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| "The Worst Story I Ever Heard" | Login/Join |
Minor Deity |
Author's claim, and it is hard to imagine a worse one even though it only affected one small family. They DID achieve remarkable things with this adopted-at-birth chimp (wonder what Jane Goodall would say about it.) Not what you'd expect by way of the story's ending. (If you've already heard about that appalling mauling in CT.) This attacker wasn't the "pet". Moe's upbringing 
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana  |
The husband was incredibly irresponsible to keep the orphaned chimp instead of turning it over to wildlife authorities. I understand intense devotion to other species very well, but this sad ending was directly the husband's responsibility, the result of his poor choices. I have no quarrel with their devotion, but what he did was selfish.
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| Pinta & the Santa Maria Has Achieved Nirvana  |
Agree 100%. These are animals, not little people. I have no quarrel with folks who have domesticated animals as pets, because they aren't endangered and have centuries if not millennia of domestication bred into them. But even then, they remain animals, not people. Side note: you may quibble with Cesar Millan's methods (he's the "dog whisperer") but one thing he gets right, in my opinion, is never losing sight of the fact that the dogs he works with are dogs, with dog behaviors and dog expectations. These folks didn't read that chapter. | |||
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana |
I'm a big Cesar Millan fan
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| Pinta & the Santa Maria Has Achieved Nirvana |
Me, too. | |||
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| Minor Deity |
Pique and Nina, I have no quarrel with the argument that animals and humans are qualitatively different in character (and this has been brought up in other instances where chimps have attacked humans, not to mention other animals). However, I wonder if either of you read the details of this story. It is striking that here the humans were mauled by unsocialized chimps - not the one they raised as a child. I'd really like to know how chimpanzee experts (like Jane Goodall - why I mentioned her in this context), understand the experience of Moe. Wondering whether he was in fact, raised in some unique way that expanded the usual limits attributed to chimp cognitive/"emotional" capacity. I was especially interested in the authors' description of how Moe responded to the sight of his "parents" being attacked. It must have been traumatic.
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana |
I read the whole story with great interest. The human would never have been exposed to the chimps that attacked him if he had left Moe in Africa. That was what I meant by he brought it on himself. I don't think it's just that Moe was socialized. It sounds to me like he was born with a placid disposition. Just like people, animals have different temperaments and personalities. This couple won the lottery with that chimp. From the little I have read, plenty of chimps grow dangerous as they get older no matter how well socialized.
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