After Attack of the Chimp Gang, What's Next? Serial Killer Chimps?

[SharonBell]

Police Hunt for Chimps After Fatal Attack
By CLARENCE ROY-MACAULAY, Associated Press Writer
Mon Apr 24, 11:39 AM

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone - Police hunted Monday for chimpanzees that escaped from a Sierra Leone preserve and mauled a group of American and local sightseers, killing one man and injuring four people.

The U.S. Embassy warned Americans against traveling to the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary, where the chimps escaped before Sunday's attack on a taxicab.

The Sierra Leonean driver died as the chimps ripped his body apart, and three Americans were treated at a hospital for minor injuries, said Oliver Somasa, a top police official.

Another Sierra Leonean man in the group had his hand amputated after the mauling, Somasa said. U.S. officials had no further comment. The Americans were in Sierra Leone to help build a new embassy building, Somasa said.

Armed police were searching Monday for 27 chimpanzees, Somasa said, while four others had already returned on their own accord to the reserve.

Somosa said it was unclear why the chimps attacked or how they were able to escape.

Chimpanzee attacks are unusual but not unprecedented.

Two chimps that escaped from their cages in a California sanctuary severely mauled a man in March 2005 before the man's son-in-law shot the animals to death.

[Ed]

Yeah - they look all cute and cuddly, but their personalities are as wide and varied as mans'.  They're the only other animal capable of pre-meditated murder, too, apparently.

[Geoff_N]

Yeah - they look all cute and cuddly, but their personalities are as wide and varied as mans'.  They're the only other animal capable of pre-meditated murder, too, apparently.

Which is why you are a gorilla - to distance yourself from the evil chimps - and man. 

[santhere]

Blunt's avatar is an orangoutang, not a gorilla

But anyway scary stuff, it makes this sign painfully relevant:

[Ed]

Not really, because Chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas are all apes, not monkeys - monkeys have tails

(yet another useless factoid from the trivia files of my cerebrum )

[santhere]

Weird englishmen, we call them all monkeys/apes and if it is absolutely necessary we call them human apes.

[doolols]

I'm afraid I have neither useful nor useless factoids relating to monkeys, apes, chimps or any of them hairy things. So I won't be contributing to this thread 

Oh, I just did.

Not that you could call it a contribution.

[SharonBell]

Santhere, I think I need to post that sign in my office!