More Monkey Business

What Did She Expect?

This week's incredible story out of Stamford, Connecticut, demonstrated once again the dangers of possessing wild animals as pets in urban areas. The mauling of a woman by her friend's pet Chimpanzee had most folks scratching their heads, wondering how the female owner of a 200-pound male Chimpanzee could be so ignorant and ill-prepared, when the attack occurred.

But has anyone noticed how the media coverage focused on the Chump-owner and the Chimp-attacker more than the poor human who was mauled? Who cared if the wild animal was once a commercial television celebrity? What difference did it make if the woman owner slept in the same bed with her Chimp pet? The lack of public outcry and the apparent idyllic, voyeuristic fascination with Lady Jane and Tarzan (I am sorry, the Chimp was named Travis) by the media was at best nauseating.

My heart goes out to the poor victim. Her face was mauled and both of her hands torn off by a savage animal who belonged in a jungle or a zoo, not a private residence. For too long, our society has personified the animal kingdom in cartoons and motion pictures. How many more people will have to be killed or maimed before we humans conclude that wild animals are unfit for bonding as pets?

You can name a wild animal "Moe" or "Travis" and treat it like a human being until your genitals or other body parts are gnawed and torn off, but it does not change the nature of the wild animal one iota. It is like trusting Congress with your tax dollars and hoping they won't misspend it. As much as you want the animal to be something else, all the wishing and hoping in the world won't change a thing; not now, not in a thousand, a million, or a billion years.

So much for upright Evolution Theory. Another member of the higest-evolved species got mauled by a lower link in the chain. The Animal Kingdom never has to think twice about acting on instinct; in fact, animals do not think much, if at all. Animals just do as they are wired to do; what all animals do: react to their surroundings and act on instinct. Only the human owner (of the Chimp) in this story had the ability to think this situation through. Obviously, more than one missing link exists in Evolutionary Theory.

Perhaps we should add a new Evolution principle to all this monkey-business: "longevity of the idiotic."

(copyright 2009, Gregory Allen Doyle)

 For more on the Chimp-chewing spectacle, please follow this link:

 http://news.aol.com/article/horrific-details-emerge-in-chimp-attack/345471?flv=1