Comments on: Chimpanzee collects ammo for "premeditated" tourist-stoning

By: Chimp stockpiles ammo « Chattering Monkey

Chimp stockpiles ammo « Chattering Monkey — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:43:28 +0000

[...] Posted by Monkey on July 23, 2010 A zoo chimp in Sweden stockpiled stones to throw at tourists. Can’t say I blame the poor bugger. Have a read here. [...]

By: bobk

bobk — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 13:14:43 +0000

Instead of castrating him to control his behavior, imagine the benefits if he had been allowed to reproduce. We have an animal who is a genius of his kind. What else might we have learned from him or his descendants?

By: C

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 23:58:12 +0000

My gosh, the assumptions. The flippin chimp was bored, as kids we threw rocks at everything, even eachother. Future state of mind?, egads!, if you had fun throwing stones one day why wouldnt it be just as entertaining the next day.
Snowball fights, we would spend hours building the fort, and then we would make a cache of snowballs in preparation for the big fight.
As adults, we throw lead and steel propelled by explosives at one another. Many humans have a few guns and a cache of ammo in our very homes, just like this guy.
After being caged for like ever, he found something else to do to break up the monotony of his long caged days.
I’ve been to the zoo and looked at these poor buggers sitting around in zoo jail. They are a sad lot indeed.
One of my fondest memories was of watching my boisterous 4 year old nephew scream “MONKEY”, at the top of his lungs while watching the chimp at the zoo, well now that nephew is on mind-numbing drugs to keep him quiet and compliant.

By: Brian Schmidt

Brian Schmidt — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:58:02 +0000

Manual trackback:
http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2009/03/santino-planned-for-his-own-future.html
“Ed Yong caught the crucial issue regarding the zoo chimp that calmly collected and made stone missiles to throw at visitors that would come to the zoo later….I haven’t seen other reports about Santino discuss this issue – he didn’t just plan for the future but did so with a self-awareness of what his future state of mind would be.”

By: uoflcard

uoflcard — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:19:31 +0000

Unless we are selecting against intelligence in chimps (i.e. killing the smart ones), what does taking away tools have to do with their evolution, if random genetic variation and natural selection is all that is happening?

By: Brin-yDeep

Brin-yDeep — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:02:10 +0000

Joseph,
This is precisely my answer to the question of why apes have not evolved to be more like us: We’d never let ‘em!
We barely let “primitive” societies have a chance at evolving, what chance for “primitive” intelligences?

By: Joseph

Joseph — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:41:51 +0000

The zookeepers recently decided that an operation was the best way of controlling Santino’s behaviour.
“They have castrated the poor guy. They hope that his hormone levels will decrease and that will make him less prone to throw stones. He’s already getting fatter and he likes to play much more now than before. Being agitated isn’t good for him,” said Osvath.

Is that for real? So the chimp demonstrated some remarkable abilities, and humans thought the best way to deal with that was to extinguish them. Why am I not surprised?

By: Fletch

Fletch — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:06:30 +0000

Beware! This is how it starts… next thing you know: Planet of the Apes.

By: astrounit

astrounit — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:03:40 +0000

I wouldn’t like it if people – often rude and obnoxious – invaded my space and oggled at me every day either. Has anyone been to zoos lately? By FAR the most ill-behaved animal one will encounter are amongst those on the other side of the exhibit barriers.
Nobody can blame Santino for having a sense of civilized decency and outrage at its lack. The poor guy doesn’t like it and he wants no part of it. All he wants is his little space to live out the rest of his life in peace. He’s not antisocial or some violent psychopathic maniac. He’s just fed up.
With US.
I mean, come on! Just look at that one photo with all those people staring in on him! He can’t stand it! Neither could any of us in his position.
It is incredibly shortsighted of the zoo to they take his rocks away from him. To take that priviledge away from him is yet another cruel and “inhumane” insult that undoubtedly pisses him off all the more. They are turning what was a chimpanzee with normal chimp behavior into a grump whose every thought is how to lash back at his oppressors.
If people want to spy on him at close range, perhaps they should be issued riot gear for a modest rental fee. At least Santino can continue to keep some measure of his dignity and gain some gratification from hurling rocks at them, and the zoo can offset some of the expense of his upkeep from the proceeds.
Once again, the question looms: What the heck do we think we are we doing?

By: Paul Murray

Paul Murray — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:56:04 +0000

I watched a black-faced macaque at the National Zoo and Aquarium in Canberra manufacture and use a tool, back in 2001 or so. I even saw it try and discard one attempt at doing so before settling on something different, that worked better. It blew away those lingering “God made humans special and unique” ideas I had from a christian upbringing.