Chimp Redux

BrooklynDodger wonders why the Dodger is interested in this chimpanzee mauling story. It has returned after two months as a feature story carried by the Washington Post from the Los Angeles Times. The Dodger thinks the issue is the desire of owners and their allies to defent pets which maim and kill people - usually dogs, but in this case chimpanzees. The Dodger imagines a chimpanzee could be a fearsome fighter - 130 lbs, able to grasp with 4 hands, a big mouth full of teeth and more reasoning ability than a dog...Chimps are also not particularly peaceable in the wild.

Anyway, this couple had a chimp named Moe. After Moe bit the finger off one of their guests [for which they blamed the victim and excused Moe], and after Moe escaped into the neighborhood, and attacked some cops who were trying to capture him, the city forced Moe to be placed in a refuge. Moe's owners fought it in court.

Anyway, while visiting Moe, the couple were attacked by two other chimps, and the husband horribly mutiliated, apparently in critical condition in an induced coma months later. [The Dodger left out the description of the attack]

So now we read that the wife still wants Moe back in her home, having seen what chimps can do in general, what Moe himself is capable of.

According to the post, there are 15,000 + of these animals living in homes around the US. Keep an eye on your neighbors.

[As a literary aside, Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue features an orangutan as the murderer.]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/23/AR2005052301819.html

The Animal Within
By Amy Argetsinger
LOS ANGELES

"Oh . . . well . . ." says Davis, with well-practiced delicacy: "Moe . . . peed on a woman." All the excitement of the reception, maybe too much punch. DeVere and her daughter glow with the memories of the beautiful day and of the beautiful years that followed.
...
As Davis tells her story in the sleek conference room of a Los Angeles attorney's office, she gingerly moves her left hand, swaddled in the cotton gauze and tape that protect what remains of her thumb, a reminder that this train of sweet memories and funny stories is not going to end well.
...
City officials tried to evict Moe a few years after his arrival, but the judge ruled for the Davises. Moe, he proclaimed, "is somewhat better behaved than some people."
..
on Aug. 16, 1998, he escaped from his 10-by-12-foot outdoor enclosure and rampaged through the neighborhood.
The Davises said Moe had been frightened by an electrical shock when a worker tried to repair his cage. But it took several police officers and animal control workers to restrain him, city officials said, and they claimed Moe dented police cars and mauled an officer's hand.

A little more than a year later, on Sept. 2, 1999, a visitor came to the Davis home to see Moe. The Davises said they warned her not to go near his cage, but she put her hand inside. They say she had long red fingernails that looked like Moe's favorite licorice. He bit, and the Davises later settled a lawsuit with the woman.
The next day, West Covina officials descended on the Davis home and removed Moe to a wildlife refuge.
...
And Moe was no longer a child. He was in vigorous middle age, a roughly four-foot 130-pounder with the upper-body strength of three linebackers. West Covina officials maintained that they could no longer allow him to live within city limits.
A years-long legal battle ensued. In the end, all criminal charges were dropped and the Davises won a $100,000 judgment in their due-process suit against the city, but Moe was still not permitted to come home.
.........

[The article describes the attack on the couple while visiting Moe. It's too horrible to report here.]

...
USC's Stanford gets frustrated with this kind of talk. "If a tiger attacked these people, you wouldn't say, 'Why was this tiger angry?' " he says.
...
"Moe hasn't ever been around violence," Davis is saying.