A Primate Party Gone Horribly Awry

KTLA ^ | March 5, 2005 | David Pierson and Mitchell Landsberg

[lastchance]

SNORT AND A SODA OUT THE NOSE TO YOU.

[Victoria Delsoul]

That's why I make it a point not to have chimpanzees over for dinner... They are just so rude.

LOL! Not only rude, but terribly jealous -the cause of so much hatred- as well.

Officials said they have no idea why the chimps attacked the Davises. But ape expert Deborah Fouts, director of the Chimp and Human Communication Institute at Central Washington University, said the attack may have been prompted by an emotion that chimps may share with humans: jealousy.

"Chimpanzees have a real sense of right and wrong and fairness and unfairness," said Fouts, who has worked with chimps for four decades. "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."

I feel sorry for the Davises, especially St. James. I guess they have Gloria Allred to thank for getting Moe transferred to that place.

[CurlyDave]

I read, in another account -- it was left out in this one -- that the chimps bit his testicles off.

I read that too. What do you want to bet his johnson went with the testicles?

[RipSawyer]

SIZE
Orangutans are about 2/3 the size of the gorilla.


Orangutans Height Weight
Female 2.6-3.5 ft (0.8-1.1 m) 110 lb (50 kg)
Male 3.2-4.5 ft (1-1.4 m) 200 lb (90 kg)

[Danae]

For my Husband, it was a hand sign. A lot of the chimps at Central Washington State Univ. CHCI knew and used sign language and taught it to other chimps. No, I am NOT joking. One Mother taught it to her adopted baby (she lost her own, the baby's name is Loulis). Washoe is her name, she is about 40 or so now. Anyway, My husband would walk around the enclosure and it is COLD in Ellensburg in the winter. So he would put his hands up to his mouth and blow on them to warm them. So his name to the chimps was to bring up both hands to the mouth and blow on them as if to warm them. If he was not there for some reason they would ask, using sign language where he was, using the hand blowing gesture to represent him.

Chimps are VERY intelligent creatures. To understimate them is to make a grave error.

[Northern Alliance]

Could be .45 Long Colt or ACP w/clips. Lot of different models.

Yes, I know that. Very few people under the age of 80 have .45 Long Colts around for protection! The only people I ever knew with .45 ACP revolvers were gun enthusiasts like myself that had many other handguns, and would not rely on that one for protection.

12 gauge would have been better.

No argument there - either 00 or #4 would be my preference. Hitting a crazed chimp with any handgun could have been near impossible. I guess it froze when the guy came up to it.

[GATOR NAVY]

I know you are not joking about the use of sign language. That's why I wondered what the chimps came up with for names for humans.

[cspackler]

Nothing personal, but it doesn't sound like your place is a lot of fun to visit...

[libs_kma]

When I was a kid, our family was at an amusement park, maybe Busch Gardens, not sure. But one of the shows that day was J. Fred Muggs. They billed him as the worlds smartest chimp, had met the President, etc, etc, blah, blah.

So the show begins and you could tell right away that J. Fred was feeling a little rebellious that day. He's on stage with the trainer and he's not doing a damn thing. The trainer is laughing it off and everybody is laughing that the monkey's being cantankerous and grumpy. It went on for awhile like this and then they said, with smiles all around, everybody's happy, that J Fred wasn't feeling well, and the show was over.

Filing out of the stands and away from the show area, we started hearing monkey screams like I've never heard before. Greeter of Presidents or not, Mr. J Fred Muggs was backstage learning a valuable lesson about acceptable works standards. He was being beaten to within an inch of his primate existence.

Everybody started laughing like it was extension of the show, and the trainer didn't care that everybody could hear the plight of old J. Fred.

Just a little wall to wall counseling session, thats all.

I bet J Fred gave the performance of his life at the next show!

[Abundy]

Davis, 62, who remained in critical condition Friday at Loma Linda University Medical Center, 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.

"They don't think he's ever going to be the same," LaDonna Davis said...

Duh.

[xone]

'Very few people under the age of 80 have .45 Long Colts around for protection! '

Hey I got one! Well under 80 but might be one of the few.

[Northern Alliance]

I used to have one as well - Colt single action 5 1/2" barrel - "The gun that won the west", and I still got a long way to go before I hit 80

I almost never fired it but loved it nevertheless. I understand they do not make them with the original action like that anymore - (you can hear the four clicks when you pull the hammer back) because of liability fears. I really hated to part with it when I left Canada for Asia.

However, it was not the gun I kept for protection - that was a customized gov't model, and I kinda doubt you keep yours for protection too!

[hercules304]

Why would the chimps tear off his testicles?

[hercules304]

why would they tear off his testicles?

[hercules304]

Yes they did, why?

[JustPassingThrough2]

I read an article from a Fresno CA paper that gave some detail about the sequence of events. It appears that as the park owner was chasing the chimps, in an attempt to coral them back into their cage, she saw them attack the couple.

We’ve heard jealousy, sex drive, and inherent savage tendencies as explanations for the behavior. I wonder how much being chased had to do with it???

Chimps have the capacity and sometimes motives to hurt and/or kill other animals. Sometimes the motives are clear, and sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes a chimp might be sweet and kind. At other times it might be a vicious killer. Depends on the situation. Sound like another primate we know?

[enrique70]

I haven't read all of the comments, but there are a few things that come to mind: Chimps are not human. That's not to say they shouldn't live with humans. Dogs live with humans. Why not a chimp? That it would surprise anyone that a chimp might attack a human baffles me.
Look at the news. Everyday hundreds of thousands of people attack other people. Hundreds of dogs attack humans(not a very large number). That an occasional chimp atack surfaces in the news is a credit to how much more civil our primate cousins are than their human counterparts. At least chimp attacks are usually the result of a flash emotional reaction that is more predictable than the pre-meditated, greed motivated motives surounding too large a number of human attacks. From religion to race to government affiliation to greed to jealousy, is there any justification other than self-defense or hunger to attack another life(human or otherwise)? Poor Moe! Poor Davis'!