Althouse: "A chimpanzee fled from a zoo in northern Japan and tried desperately to avoid capture by climbing an electric pole."

April 14, 2016

"A chimpanzee fled from a zoo in northern Japan and tried desperately to avoid capture by climbing an electric pole."

"Chacha, the male chimp, was on the loose for nearly two hours on Thursday after he disappeared from the Yagiyama Zoological Park in Sendai...."

32 comments:

Curious George said...: Enough of the monkey business, get back to work!; 4/14/16, 3:23 PM
Curious George said...: How did it not get electrocuted?; 4/14/16, 3:25 PM
Paco Wové said...: He sure looks pissed. Probably had a rendezvous with Inky all set up.; 4/14/16, 3:34 PM
Big Mike said...: Getting between a chimpanzee and freedom is a dangerous thing to do.; 4/14/16, 3:34 PM
buwaya said...: "How did it not get electrocuted?"

- It was a very lucky chimp. Or maybe not, seeing as it was captured.

- They probably shut the power off. I wouldn't want to be up there dealing with live wires PLUS an unpredictable animal.

That fellow they sent up is also quite lucky, as he still has a face.; 4/14/16, 3:35 PM
Rosalyn C. said...: Reminded me of seeing a hairless chimp the other day. Shocking!; 4/14/16, 3:38 PM
BarrySanders20 said...: All those practice hours, drills, and professional training in learning to capture Godzilla finally paid off.; 4/14/16, 4:02 PM
Wince said...: Boy, he nailed that whole King Kong dangle-by-one-hand-until-you-pass-out-and-then-bounce-off-the-Empire-State-as-you fall routine down!; 4/14/16, 4:07 PM
BarrySanders20 said...: Comments suggesting Japanese people are inept at capturing animals are rooted in the racist notion that Asians fear Godzilla.... Every time right-wing activists raise the concept of Asians fearing Godzilla, they further a misleading narrative that defames Asian-Americans. On Wednesday, the anti-choice Charlotte Lozier Institute released a paper written by Anna Higgins, who is one member of a panel testifying before Thursday’s Senate subcommittee. “Fear of Godzilla is practiced in some Asian immigrant communities within the U.S.,” the report reads....; 4/14/16, 4:12 PM
Wince said...: Here it is from another angle.; 4/14/16, 4:14 PM
CWJ said...: John Tuffnell,

You hope to write for The Onion, right? If so, go for the funny and leave the "right-wing-activists" citations out of it.; 4/14/16, 4:24 PM
Paddy O said...: JT, I thought that was funny. I don't think CWJ read previous posts.; 4/14/16, 4:27 PM
Rusty said...: If only they could have gotten him to put on his little tuxedo before he escaped. THAT's humor the Japanese appreciate.
Oh. Hell. Who doesn't get a chuckle out of a chimp in a tuxedo?
Run! Monkey! Run!; 4/14/16, 5:17 PM
Alex said...: Remember Travis the chimp that ate that poor woman's face off and tore off her hands? Getting next to a chimp is a very dangerous thing.; 4/14/16, 5:29 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: Grown Chimps --not the cute little Bedtime for Bonzo chimps -- can be vicious killers.

Did you see the teeth on this Chimp hanging from the wire? He would bite your fingers off, quite easily.

Here's a recent chimp attack.. Not pretty.; 4/14/16, 5:32 PM
Fritz said...: Bay Area Guy said...
Grown Chimps --not the cute little Bedtime for Bonzo chimps -- can be vicious killers.

They are our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, after all.; 4/14/16, 5:36 PM
Bob Ellison said...: He was probably pining for the fjords.; 4/14/16, 5:59 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: No Peter Gabriel jokes?
Did the announcer call him "Chimpanzee-san"?
Man, If that power came from a nuclear source -- good God. We'd be talking about a radioactive, three-hundred-foot-tall mutant chimp rampaging through the Japanese countryside. I think for the safety drills in Japan they have people practice running and screaming while looking behind and w-a-a-y up.; 4/14/16, 6:00 PM
CWJ said...: Paddy O,

Apparently not.; 4/14/16, 6:13 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Love that kind of comment, John Tuffnel. Thanks!; 4/14/16, 6:34 PM
Quaestor said...: Getting next to a chimp is a very dangerous thing.

After the United States the most important scholarship regarding the behavior and psychology of the great apes is done in Japanese institutes and Japanese-led field research in Africa. Consequently Japan has its share of highly skilled and experienced handlers and custodians. No doubt it was thanks to that fund of expertise that this incident was resolved happily.

Cha Cha wasn't leading his keepers a merry chase, however. Judging from his body language he was in full "tear your face off" mode when he was finally darted. (Look at his bristled hair, that's is an unmistakable danger signal.) Luckily for all concerned he remained on his perch until the tranquiler took effect. Had he descended to street level real mayhem could have ensued, and Cha Cha would have likely been killed as a matter of public safety.; 4/14/16, 7:44 PM
Quaestor said...: He was probably pining for the fjords.

Didn't look like he was pining to me.

Looked more like he was about to go full monty viking on somebody's ass.; 4/14/16, 7:48 PM
walter said...: We really are such pathetic bipeds in comparison, in terms the strength and agility so clear here.; 4/14/16, 7:54 PM
Quaestor said...: But that's the risk you take when you collect your zoo specimens from among the infamous Trondheim Troop. Even Jane Goodall refused to deal with those hominoid droogs.; 4/14/16, 7:54 PM
chickelit said...: Terry said...No Peter Gabriel jokes?

Shock The Monkey

or, for the German speaking world: Schock den Affen; 4/14/16, 7:55 PM
Quaestor said...: We really are such pathetic bipeds in comparison...

During the Tortonian Age of the Miocene Epoch, some 8 million years ago, the whole of the Old World except the polar regions and Australia might well have been called the Planet of the Apes. At least fifty species of great apes colonized the Eastern Hemisphere from southern Africa to the Rhine Valley to the Yangtze. Not long after a bipedal ape arose in Africa's Great Rift valley. Adaptive radiation caused that one two-legged ape species to spawn several lineages of other bipeds, while the quadruped apes began to die out. Long before our ancestors snapped their first flint tools the Homininae had dwindled to just two quadrupedal genera, and the Ponginae had but one surviving genus.

We may not be as strong or as agile in the trees, but our two-legged adaptation made our clan the most successful branch on the ape family tree even while our brains were still quite chimp-like.; 4/14/16, 8:19 PM
David said...: Freedom Loving Chimp Seeks Octopus With Similar Proclivities; 4/14/16, 11:17 PM
Gahrie said...: We really are such pathetic bipeds in comparison...

Get back to me after the first Chimp Moon landing.; 4/14/16, 11:27 PM
Rusty said...: Ann Althouse said...
Love that kind of comment, John Tuffnel. Thanks!

You should read some Pynchon.; 4/15/16, 5:40 AM
Jaq said...: Desperately or gleefully? I guess the writer is basing her reporting on internal models.; 4/15/16, 5:49 AM
Rusty said...: Somebody should get up there and give that monkey some bananas. He must be starving. And who doesn't get a chuckle out of a monkey eating a banana? AAaand it might calm him down and get him to rethink his life of crime.; 4/15/16, 7:09 AM
mikee said...: I, for one, respect the utility worker who is risking serious bodily harm to recapture the chimp. Or should I be angry at his supervisor for sending him up there with a damn stick to retrieve an animal that can bite off his face and rip his arms into separate pieces?; 4/15/16, 9:34 AM