Pure Pedantry : "Sir, please try not to befriend the chimps."

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Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine focusing in Neuroscience. He is due to graduate in 2032. He received a BS and a MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University -- where he spent most of his time drinking heavily and building vegetable catapults instead of learning information that would now be eminently useful. When he is not failing terrifically to perform his sworn duties, he enjoys watching bad movies, ethnic food, and running.

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"Sir, please try not to befriend the chimps."

Category: Aminals
Posted on: April 19, 2007 10:41 AM, by Jake Young

Outcast chimp prefers humans to other chimps:

We all know not to feed the animals when visiting the zoo. Now the Antwerp Zoo has urged visitors to, please, stop staring at the chimpanzees.
New rules have been posted outside the chimp enclosure at the city zoo urging visitors not to form a bond with a particular male chimp named Cheetah. He was raised by humans but is now bonding with the seven other apes at the park, a zoo official said Wednesday.

"We ask, we inform our daily visitors and other visitors that one of the monkeys (sic) is particularly open for human contact," zoo spokeswoman Ilse Segers told AP Television News. "He was raised by humans in a family and therefore we are trying to integrate him, to try to get more social integration with the group."

She said Cheetah's continued interaction with humans was "delaying the social integration of the animal in the group," and isolating the ape from the others.

"I'm sorry, Son, but Cheetah has new friends now. He doesn't have time for his old friends."
"But whyyyyy, Papa?"
"Because the zoo says you're not hairy enough to be a chimp, Son. We tried to leave you here, but they just kept bringing you back..."