Sep 08
On Tuesday, 38 lab chimps were allowed outside for the first time in thirty years. Taken from Africa, their mothers slaughtered, they had been locked in cages and were victims of a terrible series of experiments in an attempt to find a cure for HIV. This program achieved absolutely nothing. Hooked up to machines and pumped full of …
Oct 08
Charlie the smoking chimpanzee died of a heart attack on Wednesday and it wasn’t smoking that killed him. The average chimp lives to 40 and Charlie lived to 52. Charlie was one of the first things I posted about on this blog, way back in 2005, and I stand by what I said then: Smoking …
Apr 27
pic nicked from here Chimps seem to have a similar reaction to the death of a group member as humans. No, they don’t all put on black ties and get drunk around the corpse. Rather, they comfort the dying and then appear to experience trauma. Some chimp mothers even refuse to let go of their …
Feb 27
Many people find it cruel to allow a chimp to smoke and drink. If someone was shipping Johnny Walker and Marlboros into the wild and selling them to the chimps, I’d agree. But when a captive ape takes up smoking and drinking, I cheer it on. Sending said ape to rehab is cruel. A caged …
Jul 15
While I’m busy messing around with all the new features on my blog, a new scientific discipline is being created: Primate archaeology. This will focus on the use of tools and its history not just in humans but in all primate species. We now know that we’re not the only animals who use tools. So …
Apr 30
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8p72wmR5H4&feature=related]
Feb 18
Travis the chimp is getting a bad rap. While he did maul a woman and attack the police before being shot to death, it’s a bit unfair to say he went berserk. If a human did that, sure, he went berserk. But a chimp? You might as well get angry at a German for eating …
Jan 26
Researchers have discovered that being nice is the key to chimps becoming powerful alphas. Between a bully who does not return grooming and a smaller ape who is an obsessive groomer, the smaller ape wins control of the group and his pick of the female population. This shows what I’ve often suspected. All of that …
