Blind Monkey

Mr. Monkey with seeing eye dog! 

Finally Some Recognition!

Fall fishing derby to honor Charlie the Chimp
9/12/2005

NIAGARA FALLS - Charlie the Chimp, Niagara Falls' best-known primate, is honorary chairman of the 29th annual Niagara County fall fishing derby, now known as the Greater Niagara Fish Odyssey.
The tournament opens Saturday and continues through Sept. 25.

Part of the $20 registration fee is being earmarked for the Primate Sanctuary, Charlie's home. Its owner, Carmen Presti, said there are plans to relocate the sanctuary to a 30-acre site in Wilson.

Fish caught in and around Niagara, Orleans and Erie counties are eligible for prizes. Categories are salmon, rainbow or steelhead trout, brown trout, smallmouth bass, walleye and carp. Prizes of $500, $250 and $125 will be awarded for the biggest fish of each species.

On the closing night, all the first-prize winners' names will be entered in a drawing for a $2,500 grand prize.

A list of registration sites and weigh stations is available by calling (877) FALLS-US or on the Internet at www.FishOdyssey.net.

The latest in Indian fashion! 

'05 Jailbreak

3 Chimps Killed at Neb. Zoo After Escape
Mon Sep 12, 1:23 PM ET
ROYAL, Neb. - Three chimpanzees from a small-town zoo were shot and killed after they escaped from their enclosure and could not be captured, the zoo director said.
The primates at Zoo Nebraska were able to get out of the cage Saturday when a padlock was not completely closed after cleaning, said zoo director Ken Schlueter Jr. He killed the animals with a deputy's service revolver after a tranquilizer gun didn't show any effect.
No people were hurt, state patrol spokeswoman Deb Collins said. The zoo is located in Royal, a northeastern Nebraska village of 75; one of its major donors was the late entertainer Johnny Carson.
After the chimps lifted the padlock and broke out, employees immediately moved visitors in an office area, but the chimps tried to get into the building, Schlueter said.
"When it became apparent there'd be danger here, they had to be destroyed," Schlueter told the Lincoln Journal Star.
Schlueter did not immediately return a message left for him by The Associated Press on Monday.
The Nebraska State Patrol and Antelope County Sheriff's Department were called to help capture the animals. A fourth chimpanzee also escaped, but quickly returned to its cage, officials said.
The zoo's board plans to hold an emergency meeting to discuss the escape Monday evening, board member and former zoo keeper Justin Jensen said. The chimp exhibit was a centerpiece at the small zoo.
"It's sure going to be a great loss," Jensen said.
The seven-acre zoo opened 18 years ago as the Midwest Primate Research Facility with one animal — a chimpanzee named Reuben, one of those killed Saturday. The other three chimps all arrived at the zoo within the last two years, Jensen said.
Carson, the late host of NBC's "The Tonight Show" who grew up not far from Royal, donated $55,000 to the zoo for the Carson Center for Chimps 15 years ago and an additional $20,000 more recently. He died in January.
Schlueter said the chimps weighed up to 300 pounds or more, and he shot two of them with a tranquilizer gun, but the tranquilizers had not taken effect after five minutes.
The danger chimps pose to humans was highlighted when a man and his wife were attacked by chimpanzees March 3 at the Animal Haven Ranch near Bakersfield, Calif. The man was severely mauled and the woman lost part of her thumb before the animals where shot to death.
The Nebraska animals' carcasses were flown Sunday to a zoo in St. Louis, where autopsies were planned.


Rueben, a 21-year-old chimpanzee, is shown in a Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2004 file photo at Zoo Nebraska in Royal, Neb. Reuben was one of three chimpanzees who were shot and killed Saturday, Sept. 10, 2005, after they escaped from their enclosure and could not be captured, said zoo director Ken Schlueter Jr. He killed the animals with a deputy's service revolver after a tranquilizer gun didn't show any effect.

Ok, Mr. Monkey. We know you're in there! Come out with your hands up and your pants down!

Chimps surrender after police fire shots
09.09.05 7.20am

Chimps at Belfast Zoo in Northern Ireland surrendered quickly when police opened fire after they made a bid for freedom.
Officers were called in when several chimpanzees got out of their compound. The chimps couldn't outrun the long arm of the law and put their hands up when confronted by the overwhelming firepower.
An official statement said officers went to the zoo after a report of an escape bid. Reports that the chimps had been shot dead were denied.
"Following consultations with staff and a vet, a number of warning shots were fired and the animals returned to their enclosure," it said.
The incident was reported to the Police Ombudsman - as required when an officer discharges a firearm.

Butt Biting Monkey!

Pet Monkey Escapes, Bites Boy on Buttocks
Thu Sep 8,10:19 PM ET

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - A monkey, apparently a pet, escaped, then chased a 12-year-old boy into his house and bit him on the buttocks in the western Malaysian state of Pahang, a news report said Friday.

The monkey, which was believed to be a pet animal because there was a chain around its neck, ran up and down the street in the housing area in Kuantan town as it appeared just after dusk Wednesday, scaring people into their homes, the Bernama news agency reported.

Take Off Those Genes, Mr. Monkey! Those Are Mine!

Man, chimps share genes
Comparison of genomes shows thousands are virtually identical
David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
Thursday, September 1, 2005

Scientists have compared the genetic blueprints of humans and chimpanzees for the first time and discovered thousands of genes that are virtually identical in both species -- confirming the long-held belief that chimps are humanity's closest living relatives.
But more than that, the scientists said, the landmark finding promises important advances in human disease research and supports many of the insights on evolution proposed by Charles Darwin 150 years ago.


Ok, which one is the chimp?

"Sequencing the chimp genome is a historic achievement that is destined to lead to many more exciting discoveries with implications for human health," declared Dr. Francis Collins, leader of the government-sponsored project that produced the first draft sequence of the human genome five years ago and a complete human DNA map only last year.
The 67 scientists from five nations leading the chimp genome project are reporting their results today in a series of eight papers published in the journal Nature. Researchers leading the project described their work Wednesday at a Washington press conference.
Lining up 3 billion bits of genetic code, the chimp genome team determined that 96 percent of the protein-coding genes in both chimps and humans were identical, while in some stretches of DNA where genes either regulate other genes or whose function is unknown, as much as 99 percent of the genetic material in both is identical, the scientists concluded.
Even more significant, they said, are the many gene sequences that remain different between the primates known as Homo sapiens sapiens and our close cousins, the chimp species called Pan troglodytes. Among the 35 million tiny bits of DNA in the human genome that differ from chimps, for example, lie clues to the manner in which natural selection -- the basic machinery of evolution -- has given humans the unique ability to walk upright, to use language and to think, reason and develop complex tools, said Dr. Robert Waterston of the University of Washington, the senior author of the principal comparative study. Mutations in the DNA of many of those genes may well have occurred within the past 250,000 years, and because they proved so beneficial, they spread rapidly throughout the human population, he said.
In both chimps and humans, nearly 25,000 genes carry the genetic code for creating all the proteins that make up their bodies and brains, while thousands more regulate the machinery. All those genes are built from some 3 billion chemical units of DNA called base pairs, and it took more than four years for the researchers to tease out the similarities and differences that define the two species.
Scientists have estimated from the fossil record that the evolutionary lineages of humans and the great apes like chimpanzees diverged from a common ancestor between 5 and 8 million years ago, and the chimp genome team believes the split must have occurred roughly 6 million years ago.
Over all the millennia since that time, relatively few changes have occurred in the chimp genome, Waterston and his colleagues said. That has placed humans at a disadvantage in some areas. Chimps, for example, have been able to resist many infections like HIV and AIDS, and they don't get malaria, diabetes, cancer or Alzheimer's -- while humans can succumb to all these maladies.
Yet, as Collins noted, "we have peeked into evolution's lab," and it's just these differences that could provide a new understanding of those diseases as researchers pursue their quest for prevention and treatment in new directions.
Some classes of genes, however, appear to have changed relatively rapidly in both chimps and humans, the scientists say. They include genes involved in hearing, transmission of nerve signals and production of sperm.
The team members working on the pathbreaking project in Israel, Italy, Germany and Spain as well as the United States obtained their genetic material from cell lines extracted from a chimpanzee named Clint, who died from heart failure last year at the age of 24 and had lived all his life at the Yerkes Primate Research Center in suburban Atlanta.
Like many other ape species, Africa's chimpanzee population is seriously threatened, and Waterston and his colleagues said they hoped that Clint's role in giving scientists proof that chimps and humans were so similar would encourage humans to save their close relatives.
"We hope that elaborating how few differences separate our species will broaden recognition of our duty to these extraordinary primates that stand as our siblings in the family of life," Waterston said.