Monkey on his back

[Bozo Erectus]

My new criteria for animal intelligence: if it bums a cigarette off you, its sentient.

Zoo Wants Chimpanzee to Stop Smoking

1 hour, 38 minutes ago

Add to My Yahoo! Oddly Enough - Reuters

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African zoo is trying to persuade its star chimpanzee to kick a bad smoking habit.

Charlie, a grown male chimp and the Bloemfontein Zoo, has been picking up cigarettes thrown to him by visitors and smoking them -- a habit he probably picked up by observing humans, zoo officials told the SAPA news agency on Thursday.

"Baby chimps pick up habits by mimicking adults and we think he started mimicking smokers at his enclosure which probably led to smokers throwing him cigarettes," spokesman Daryl Barnes told SAPA.

Barnes said Charlie was already showing the signs of a true nicotine addict.

"He even acts like a naughty schoolboy by hiding the cigarette when staff approach the area," Barnes said, adding that the zoo was determined to help him quit.

Barnes said the most important thing was that people stop providing Charlie with cigarettes or any other treats, noting the chimp already had three bad teeth because of all the cans of sweet soft drinks that people throw at him.

Charlie is not the only smoking chimpanzee. A zoo in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou reported last year that one of its chimps had taken up smoking and was desperately bumming cigarette butts off visitors.

 

[Yom]

Great article!

 

[jonatas]

yeah this is a good one

 

[IglooDame]

Well, everybody is hounding the tobacco industry for targeting children, so they've got to find a new market somewhere...

 

[Perfection]

Just making sure:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...757&e=3&u=/nm/20050415/od_nm/safrica_chimp_dc

Yes it does exist.

 

[~Corsair#01~]

Nicotine= addictive.
Monkeys= impressionable and curious.

Point=?

 

[Riesstiu IV]

The tobacco industry could make a fortune by selling to monkeys?

 

[The Last Conformist]

The tobacco industry could make a fortune by selling to monkeys?

I don't think chimps (who, thanks to a quirk of English usage, aren't monkeys) generally have much money to spend.

 

[Riesstiu IV]

How about in an exchange for a pack of cigarettes the chimps work in a shoe factory for 18 hours?

We would be able to end the horrible practice of child labor!

 

[The Last Conformist]

How about in an exchange for a pack of cigarettes the monkeys work in a shoe factory for 18 hours?

We would be able to end the horrible practice of child labor!

Assuming that children's wages are lower than the cost of keeping the chimps fed, that might be a great idea.

 

[Reno]

We would be able to end the horrible practice of child labor!

And bring in chimp labor insted.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Isnt this how Planet of The Apes got started? That was the one thing missing, none of the apes in the movies were smokers.

 

[Riesstiu IV]

Assuming that children's wages are lower than the cost of keeping the chimps fed, that might be a great idea.

The chimps would probably just fling crap at each other, swing on the various machinery, fight over cigarettes, and never get any work done. It wouldn’t work but would be highly entertaining to watch!

 

[The Last Conformist]

Actually, chimps do understand the concept of working for a reward.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

The chimps would probably just fling crap at each other, swing on the various machinery, fight over cigarettes, and never get any work done.

Must be a union shop.

 

[fe3333au]

Brilliant post

I'd heard of ex circus chimps and other primates being addicted to Nicotine ... hadn't thought about those in zoos ... well I guess prisoners get a cigarette ration so why not zoo inmates

 

[Dann]

Hahahaha...

 

[nonconformist]

Isnt this how Planet of The Apes got started? That was the one thing missing, none of the apes in the movies were smokers.

As long as you don't say "no" it's fine (man, I saw that movie too much as a kid).

 

[HamaticBabylon]

Are you mistaking these "monkeys" for the ones living outside the zoo?

 

[Babbler]

Isnt this how Planet of The Apes got started? That was the one thing missing, none of the apes in the movies were smokers.

That why they rebeled agianst us in the first place -- we were posioning them with are sweat, sweat tabbacco.

It aslo how the Matrix started, too.