the word they used to describe him, and that was
how they treated him — like a hairy, rambunctious child who was a pampered
member of the family.

They taught him to wear clothes, to take showers, to use
the toilet, and to watch television in their West Covina, Calif., home. (We wish we could train OUR children to do these things, with the exception of watching TV, which they they can already do like champs)

On Thursday, the day they marked as Moe’s 39th birthday,
their love for the chimp nearly cost them their lives.

St. James Davis took the brunt of the attack, the ferocity of which left
paramedics stunned. ”I had no idea a chimpanzee was capable of doing
that to a human," said Kern County Fire Captain Curt Merrell, who
was on the scene.

Davis, who remained in critical condition Friday, was
badly disfigured. According to his wife, he lost all the fingers from
both hands, an eye, part of his nose, cheek and lips, and part of his
buttocks. His foot was mutilated and his heel bone was cracked.

Ape specialist Deborah Fouts, director of the Chimp
and Human Communication Institute at Central Washington University, said
the attack may have been prompted by jealousy.

”Chimpanzees have a real sense of right and wrong and fairness and unfairness," said
Fouts, a veteran of four decades of work with chimps. ”It sounds like
people were showering a lot of attention on Moe, birthday cake and the
like. . . . Perhaps the other chimps were jealous of Moe."

Lesson learned: Don’t take cakes to the monkey pen,
unless you have enough for everybody.

from the
Los Angeles Times via the Boston Globe