@Barklessdog:
I have a chimp phobia. That lady in NY who took baths & slept with her 200 pound adult chimp is beyond bizarre.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/02192009/news/regionalnews/its_animal_attraction_155922.htm
She fed him filet mignon and lobster tails. They shared cozy glasses of wine. They bathed and slept together. He tenderly brushed her hair. She gave him gifts and sweet kisses. He drew her pictures.
It's just weird," one friend said. "It's an animal, not a person. What she had with that monkey was not normal."
Chimps are like 8 times as strong as a man and prone to violent outbursts/temper tantrums. This lady was out of her mind keeping an adult chimp as a pet.
I saw a Discovery Channel special on Chimps and they said out of all the animals in Africa, Park Rangers feared adult male Chimps the most.
Basenji love is a much better proposition.
Well, yeah…as a former ape keeper who worked with all three great apes (Gorillas, Orangs and Chimps) I can tell you that chimps are feared the most by keepers. That isn't to say that you can't have great, strong, loving relationships with them...but wow, they can do so MUCH damage so quickly when they are angry. And sadly, when they attack they often go for the groin, and the face...makes sense if you want to seriously damage your opponent.
We have an old (but true) joke in the zoo world. If you go to a primate conference, and shake someone's hand, if they are missing a finger (or more) they are probably a chimp keeper In twelve years of working with apes, the only one that hurt me (not badly) was a chimp who raked my hand with her fingernails, just to show me that she could