Please go to my new Psychology Today blog to see what I'm up to. To buy the book, Bonobo Handshake, please visit my website. To follow the adventures of the Lola ya Bonobo orphans, please visit Friends of Bonobos
The keepers found a gabon viper in the bonobo forest! Gabon vipers are the dragons of sub-Saharan Africa. Two horns perch between the nose, and beneath the pale eyes are two geometric brown stripes, flowing outwards like river deltas. They have the longest fangs and spew the most venom of any poisonous snake.
If these fangs find you, the initial symptoms are intense pain and blistering around the bite. Your tongue and eyelids swell, you go into convulsions, you may defecate or urinate uncontrollably before you lose consciousness. You start to haemorrhage in your lungs, intestine, and urinary tract. Eventually, the venom erodes the muscles around the heart and you die of a heart attack.
Can you believe it?? brian says he's sad because he likes snakes but personally i'm glad it's dead. don't want to mess around with even the chance it would find me, or the bonobos!
someone in the comments asked me what we were doing in congo and now, after things have settled down, i'm pleased to introduce our new study: food for sex. it's no secret that whenever there is food around, bonobos have sex. to ease the tension, and to stop fighting. in chimps, the dominant gets the food and if anyone else tries to take it, he beats them up. in bonobo, there seems to be a more egalitarian way of doing it and when there's food around, especially EXPENSIVE food, like green apples flown in from south africa at $100 a box, they go crazy. everyone has sex, so everyone seems to get a little bit.
but what's never been shown in an experiment before is whether they EXCHANGE food for sex. so yeah, they have sex, but will they give food in exchange for it?
Thank you to Carole Riley, Natacha Santos, Andrew Francis, Angelita Fair ...
And a very BIG thank you to Jason Comeaux, who donated $400.
Thanks to our Wildlife direct donors: Ji-ln L. Sherri S. Dina C. Wanda H. Robin D. Maciej G.
No one died today, (thank god) but Lukuru has a snotty nose. which is the first sign of it. Please please pleeeeeese don't let it spread through the nursery!
i have some sad news. kindu was found dead in the forest. this flu epidemic is absolutely horrible. claudine thinks it was the terrible virus that ran through kinshasa. there is no fever. antibiotics don't do anything. the bonobos have severe respiratory infections and then they can't breath for 3 days then they die. it's 6 bonobos in a month now, including mimi and her baby.
i know we're doing a release drive but at the moment we desperately need funds for lola. because of the financial crisis, we have a shortfall this year for the sanctuary. anything you can spare would help so much.
the flu virus has hit group 2 and there are 10 bonobos sick. i can't take anyone else dying!!! i miss mimi so much. then mixa, mimi's baby, kisantu's baby, lodja. i haven't had time to process any of it. claudine told me this morning about the shortfall in the budget and i couldn't believe it. please send anything you can. www.friendsofbonobos.org/support.htm
i just hope it doesn't spread to the nursery or group 3. if lomela or kata or lukuru or any one of the babies gets sick i think i'll go crazy!
we had a really sad day today. Mixa, a little boy from group 1 died today. He was the most special little bonobo, Brian's favourite. He was always laughing and happy. And he would run up and down the fence line wanting to play. he loved to splash around in the water. we don't really know what happened, we found him drowned in the lake. he might have fallen into the deep part, he might have been sick, we've been having the most terrible cold epidemic and the bonobos are taking it hard. it's emergency mode here, just tying to get from one day to the next ... all the staff are really sad. with mimi's baby, mimi, and now mixa.
then i got this message which really cheered me up ...
Dear Vanessa,
I don't know if you remember me,Marie? I am the 11-years-old girl who sponsor Masisi. Yesterday, I looked the news of Lola ya Bonobo on the Web site, and I read that Masisi was very healthy. I was so happy to learn those great news! Last month, at school, we had to prepare an oral presentation on a foundation or an organisme that we love. I did it on Lola ya Bonobo and I showed some pictures of Masisi to my friends.They fell in love with her. Every day, they ask me "How is Masisi? Is she growing up?"
I just wanted to have some news. If you want to answer me, please send your e-mail to boyoma1 at hotmail.com.
Thank you to take care of the cute little Masisi. Transmit her my greetings (can we say this in english?!),
hey! we made it to past $1000 for the release! thanks to the generous donations of Sarah Chancel ($100) John and Bretta Fox ($200). John came to our board meeting last year and gave us some great ideas for taking bonobos into U.S. classrooms and we're currently working on a lesson plan now.
So all in all we're up to $1135!!
Aiming for $20,000 by the end of july, so we're 1/20th of the way there!
Paw-Talk is a forum and blog for pet enthusiasts and animal lovers interested in discussing the latest news, events, issues, tips, and personal experiences about their pets and animals. I think it's awesome they're branching out to educated people about endangered species, starting with bonobos!
it's a boy! semendwa has had another baby - Leki, which means 'the first little brother' because no other babies have a little brother except leki's sister, elikia. isn't he darling? i couldn't get a very good face shot, but i assure you his little wrinkly face is just too too cute!
it's important for the bonobos at lola to have babies, because we are hoping that mothers with infants will provide the focal groups for the bonobos who are being released. in the wild, the group centres around mother and infant pairs, so we hope this will encourage the group to stick together. Also, if the bonobos are going to be wild, they need to know how to raise babies, and now semendwa has had excellent practise!!
we've just got in all our donations from wildlife direct, so we'll be thanking everyone shortly and giving you an update on our progress for fundrasing for the release.
Lomela was nowhere in sight but i did get a glimpse of the nose-picking monster - boyoma. although he struck me as kind of grown up. He shared food with baby moyi, he ate his papaya with minimum mess, and there was barely a booger in sight! i was almost sad ... maybe it was too hot.
all the babies have terrible colds, there's a lot of coughing going on, but everyone is ok, so far. i've been giving them vitamins every morning!
Masisi is big! look at the photos of her last year and this year! can you see how much bigger she is? i didn't get a good photo because all she did was run around. up trees, down trees, into the bushes, stealing my camera bag ... the only photo i got of her was when she took a break to chew on a stick for a while. whew! a big change from last year when all she did was sit on her mama Henriette and never get off!
ok, i know there are lots of anxious mamas out there for Lomela. she is in with the big group now!!! the only problem is there is a known dirt thrower - keza a big male who every time i pull out my camera slings a fistful of mud ... but i'm going to do it, i know you're all counting on seeing what a big, beautiful bonobo she is now!
don't forget to donate to the release project! www.friendsofbonobos.support.htm, and there's now a widget thanks to S at wildlife direct!!!!!!!
Yay! internet! sorry for all those anxious parents out here, waiting for news, the Internet was totally kaput for like a week. But now it is on and guess who is first - Lukuru!!
This is her last year ...
Nursery 101
... and now look at her with mama henriette! she is big - she has so much hair!!! and all her parents should know she is the sweetest bonobo ever - like so totally adorably sweet. she just runs right up to you and wants you to tickle her - i've never seen such a brave bonobo who is so small! she's just a baby, probably only 2 years old. but she is just so happy. she laughs and plays all day with her buddy sandoa. i tried to take a picture of the two of them, but they are just a blur.
Lukuru with Mama Henriette I have heaps of news on the release project - more on that later. don't forget to donate, we're after $20,000 for the 20,000 hectares.
James from Florida sponsored Kata for his friend Gina, our friend Vera from England donated $50, Sean from Canada donated $15, and J right up the road from me in North Carolina donated $30!
So we now have 365 acres for the release site - yay! only 19,635 to go! And I still havent been able to get in to my WildlifeDirect account, although Sheryl is working on it!! So there might even be more I don't know about!
So sign up if you haven't already, the bonobo release is a historic moment in bonobo conservation - the first time ever a release like this has happened. Tell you friends and family, buy them a little piece of forest for their birthday or ask them (like i do) to give you a little piece of Congo for yours!
Tucked into a rural section of Louisiana, a few miles from Lafayette, an unexpected compound springs from the landscape. It is the nation's largest primate testing lab. The New Iberia Research Center, part of the University of Louisiana, houses more than 6,000 primates and one of the largest captive populations of chimpanzees in the world.
"Nightline" obtained the results of a nine-month undercover investigation by the Humane Society of the United States. A Humane Society investigator took a hidden camera inside the New Iberia Research Center for most of 2008. The video shows what the Society says is the way monkeys and great apes are treated behind closed doors.
The New Iberia Research Center is a public facility, and its research includes contract work for pharmaceutical companies and hepatitis studies. The lab receives millions in public funding but limited public scrutiny.
"Facilities are very secretive in general," said the investigator, who asked to remain anonymous because of the investigation. "It's hard to get a lot of good information out of what really goes on. You rarely see images other than what is kind of posted on the Web sites. Going undercover in a place is the only way you'll see what's the truth."
The Humane Society investigator told ABC News that chimpanzees, often perched several feet off the ground, are shot with sedation guns, with little regard for their safety. The video shows chimps crashing to the floor.
We have $30 for the release project! Thanks to Lynn Makert and Carole Riley!! We're hoping to raise $20,000 between the US and France before the release on June 19, so let's not let those Frenchies show us up.
You'll receive a special certificate featuring an exclusive photo by Christine d'Hauthuille, French journalist and photographer, who just came back from the release site a few months ago. Christine describes it as a 'dream'.
So we have a new mission , raising money for the release! If some of you don't know, Lola is planning the world's first bonobo release project. Every great ape except for bonobos has been released into the wild. It's crucial we have a method that works now while there are still some bonobos left and not wait until we have the last 60 bonobos at lola until we try and release them.
Claudine has asked me to send out a shout for help - we desperately need funds to make this happen - anything would be great!
Everything is ready. The bonobos have been through extensive health checks, Claudine has just been again to the site to see the local people - she finalised a contract with them and they've agreed to be bonobo guardians.
Please help us with this important project!
Sheryl is helping with a donation widget but in the meantime, just go to www.friendsofbonobos.org/support.htmand make a donation of any amount!! i'll let you know how we're going and give you updates on progress once i get there!
look at this amazing forest! Imagine when the bonobos see it for the first time!!!!
yay! i'm leaving for lola on friday so all you worried mamas out there will get updates!!! and pics. i'm still so jetlagged from australia, dunno if i told you i was there but now i've given up on trying to get on US time since i'm goign on friday anyway. i can't wait to give lomela a big hug! i can't wiat to see kata's pouty face! and i can't wait to see how big lukuru's grown.
I don't see why you couldn't have a Bonobo as a pet. They are smaller and nicer than a Chimp. As long as you have a big house and a Vet that can treat it.
Ummm.... a bonobo could still break both your arms and bite off every one of your fingers. At Lola, when one of the males became agressive, five females ganged up on him, almost tore off his foot and testicals and he nearly died. Bonobos are less violent and smaller than chimps but that doesn't mean they are dogs.
Also, bonobos are an ENDANGERED SPECIES!!!! For every 'pet' that makes it out of the country dozens more were killed. Even if you breed bonobos in country, we live in a global community. How can we, as conservationists, tell the government of Congo or the Congolese people that it is wrong to kill bonobos for bushmeat and keep them as pets, when they can point to our country and say,'well Americans keep bonobos as pets, why can't we?'
Also, if you think bonobos can live in a house, try keeping a tiger in a backyard.
I feel like there has been a lot of sadness on the blog lately and I need a bit of a pick up. I want all of you to meet Nicholas.
He emailed me a little while ago….
Dear Friends of bonobos,
My name is Nicholas Sablan,I'm 9 years old,I live in San Bernardino CA.,and I would like help finding chimps and other primates to put in the sanctuary that I'll be raising money for in the next few months. First,I envy you for saving such amazing creatures. I really want to make a primate sanctuary with my family to study. The apes I would like are at least 2 (Chimps and orangutans) to put in the sanctuary. I would be so grateful if you were to help me find some of the apes that I would like to put in my sanctuary. I'm definitely not sure about having gorillas in the sanctuary because #1.They'll be major hard to find. And #2.Gorillas are very hard to contain because I' ve observed them very well in zoos. The reason that I'm asking you about this is because I want to hear advice from an actual sanctuary. The orangutan just seems much easier to contain in sanctuaries than gorillas to me. I really hope that you'll be able to help me find some apes that actually need my help.
Love,
Nicholas.
So I wrote back to Nicholas and explained that apes are very hard to take care of and that there are already sanctuaries out there that he could help. I also put him in touch with James the Bonobo fan, and said maybe james could give him some ideas. and then i got this email back.
Dear Vanessa,
I’m sorry that this is so late but I had school, acting class, and cubscouts! When I grow up I’m gonna work at Friends of Bonobos before I start my own sanctuary. I emailed James and he replied so that totally rocked. It’s going to be my birthday on 4/12/09. I’ll be a double digit until 100. Anyway, I can’t wait to work at a sanctuary for my fave great ape. Do you adopt and care for babies until they are sent to the wild? I wish that Kasongo could meet me. If I went to Africa that would be the first thing on my list. This may seem kind of annoying but I’d like to make a bonobo sanctuary supporting yours. You’ll always have the title as first bonobo sanctuary in the whole wide world. If I had a baby bonobo for a day it would be the best day of my life. Many animals are illegally owned & that should be stopped. Soon it will be like the northern white rhinocerous. Less than twelve in the world. Sadly all of the females are too old to give birth. Reply back.
From, Nicholas.
Isn’t that the cutest? Nicholas, I’ve had a really tough week and your email made me laugh for a whole five minutes and I wish more kids and more grown ups were like you.
a friend of mine, sheril, on the Intersection, reposted my 'chimps are not pets' post in light of the recent chimp attack. check out the responses! what do you guys think?
STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) -- The owner of a 200-pound chimpanzee that viciously mauled a Stamford woman calls the incident "a freak thing," but says her pet was not a "horrible" animal.
Sandra Herold told NBC's "Today Show" in an interview aired Wednesday that Travis, her 14-year-old chimpanzee, was like a son to her.
Herold tried to save her friend by stabbing the chimp with a butcher knife and bludgeoning it with a shovel.
I have extremely strong emotions concerning this particular issue... in part because of my conservation biology background, but more recently, from my friendship with science writer Vanessa Woods and her husband, evolutionary anthropologist Dr. Brian Hare. The very reason they study sanctuary orphans is because often mothers have been killed so the babies can be sold to people who want them as pets. Vanessa explained the problems with this last year at her terrific blog Bonobo Handshake, reposted here:
#1 Chimpanzees are wild animals. Animals that make good PETS like dogs and cats, have been domesticated for [thousands] of years. There has been selection on them against agression, 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.
This is the size of a full grown adult next to the baby sized chimps you see in commercials and on TV
#2 Because of this aggressive temperament people who sell these animals as pets must do so when they are adorable and harmless infants. Their customers do not know the level of aggression these animals are capable of or there strength.
#3: Even accredited zoos and universities struggle to pay the expenses required to house wild chimps humanely and safely. The vast majority of chimp owners do not have the resources to assure the welfare of their wild pet and the safety of their neighbors.
#4 ALL primates potentially carry diseases deadly to humans including herpes B, yellow fever, monkeypox, Ebola, Marburg, SIV, and tuberculosis.
#5 But politicians in these countries point to the lack of laws in the United States and ask why someone in North Carolina can have a pet monkey or tiger but a Congolese or Brazilian cannot. My hope is that we will set an example for the world for the humane treatment of wild animals - their very survival depends upon it.
And finally and most importantly, the pet trade is an international problem that threaten many species with extinction. Conservationists are trying to stop this trade in developing countries where people kill endangered wild animals to sell as pets at home and abroad. But politicians in these countries point to the lack of laws in the United States and ask why is it wrong and illegal for them to have a chimpanzee as a pet, and if chimpanzees are an endangered animal that should be conserved and protected, wanyone in the USA can order one over the internet with a credit card?
We don't buy and sell people any more. Since chimps and bonobos share 98.7% of our DNA, don't they deserve the same respect?
Thanks for this (many of those thoughts hit my head when I saw the interview), although I would take exception to the phrase "millions of years" regarding dog and cat domestication. More like thousands, I think.
I don't mind if chimpanzees are kept as pets but only if, since they share 98.7% of our DNA, they are treated like children, sent to public schools, fed carb-rich sodas, allowed to play video games on the Xbox, and taken to the zoo to watch...chimps in cages.
A wolf will not "automatically tear you to pieces" and I find the credibility of everything else in the article suspect after reading such a false and unqualified statement.
While there are good reasons a chimpanzee shouldn't be kept as a pet, I'll suggest that you have more to fear from your own species than from any wild species.
Wild wolves don't attack people but wolves raised in captivity frequently do (as do wolf/dog hybrids). So while they won't automatically do so the likelihood of someone with a wolf, tiger, or other predator (and male chimps do hunt) being attacked by it is pretty high. As a perfect example Siegfried and Roy for several decades had no incidents with their tigers and then Roy was almost killed because no matter how well trained a tiger is not a domestic animal.
Won't a wolf tear you to pieces if it sees you as weaker than it?
I know some people breed wolf/dog hybrids, and a lot of them have similar problems - they start out cute and cuddly but end up as very strong, very aggressive wild animals.
What's sad isn't so much that there isn't a law against keeping chimps as pets, it's that there *needs* to be a law against it. What is wrong with people?
Years ago my wife was involved in state licensed wildife rehab (primarily baby raccoons). Every summer several litters would pass through our house before being released.
It's easy to see why people would think of them as pets, when young they are pretty much like puppies but more agile and clever. The difference is, though, being solitary, they have no pack structure (unlike dogs or even wolves). When they mature, they don't see the human as an alpha, they see the human as a competitor. that's where the trouble starts.
The difference in instincts between the pack and the solitary animal, a mountain lion is about the size of a large dog, but there is a huge difference between letting your rottweiller sleep by your bed and letting a mountain lion (even one raised in captivity) do so.
One of the problems in the US is that while wild-born chimpanzees are protected, those born in the US have few protections. Each state has its own laws about exotic pets, and some people swear by their "right" to own primates. Travis was, like most show biz chimps, pulled from his mother as an infant and taught to perform. By the time show biz chimps are 6 or 7, they are no longer manageable and are dumped into inappropriate settings -- or else used to produce more babies to make money for their owners. It's a business. I read today that Rep Earl Blumenauer is calling for federal legislation to govern transport of primates across state lines. Federal controls on the exotic pet trade would be a start protecting both communities and animals. I'll be writing a letter to Earl tonight.
The trouble/danger with taking on wild animals as pets is that: they lose their fear/respect of humans; as it matures there will be a struggle for dominance, which the human probably won't win; they learn that humans are a source of food and can get demanding; and, as has been mentioned, they are still wild animals with their natural teeth, claws and greater strength, hunting and self-defense instincts.
I saw a link to an article on Digg about another horrific chimp attack. The story starts off innocently enough. The couple had a chimp for years. Had it taken away. Went to visit the chimp. Two other chimps got loose and mauled the guy, bit off his fingers, his nose, his genitals, ripped open his face, ripped out an eye. The man survived but barely.
I'd heard about lion and tiger attacks in domestic situations. At least they may short work of you. And it's always some story where nothing happens for years and years. Then one day. Chomp.
People should not be allowed to own wild animals as pets. Especially ones that can inflict brutal injuries on anyone who are in the way.
I definitely agree with all of you on this. It's a very sad situation all around. Laws need to be changed and enforced, and mass informative education distributed worldwide.
Since 1975 import of primates for the pet trade has been illegal. Primates kept legally in captivity must be purchased from a USDA licensed breeder. If their home countries don't put tough penalties on poaching the problems will not be solved. It is not only the US. IN fact thousands of primates areimported to research facilities in countries all over the world. Chimps cost upwards of $50,000. Their cost alone is highly prohibitive to the average pet owner. Only zoos and research facilities can import them from the wild... and their progeny can not be sold into the pet trade. What is needed is enforcement of current laws, not new ones that will remove the rights of responsible owners and do nothing for the animals because they won't be enforced. Who is going to follow pet owners in their car to see if they have crossed state lines? That bill would stop ALL travel of primates across state lines. What if a current owner needs to relocate to another state? If that bill passed they would be forced to not move, find the animals another home, or give it to a sanctuary. This is removing the rights and ability of current primate owners to properly care for their pet. It is a poorly written bill. Banning the sale of primates across state lines is one thing, but ALL travel. Owners would be prisoners of their state.
I do think legislation needs to be in place, but it needs to be fair. The well-being of the animals need to be considered. There are responsible and irresponsible people in every task one would undertake.(driving, drinking, heck horseback riding has been deadly, not mention those severely injured by paraplegia). Banning something takes away the right of those responsible as well. I don't agree with telling people how to live their lives. This incident with a chimpanzee was unfortunate, but quite frankly dogs kill more people a year than pet exotics have combined. Should we ban all dogs as well? No, it all boils down to responsible ownership. Animals are animals and no matter what animal is owned knowledge is required before obtaining it, as well as proper confinement and husbandry to ensure the animals physical and mental health.
Since chimps and bonobos share 98.7% of our DNA, don't they deserve the same respect?
I don't really buy that argument. The bulk of the article is talking about how different chimps are from us, and then suddenly the author wants to say how similar?
Regardless, I see no clear connection between percent DNA similarity and the "rightness" of keeping pets.
On the other hand, Indian man suffers heartbreak over confiscation of adopted bear cub. On a different note, based on the comment above I too don't think DNA similarity is a good reason against keeping chimpanzees as pets. There are of course other good reasons which you have cited above.
I find domestic cats pretty exotic, if you ask me. They're like tiny little tigers! Of course, given how they act when they want to be playful (mine liked to nip and claw at me, before she learned that would only get me to leave), one has to wonder why one would keep a larger cat.
If someone wants an unusual pet, why not fancy rats? Small, domesticated, much less likely to carry disease, plenty of good resources about care and safety, and they're actually kind of cute. Or so I've heard.
The Spaniards are trying to pass a law that would give the great apes the same legal status as children (i.e. no torture, human conditions, etc.). You might be interested in that.
Even my 6 year old can figure this out. People are so weird- don't even talk about those odd people who buy tiger cubs and raise them,.... and shall we move on to wolves and hybrid wolves?
While chimpanzees are certainly not pet material for most (if not all) people, there is always a problem when these stories paint a very broad brush and lump in a lot of perfectly fine animals that can be kept as pets into the exotic category and legislators then take that broad brush and ban ALL these animals. This is unfair, and these type of restrictions makes it worse for people who are just keeping animals that are no danger to society and even helpful to people. Case in point, there are many paraplegics who use small capuchin monkeys as service animals and there is current legislation seeking to ban them, as well as miniature horses that are also used by the disabled. Both animals are deemed "exotic" and therefore "dangerous".
Eileen - Chimps are far more dangerous than dogs. The reason more people are killed by dogs in the US than by exotic pets is because there many more dogs in the US than exotic pets by a ratio of more than 100:1. By your logic motorcycles are safer than cars.
Patient - don't monkeys that are used by disabled people have their teeth pulled so they can't bite? I am not saying that this should not be done in this case, but having a primate as a pet is different matter.
I think there are two things that one has to keep apart: For one, there is the question whether law should forbid people to have exotic animals in general or chimps specifically as pets. Such a law would be, in the furthest sense, to prevent the extinction of species. Even though chimps are often bred in captivity, not all of them are. Further, if there would be such a law in the US it would be a precedence (with respect to some comments above). Second, one could contemplate whether it is worthwhile to forbid people to hold non-domesticated animals as pets because they are a danger to humans. This is non-specific to chimps and needs to be weighted against whether one wants people to make free choices in that respect. Maybe a law that ensures the correct ethical husbandry would then do the same trick, much alike laws in several countries for the keeping of pittbulls and the like.
It's perfectly possible to keep wolves as "pets". Now, you'd better know what you are doing and live in a suitable environment, but there is a reason they were the first animal to be domesticated. The difference between a dog and a wolf is that the former will (almost never) tear you to pieces if you act stupid, to keep a wolf you need to deserve its respect. Not that it is something you should do, it can be a risk to strangers and dogs and it needs a lot of room.
dogs and cats, have been domesticated for [thousands] of years. There has been selection on them against agression
Wrong. Is Ms Woods trying to imply that if aggression is minimal and we've been abusing dogs and cats for thousands of years, it is somehow morally acceptable to hold mammals in captivity and to discard or terminate them unilaterally?
paraplegics who use small capuchin monkeys as service animals
Just because paraplegics were wronged by fate/genes, it does not make it right to enslave other sentient beings into their service. Two wrongs don't make a right.
These acts are usually described as sudden and taking the owner by surprise. I think that's partly because many owners simply don't recognize when the chimp starts to threaten them, say by looking into their eyes, and fail to take appropriate action at that time. That leads the chimp to become more assertive, making more threatening gestures like for example standing in water as we see in the picture above. I understand chimps generally don't like water and to stand in it is a sign of a very assertive and confident chimp indeed. If the human fails to answer that chimp challenge, then that could lead to outright physical aggression as the chimp will assume he's in charge.
Rats? Those cute little curved front teeth hurt like the dickens when lodged in your finger.
So can a cat's mouthful of needles. The trick is in training. Most domesticated animals can understand causation: Biting people leads to "YELP!" and no playing.
"Since chimps and bonobos share 98.7% of our DNA, don't they deserve the same respect?"
Actually, no. Not a good argument. Where exactly should this DNA similarity cutoff lie? If humans evolve into something that looks and behaves human (superhuman, even) but only has 98.5% in common with normal human DNA, should they be downgraded to animals? Or should chimps be upgraded? What about 90%? How about 82.7? Should we look to domesticated animals to get a baseline? I really don't think "percentage similarity of DNA" is a useful measure, particularly of something as subjective as "respectability".
Chimps are animals. Very cool, interesting and emotion-jerking animals, but I don't see why they should enjoy more respect than a domesticated dog, a wild crocodile, or the noble pig on his final walk to sausagedom. (Feel free to argue that humans are animals too, but that is apparently the Gold Standard (pah!) being compared against here.)
That said, no, I don't want a chimp for my birthday, for the other rather sensible reasons listed above. You can keep your Great Danes and pitbulls too.
The reason more people are killed by dogs in the US than by exotic pets is because there many more dogs in the US than exotic pets by a ratio of more than 100:1. By your logic motorcycles are safer than cars
Don't forget that more humans kill humans (including spouses, parents and children) than all other animals.
What does bother me is the form that legal structures might take. Even some of the posts here seem to be basing the legal arguments on potential (determined by whom?) danger to humans and I can see this getting rapidly out of hand as lawmakers decide what is 'dangerous' (we see how this becomes perception driven in the ill thought out bans on breeds of dogs). Many domesticated animals can be dangerous under some circumstances, as well as many exotic wild animals that cannot (no one to my knowledge has been killed by a bog turtle).
I don't believe primates are suitable pets, but I'm also very concerned about the wisdom of legislators once they get rooting around the tent.
I fully expected to find comments on the chimpanzee tragedy, here and in the main stream media, to bridge the spectrum from "a freak accident and the owner had a perfect right to harbor the animal in her home" to "a wanton, irresponsible act and the owner is criminally liable". Sadly, I was not disappointed. My only question is why do so many not consider it a triple tragedy? The chimpanzee was robbed of a life in its natural habitat, the victim, the target of the attack, was mauled and almost killed, and the owner, a victim herself of self-delusion and transference, even now lacks an understanding of her ethical and moral failure - the animal was treated like a favored toy or fetish; she attributed human-like behaviors to the now 200 lb. adult chimpanzee, a creature of enormous strength, a great ape, an omnivore (opportunistic meat-eater), a primate that has been shaped by Darwinian evolution and natural selection from its beginnings in the Paleogene, six million years ago, when our paths diverged, to unpredictable and violent behavior driven by a need for territorial protection, warped in unknowable ways by being removed from its own ecological niche in the tropical forest and kin-selected communities. Society failed as well by anthropomorphizing the owner's ill-considered belief that this was her child - it was not and all in all nature was violated. I mourn for at least two of the victims.
The arguement that cats and dogs (assumably other domestics like chickens, sheep, goats, horses, mules, cows, etc) are acceptable pets because of "thousands of years of domestication."
If keeping domestics is acceptable, then domesticating wild creatures is as well, as that is the source of all domestics.
Take the Chinchilla. In the wild they are so high strung and altitude sensitive that most early attempts at domestication failed. Now, only a century later, they are much calmer, more social, and come in a variety of colors and coats (the first two being far more important that the third). While they are still a rather jumpy and fragile pet, most people capable of caring for a rabbit can handle a chinchilla.
So, with training and breeding, who is to say that Chimps won't someday be the companion pet so many wish they already were? Unless you are a filthy neo-hippie willing to destroy/sterilize all living domestics (including agricultural/aquacultural animals) and return to a "wild animal only" earth (not a friendly place to man, by the way), then domestics are okay. If existing domestics are okay, then it follows that creating domestics from new species is okay.
By the way, many of the early Puritan settlers took wild skunks in as pets. Very similar to housecats and never descented like today's pet skunks are.
You really want to keep a pet? Keep a shrew. You will be endlessly entertained when you have to leave your job and keep on procuring live food for their high metabolism 24/7
In many parts of the world escaped cats and dogs are a nuisance and threat to the local wildlife. "Exotic" pets that are local to the area may be much better.
i'm sure everyone's heard of the chimp who just attacked a woman in CT. apparently the woman who looked after the chimp, who btw was an old entertainment chimp who appeared in Pepsi ads, was like her own child. and when she stabbed him with a butcher knife the chimp looked at her as if to say 'how could you do this to me'
it's true, we shouldn't be doing it to them. chimps are not meant to be pets, and in the words of one interviewer, are ticking time bombs.
I agree totally that chimps should not be kept as pets. We need better laws to regulate trade in captive-born chimps and other non-domesticated potentially dangerous animals. But, your blog photos, cute as they are, give the absolutely wrong impression as they show a smiling human treating a chimp like a child or cuddly pet. Please consider changing them.
thanks, chas, I completely agree. i tend to focus on the babies b/c those are the orphans people adopt, but i need to concentrate on the adults too, who have their own stories.like kikwit, my favourite bonobo ever. even though bonobos don't have a history of violence like chimps, they are still capable of biting off a finger or breaking an arm. and kikwit would be at Lola if it weren't for the pet trade. so no apes as pets!!!
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Thanks for this (many of those thoughts hit my head when I saw the interview), although I would take exception to the phrase "millions of years" regarding dog and cat domestication. More like thousands, I think.
Posted by: Joe Shelby | February 18, 2009 2:58 PM
Thanks Joe. I'll note the change above, but the message remains the same.
Posted by: Sheril R. Kirshenbaum | February 18, 2009 3:12 PM
I don't mind if chimpanzees are kept as pets but only if, since they share 98.7% of our DNA, they are treated like children, sent to public schools, fed carb-rich sodas, allowed to play video games on the Xbox, and taken to the zoo to watch...chimps in cages.
Posted by: Ashutosh | February 18, 2009 3:24 PM
You put into words exactly my reaction to that story. Thank you.
Posted by: Lilian Nattel | February 18, 2009 5:23 PM
A wolf will not "automatically tear you to pieces" and I find the credibility of everything else in the article suspect after reading such a false and unqualified statement.
While there are good reasons a chimpanzee shouldn't be kept as a pet, I'll suggest that you have more to fear from your own species than from any wild species.
Posted by: BJN | February 18, 2009 5:27 PM
Wild wolves don't attack people but wolves raised in captivity frequently do (as do wolf/dog hybrids). So while they won't automatically do so the likelihood of someone with a wolf, tiger, or other predator (and male chimps do hunt) being attacked by it is pretty high. As a perfect example Siegfried and Roy for several decades had no incidents with their tigers and then Roy was almost killed because no matter how well trained a tiger is not a domestic animal.
Posted by: Noadi | February 18, 2009 7:00 PM
Won't a wolf tear you to pieces if it sees you as weaker than it?
I know some people breed wolf/dog hybrids, and a lot of them have similar problems - they start out cute and cuddly but end up as very strong, very aggressive wild animals.
What's sad isn't so much that there isn't a law against keeping chimps as pets, it's that there *needs* to be a law against it. What is wrong with people?
Posted by: KristinMH | February 18, 2009 7:14 PM
Years ago my wife was involved in state licensed wildife rehab (primarily baby raccoons). Every summer several litters would pass through our house before being released.
It's easy to see why people would think of them as pets, when young they are pretty much like puppies but more agile and clever. The difference is, though, being solitary, they have no pack structure (unlike dogs or even wolves). When they mature, they don't see the human as an alpha, they see the human as a competitor. that's where the trouble starts.
The difference in instincts between the pack and the solitary animal, a mountain lion is about the size of a large dog, but there is a huge difference between letting your rottweiller sleep by your bed and letting a mountain lion (even one raised in captivity) do so.
Posted by: jay | February 18, 2009 7:25 PM
One of the problems in the US is that while wild-born chimpanzees are protected, those born in the US have few protections. Each state has its own laws about exotic pets, and some people swear by their "right" to own primates.
Travis was, like most show biz chimps, pulled from his mother as an infant and taught to perform. By the time show biz chimps are 6 or 7, they are no longer manageable and are dumped into inappropriate settings -- or else used to produce more babies to make money for their owners. It's a business.
I read today that Rep Earl Blumenauer is calling for federal legislation to govern transport of primates across state lines. Federal controls on the exotic pet trade would be a start protecting both communities and animals. I'll be writing a letter to Earl tonight.
Posted by: Gerry L | February 18, 2009 11:29 PM
The trouble/danger with taking on wild animals as pets is that: they lose their fear/respect of humans; as it matures there will be a struggle for dominance, which the human probably won't win; they learn that humans are a source of food and can get demanding; and, as has been mentioned, they are still wild animals with their natural teeth, claws and greater strength, hunting and self-defense instincts.
Posted by: Katkinkate | February 18, 2009 11:44 PM
I wonder how many places there are where it is legal to own a Chimp but pit bulls are banned?
There are so many reasons why keeping a chimp as a pet is wrong.
Posted by: Militant Agnostic | February 19, 2009 12:03 AM
I saw a link to an article on Digg about another horrific chimp attack. The story starts off innocently enough. The couple had a chimp for years. Had it taken away. Went to visit the chimp. Two other chimps got loose and mauled the guy, bit off his fingers, his nose, his genitals, ripped open his face, ripped out an eye. The man survived but barely.
I'd heard about lion and tiger attacks in domestic situations. At least they may short work of you. And it's always some story where nothing happens for years and years. Then one day. Chomp.
People should not be allowed to own wild animals as pets. Especially ones that can inflict brutal injuries on anyone who are in the way.
Posted by: CLM | February 19, 2009 2:38 AM
I definitely agree with all of you on this.
It's a very sad situation all around. Laws need to be changed and enforced, and mass informative education distributed worldwide.
Posted by: Sciencefan | February 19, 2009 8:49 AM
Since 1975 import of primates for the pet trade has been illegal. Primates kept legally in captivity must be purchased from a USDA licensed breeder. If their home countries don't put tough penalties on poaching the problems will not be solved. It is not only the US. IN fact thousands of primates areimported to research facilities in countries all over the world. Chimps cost upwards of $50,000. Their cost alone is highly prohibitive to the average pet owner. Only zoos and research facilities can import them from the wild... and their progeny can not be sold into the pet trade. What is needed is enforcement of current laws, not new ones that will remove the rights of responsible owners and do nothing for the animals because they won't be enforced. Who is going to follow pet owners in their car to see if they have crossed state lines? That bill would stop ALL travel of primates across state lines. What if a current owner needs to relocate to another state? If that bill passed they would be forced to not move, find the animals another home, or give it to a sanctuary. This is removing the rights and ability of current primate owners to properly care for their pet. It is a poorly written bill. Banning the sale of primates across state lines is one thing, but ALL travel. Owners would be prisoners of their state.
I do think legislation needs to be in place, but it needs to be fair. The well-being of the animals need to be considered. There are responsible and irresponsible people in every task one would undertake.(driving, drinking, heck horseback riding has been deadly, not mention those severely injured by paraplegia). Banning something takes away the right of those responsible as well. I don't agree with telling people how to live their lives. This incident with a chimpanzee was unfortunate, but quite frankly dogs kill more people a year than pet exotics have combined. Should we ban all dogs as well? No, it all boils down to responsible ownership. Animals are animals and no matter what animal is owned knowledge is required before obtaining it, as well as proper confinement and husbandry to ensure the animals physical and mental health.
Posted by: Eileen | February 19, 2009 9:07 AM
I don't really buy that argument. The bulk of the article is talking about how different chimps are from us, and then suddenly the author wants to say how similar?
Regardless, I see no clear connection between percent DNA similarity and the "rightness" of keeping pets.
Posted by: Greg Esres | February 19, 2009 9:10 AM
On the other hand, Indian man suffers heartbreak over confiscation of adopted bear cub. On a different note, based on the comment above I too don't think DNA similarity is a good reason against keeping chimpanzees as pets. There are of course other good reasons which you have cited above.
Posted by: Ashutosh | February 19, 2009 10:20 AM
I find domestic cats pretty exotic, if you ask me. They're like tiny little tigers! Of course, given how they act when they want to be playful (mine liked to nip and claw at me, before she learned that would only get me to leave), one has to wonder why one would keep a larger cat.
If someone wants an unusual pet, why not fancy rats? Small, domesticated, much less likely to carry disease, plenty of good resources about care and safety, and they're actually kind of cute. Or so I've heard.
Posted by: Gray Falcon | February 19, 2009 10:25 AM
The Spaniards are trying to pass a law that would give the great apes the same legal status as children (i.e. no torture, human conditions, etc.). You might be interested in that.
Posted by: Metalraptor | February 19, 2009 12:30 PM
Metalraptor - that idea is not uncommon; it is called Great Ape Personhood, and is promoted by Jane Goodall, among others. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_personhood
Posted by: Wehaf | February 19, 2009 2:20 PM
Even my 6 year old can figure this out. People are so weird- don't even talk about those odd people who buy tiger cubs and raise them,.... and shall we move on to wolves and hybrid wolves?
Posted by: drdrA | February 19, 2009 3:12 PM
While chimpanzees are certainly not pet material for most (if not all) people, there is always a problem when these stories paint a very broad brush and lump in a lot of perfectly fine animals that can be kept as pets into the exotic category and legislators then take that broad brush and ban ALL these animals. This is unfair, and these type of restrictions makes it worse for people who are just keeping animals that are no danger to society and even helpful to people. Case in point, there are many paraplegics who use small capuchin monkeys as service animals and there is current legislation seeking to ban them, as well as miniature horses that are also used by the disabled. Both animals are deemed "exotic" and therefore "dangerous".
Posted by: Patient | February 19, 2009 9:08 PM
Michael Jackson must be counting his lucky stars about now.
Posted by: perturbed | February 19, 2009 11:34 PM
Rats? Those cute little curved front teeth hurt like the dickens when lodged in your finger.
Posted by: Matthew Platte | February 20, 2009 12:30 AM
Eileen - Chimps are far more dangerous than dogs. The reason more people are killed by dogs in the US than by exotic pets is because there many more dogs in the US than exotic pets by a ratio of more than 100:1. By your logic motorcycles are safer than cars.
Patient - don't monkeys that are used by disabled people have their teeth pulled so they can't bite? I am not saying that this should not be done in this case, but having a primate as a pet is different matter.
Posted by: Militant Agnostic | February 20, 2009 2:18 AM
I think there are two things that one has to keep apart:
For one, there is the question whether law should forbid people to have exotic animals in general or chimps specifically as pets. Such a law would be, in the furthest sense, to prevent the extinction of species. Even though chimps are often bred in captivity, not all of them are. Further, if there would be such a law in the US it would be a precedence (with respect to some comments above).
Second, one could contemplate whether it is worthwhile to forbid people to hold non-domesticated animals as pets because they are a danger to humans. This is non-specific to chimps and needs to be weighted against whether one wants people to make free choices in that respect. Maybe a law that ensures the correct ethical husbandry would then do the same trick, much alike laws in several countries for the keeping of pittbulls and the like.
Posted by: Fia | February 20, 2009 6:24 AM
It's perfectly possible to keep wolves as "pets". Now, you'd better know what you are doing and live in a suitable environment, but there is a reason they were the first animal to be domesticated. The difference between a dog and a wolf is that the former will (almost never) tear you to pieces if you act stupid, to keep a wolf you need to deserve its respect. Not that it is something you should do, it can be a risk to strangers and dogs and it needs a lot of room.
Posted by: Thomas | February 20, 2009 6:32 AM
Posted by: siva | February 20, 2009 7:03 AM
These acts are usually described as sudden and taking the owner by surprise. I think that's partly because many owners simply don't recognize when the chimp starts to threaten them, say by looking into their eyes, and fail to take appropriate action at that time. That leads the chimp to become more assertive, making more threatening gestures like for example standing in water as we see in the picture above. I understand chimps generally don't like water and to stand in it is a sign of a very assertive and confident chimp indeed. If the human fails to answer that chimp challenge, then that could lead to outright physical aggression as the chimp will assume he's in charge.
Posted by: Dave S. | February 20, 2009 8:27 AM
So can a cat's mouthful of needles. The trick is in training. Most domesticated animals can understand causation: Biting people leads to "YELP!" and no playing.
Posted by: Gray Falcon | February 20, 2009 8:41 AM
Did anyone read the murders in the rue morgue???
Is it just me, or is this eerily familiar?
Posted by: asrtobiologiste | February 20, 2009 8:51 AM
"Since chimps and bonobos share 98.7% of our DNA, don't they deserve the same respect?"
Actually, no. Not a good argument. Where exactly should this DNA similarity cutoff lie? If humans evolve into something that looks and behaves human (superhuman, even) but only has 98.5% in common with normal human DNA, should they be downgraded to animals? Or should chimps be upgraded? What about 90%? How about 82.7? Should we look to domesticated animals to get a baseline? I really don't think "percentage similarity of DNA" is a useful measure, particularly of something as subjective as "respectability".
Chimps are animals. Very cool, interesting and emotion-jerking animals, but I don't see why they should enjoy more respect than a domesticated dog, a wild crocodile, or the noble pig on his final walk to sausagedom. (Feel free to argue that humans are animals too, but that is apparently the Gold Standard (pah!) being compared against here.)
That said, no, I don't want a chimp for my birthday, for the other rather sensible reasons listed above. You can keep your Great Danes and pitbulls too.
Posted by: Letraix | February 20, 2009 9:35 AM
The reason more people are killed by dogs in the US than by exotic pets is because there many more dogs in the US than exotic pets by a ratio of more than 100:1. By your logic motorcycles are safer than cars
Don't forget that more humans kill humans (including spouses, parents and children) than all other animals.
What does bother me is the form that legal structures might take. Even some of the posts here seem to be basing the legal arguments on potential (determined by whom?) danger to humans and I can see this getting rapidly out of hand as lawmakers decide what is 'dangerous' (we see how this becomes perception driven in the ill thought out bans on breeds of dogs). Many domesticated animals can be dangerous under some circumstances, as well as many exotic wild animals that cannot (no one to my knowledge has been killed by a bog turtle).
I don't believe primates are suitable pets, but I'm also very concerned about the wisdom of legislators once they get rooting around the tent.
Posted by: jay | February 20, 2009 12:22 PM
I fully expected to find comments on the chimpanzee tragedy, here and in the main stream media, to bridge the spectrum from "a freak accident and the owner had a perfect right to harbor the animal in her home" to "a wanton, irresponsible act and the owner is criminally liable". Sadly, I was not disappointed. My only question is why do so many not consider it a triple tragedy? The chimpanzee was robbed of a life in its natural habitat, the victim, the target of the attack, was mauled and almost killed, and the owner, a victim herself of self-delusion and transference, even now lacks an understanding of her ethical and moral failure - the animal was treated like a favored toy or fetish; she attributed human-like behaviors to the now 200 lb. adult chimpanzee, a creature of enormous strength, a great ape, an omnivore (opportunistic meat-eater), a primate that has been shaped by Darwinian evolution and natural selection from its beginnings in the Paleogene, six million years ago, when our paths diverged, to unpredictable and violent behavior driven by a need for territorial protection, warped in unknowable ways by being removed from its own ecological niche in the tropical forest and kin-selected communities. Society failed as well by anthropomorphizing the owner's ill-considered belief that this was her child - it was not and all in all nature was violated. I mourn for at least two of the victims.
Posted by: Kenneth Fowler | February 20, 2009 1:10 PM
The arguement that cats and dogs (assumably other domestics like chickens, sheep, goats, horses, mules, cows, etc) are acceptable pets because of "thousands of years of domestication."
If keeping domestics is acceptable, then domesticating wild creatures is as well, as that is the source of all domestics.
Take the Chinchilla. In the wild they are so high strung and altitude sensitive that most early attempts at domestication failed. Now, only a century later, they are much calmer, more social, and come in a variety of colors and coats (the first two being far more important that the third). While they are still a rather jumpy and fragile pet, most people capable of caring for a rabbit can handle a chinchilla.
So, with training and breeding, who is to say that Chimps won't someday be the companion pet so many wish they already were? Unless you are a filthy neo-hippie willing to destroy/sterilize all living domestics (including agricultural/aquacultural animals) and return to a "wild animal only" earth (not a friendly place to man, by the way), then domestics are okay. If existing domestics are okay, then it follows that creating domestics from new species is okay.
By the way, many of the early Puritan settlers took wild skunks in as pets. Very similar to housecats and never descented like today's pet skunks are.
Posted by: Oakspar77777 | February 20, 2009 3:36 PM
You really want to keep a pet? Keep a shrew. You will be endlessly entertained when you have to leave your job and keep on procuring live food for their high metabolism 24/7
Posted by: Lactate dehydrogenase | February 20, 2009 11:14 PM
In many parts of the world escaped cats and dogs are a nuisance and threat to the local wildlife. "Exotic" pets that are local to the area may be much better.
Posted by: Thomas | February 21, 2009 6:10 AM