There was that story about a pet chimpanzee in Connecticut mauling that woman and being shot dead by the police. Good call by the cops. But the question here is, why wasn’t a tranquilizer dart gun used? Not on the chimp, but on the owner of the ape before she decided it would be nice to marry a chimpanzee? Okay, even if she slipped through the cracks at the time of purchase, what about when she taught the chimp to drink wine, take Xanex and ride around with her in her car? Shouldn’t the local authorities have loaded the dart guns with something strong at that point and taken this woman out? The chimp was 15 years old, so it’s not like it was some sort of secret. You don’t have to be a primate expert to know that Chimpanzees are aggressive and dangerous animals unsuited to anything but life in the wild or slapstick comedy routines.
Connecticut is sort of the direct opposite of “the wild” and the woman made absolutely no attempt to provide her chimpanzee with a proper comedy wardrobe like little 3-piece chimpanzee suits and derbies or wedding gowns or cowboy outfits, nor did she provide the unfortunate creature with an acting coach. What did the Connecticut authorities expect? A preemptive strike with a tranquilizer gun at the point of purchase would have avoided the whole nasty episode. Her unfortunate friend literally had her face removed by this angry ape, eyes, nose and jaws. It couldn’t be stopped by its owner with a shovel a butcher knife so it had to be shot dead. Perhaps legislation could be introduced allowing our local police to use their discretion when dealing with unruly humans before things get so out of hand.
People who think it would be a great idea to own a lion or a tiger, for example, would be prime candidates for getting darted. And it would be for their own good, of course, as well as in the interests of public safety. No one likes to read the inevitable stories of the owners of lions and tigers being killed and eaten by their big cats. Well, almost nobody. Some of us (ahem!) find it pretty amusing and a sort of poetic justice. But still, it’s unfair to kill the animals for behaving like animals. They’re large carnivores, period, amen. Caging them and bottle feeding them does not change that stubborn fact. When you’re a domestically raised tiger, your hunting skills are bound to be a bit rusty but your genetic imperatives command you to hunt and kill, so who better that a slow human with their two measly legs and conspicuous lack of claws and antlers to practice your killing skills on? It’s not like the tiger was ever your cuddly little Fido in the first place.
It’s a 600-pound carnivore living in a cage in your back yard. There’s a reason for that cage. Don’t go in there and ask the thing to fetch your damned frisbee for you. Lions and tigers are notoriously uninterested in playing with you, especially if you’re the fool who’s idea it was to lock them up in that cage in the first place. At least the Connecticut chimpanzee got to ride around in a car every once in a while. You can’t do that with your pet lion or tiger, or take them out to the park where there’s dogs and children running around, otherwise the kid/dog head count would be a bit light at the end of the day.
The Connecticut Chimp Lady, on the other hand, took the human/wild animal relationship a step further, living with her Chimp as husband and wife. That’s pretty odd, no? She fed him filet mignon and lobster tails, they watched TV together and lived as many other couples do, although the vast majority of other couples are both human beings. They drank wine, bathed and slept together (Insert your own jokes here. You may use another sheet of paper if necessary.). When the Chimp was feeling depressed or irritable, she gave him tea laced with Xanex, not unlike what many wives do for their human husbands. Most husbands, though, don’t tear off their wife’s friend’s face, no matter how annoying that friend might be.
Are there lessons here for the rest of us? No, no there aren’t. We already know it’s pretty weird and stupid to marry a chimpanzee. In a thousand years it would never occur to us to go that route, no matter how many bad human-on-human relationships we’ve endured. Unfortunately, now the chimp’s owner and the lady without the face had to learn this the hard way. It’s too late to dart this idiotic owner, but not too late to put her in a cage. Maybe treat her like people usually treat chimpanzees, stripping her naked and giving her bananas and a tire swing in her prison cell.
It would only be a matter of time before she began banging her head on the cage and throwing her feces around, but what the hell, it was her idea to blur the species roles of humans and apes, not anyone else’s. Maybe that will give other like-minded cross-species romantics something to think about before they share their bed with a beast. Maybe the woman without the eyes, nose and jaw will at least be able to hear that her former friend has been locked away for a long time for the high crime of aggravated stupidity. Or at the very least, shot repeatedly with tranquilizer darts, a fresh round administered as soon as the last one wears off. This way she won’t be able to go shopping for a new chimpanzee husband anytime soon.