February 17, 2009

Travis, a 14 year-old 200-pound pet chimpanzee, rips the face off of a 55 year-old woman.
posted by sugarmilktea 15 years ago
  • wow. that is just a stunningly awful story.
  • Ms. Nash had markedly changed her hairstyle, they said. Funny, I shaved off my BEARD one time, and my wife never noticed for two days. It's the, milk-toast invisibility factor that Ms. Nash really needed. That, or something mellower than Xanax for the chimp critic. Xanax is for panic disorder, making this monkey cool and methodical, checking cars one by one while in on a roll with side effects like 'feelings of unreality, or depersonalization' - causing him to act out being a mean bastard, I'd say.
  • That's horrible. And that, boys and girls, is why wild animals should not be kept as pets. MonkeyFilter: I shaved off my BEARD one time, and my wife never noticed for two days. Sorry, Dan cracked me up.
  • Before the amateur pharmies get started here, Xanax is a benzodiazepine, like Valium, and in almost all cases merely makes people fall asleep. So don't get all "it might have been the drugs" like the idiot cops in the story.
  • It's true that drugs often take the blame even if they, or their side-effects aren't the real cause of a disaster...I remember once, in the nineties, when a subway train rear-ended another train in Philly. People got hurt and the papers blamed the engineer for being high on cocaine at the time. Big headlines until they discovered the real cause - that the breaks had fallen off the train!
  • Was his name Casey Jones?
  • So it was an equipment malfunction and not the drug use? Man, I hope they gave the guy a brake.
  • It's a good thing the lady didn't give chimpy some marijuana. He could have killed hundreds.
  • It's been a long time since something on the internet has made me cringe. So, uh, thanks, I guess.
  • >>So don't get all "it might have been the drugs" like the idiot cops in the story. Huh? Little harsh, since the article never says that. It does say "We're trying to see if that factored into this," he said of the Lyme disease.
  • Those are the heart breaking brakes...
  • Travis' body was removed from the home and taken to two locations: His head was taken to the state lab for a rabies test and the body was taken to the University of Connecticut for an animal autopsy. Conklin said this is standard procedure. Whoa. They took the head from the body? This story is tragic on many levels. Sounds like Travis was having one hell of a bad day. While it's horrible what happened to the lady who nearly lost her life over this attack, I can't help by feel for this animal as well. Just the fact that he retreated to his safe haven after being stabbed, battered with a shovel, and finally shot multiple times is quite telling. One can only hope that the victim survives - - but what a physical and mental trauma she has to grapple with. I can't imagine... Oh, and what GramMa said.
  • The chimp, who was known to walk around town, sometimes without a leash, also liked to surf on the Internet One wonders if he ever visited Monkeyfilter.
  • Was he that one guy we ran off for trolling a while back?
  • Not exactly on topic, but can someone explain to me teh funny in the cartoon referenced in this article? [The New York Post] had stood by the cartoon, which its editor called "a clear parody" about the death of Travis, the chimp that Connecticut police killed Monday after it mauled a friend of its owner. Editor-in-chief Col Allan had said the intent was to ridicule Washington's efforts to revive the economy. It's clearly a "parody about the death of Travis", but I don't get how it "[ridicules] Washington's efforts to revive the economy."
  • I was at a science lecture and this topic of superstrong chimps came up. It seems that humans are the odd, um, men out. We use the same energy as other primates but a disproportionate amount is sucked up by our giant brains, leaving less for our puny muscles. So Egghead McWonderbrain or Muscles Meatloaf. Pick one.
  • Strength has to do with muscle attachment, bone length, and leverage also.
  • It’s very hard to stop him because he can always find new stones, and if he can’t find them he manufactures them. It’s an ongoing cold war.” Poo, anyone?
  • MonkeyFilter: Poo, anyone? Thank you, SMT