Chimp attack victim's family sues chimp owner for $50 million

[MohandasKGanja]

Seriously? A chimp will attack a human in that way, going for the eyes, hands, genitals, because that's how he would attack another chimp. But to think it's a sadistic attack or pre-meditated is giving chimps more reasoning ability than I think they're capable of. Sure they're more intelligent than most animals but to say that they are capable of malice aforethought is stretching it, imo. But by all means, continue to blame the chimp. I'm sure he had been planning to attack that woman for years. She looked at him the wrong way and he was going to have his revenge!

The human who kept the chimp in captivity is the one to be vilified, not the poor animal.

The stuff I'm reading about chimps shows their level of cognition is way above just a wild animal. Examples of what they are capable of:

How can we assess chimp intelligence?

• • • they make tools and use them to acquire foods, for social displays, etc
    • they have sophisticated hunting strategies that require cooperation, and allow animals to achieve influence and rank by sharing meat
    • they are highly status conscious and manipulative, capable of deception
    • they are analytical and problem-solvers, clearly capable of insight and complex "cognitive performance" in both the wild and in captivity, and particularly adept at analyzing relative relationships
    • language experiments have shown that chimps are creative, can learn to use symbols (and teach them to others) and understand aspects of human language including some relational syntax, concepts of number and numerical sequence

[crumpet]

This woman lost her nose, face, eyes, and hands. All at once.

Still doesn't sound as bad as getting your hands and face and eyes eaten off.

I can't think of too many examples.

I definitely blame it. Eating someone alive for trying to put it back in its cage? If I were one of this woman's relatives, I'd want to keep the chimp alive long enough that I could slowly ease it into a woodchipper.

Jesus, man...you are aware this is not a developed human being we are talking about here but a wild animal, right? Do you have any idea how ridiculous it seems to be talking about punishing this chimp as if he were some adult human who just happened to have an entitled, pissy attitude? Would you advocate putting a 6 yr old child into a wood chipper for killing someone, because I'm pretty sure that kid would have more reasoning capability than a wild animal.

None of this was the animal's fault. Not one little bit of it. It is beyond stupid to think otherwise. Blame the foolish people who insist on trying to play Tarzan in their living room.

[MohandasKGanja]

Jesus, man...you are aware this is not a developed human being we are talking about here but a wild animal, right? Do you have any idea how ridiculous it seems to be talking about punishing this chimp as if he were some adult human who just happened to have an entitled, pissy attitude? Would you advocate putting a 6 yr old child into a wood chipper for killing someone, because I'm pretty sure that kid would have more reasoning capability than a wild animal.

None of this was the animal's fault. Not one little bit of it. It is beyond stupid to think otherwise. Blame the foolish people who insist on trying to play Tarzan in their living room.

In the annals of recorded history, I would be willing to bet that there has never been a six-year-old girl who has bitten the face, eyes, jaw, nose, and hands off another human being. However, if it had happened, I would be up for a medieval type of punishment for the precocious little monster who committed that act.

And yeah, it was the animal's fault. Every little bit, while it was doing it. I'm sure the woman screamed and flailed pitifully, begging for it to stop, while it systematically tore her apart. An animal, particularly an animal with a documented high level of intelligence, that commits such an act should be chopped up into little bits. And the owner should have her ass thrown in prison and be sued in to poverty.

[bellini]

You honestly believe this chimp knew right from wrong? You honestly believe that he wasn't acting out of his natural instinct?

100% of the blame lies with the owner. I don't care how intelligent chimps are. They are still wild animals, who even when domesticated for years, can revert back to their wild nature and become dangerous.

Had the owner not been so selfish to keep this guy in captivity, dressing him up like a little boy, making him perform in commercials, drugging him to keep him docile, making him live in a cage, this tragedy would never have happened.

It's really niave when people anthropomorphize animals, for good or bad. No Pookie the poodle doesn't love his owner anymore than he'd love Joe Blow, if Joe fed him and was nice to him. And this chimp wasn't plotting to savagely attack that poor woman. They're just animals, not capable of human reasoning or complex emotions like selective love and hatred.

[MohandasKGanja]

You honestly believe this chimp knew right from wrong? You honestly believe that he wasn't acting out of his natural instinct?

100% of the blame lies with the owner. I don't care how intelligent chimps are. They are still wild animals, who even when domesticated for years, can revert back to their wild nature and become dangerous.

Had the owner not been so selfish to keep this guy in captivity, dressing him up like a little boy, making him perform in commercials, drugging him to keep him docile, making him live in a cage, this tragedy would never have happened.

It's really niave when people anthropomorphize animals, for good or bad. No Pookie the poodle doesn't love his owner anymore than he'd love Joe Blow, if Joe fed him and was nice to him. And this chimp wasn't plotting to savagely attack that poor woman. They're just animals, not capable of human reasoning or complex emotions like selective love and hatred.

I don't think it's too unreasonable to anthropomorphize chimpanzees to a certain extent, especially since they share 98% of their DNA with humans. And according to behaviorists exhibit higher-order characteristics like altruism, deception, planning, use of tools, etc.

Would I put him on the level of Hannibal Lechter? No.

[crumpet]

In the annals of recorded history, I would be willing to bet that there has never been a six-year-old girl who has bitten the face, eyes, jaw, nose, and hands off another human being. However, if it had happened, I would be up for a medieval type of punishment for the precocious little monster who committed that act.

And yeah, it was the animal's fault. Every little bit, while it was doing it. I'm sure the woman screamed and flailed pitifully, begging for it to stop, while it systematically tore her apart. An animal, particularly an animal with a documented high level of intelligence, that commits such an act should be chopped up into little bits. And the owner should have her ass thrown in prison and be sued in to poverty.

Ummm....that might have something to do with the fact that 6 yr olds aren't, you know, wild animals, so they don't have the capability to rip your face off. Because, you know, they aren't wild animals.

[Chilly Willy]

Well they do have something like 98% of the same DNA as humans!

So do mice. Random Facts brought to you by Chilly.
Posted from my iPhone

[Grimmlok]

also fruit flies!

[sputnik]

So do mice. Random Facts brought to you by Chilly.
Posted from my iPhone

well, that settles it. mice should be tried in court. if they are leaving poo pellets in people's houses and squatting private property, they are obviously doing it out of spite and with malicious intent.

[crumpet]

well, that settles it. mice should be tried in court. if they are leaving poo pellets in people's houses and squatting private property, they are obviously doing it out of spite and with malicious intent.

I say they should be hanged, or at the very least made to provide free housekeeping services to atone for their selfish misdeeds.

[Mel1973]

yes, but the stink raised over the mice, the fruit flies, the mosquitoes would be much less. why the big stink over a dead chimp?

[crumpet]

yes, but the stink raised over the mice, the fruit flies, the mosquitoes would be much less. why the big stink over a dead chimp?

I imagine it's because he was anthromorphized (sp?) more and he obviously seemed more human- like. Also, he was raised for many years in a human home as a compnaion even though that was a lousy thing to do.

[bellini]

I say they should be hanged, or at the very least made to provide free housekeeping services to atone for their selfish misdeeds.

All evil animals who plan and commit evil deeds must go into the woodchipper. It's the only way.

[buttmunch]

Jesus, man...you are aware this is not a developed human being we are talking about here but a wild animal, right? Do you have any idea how ridiculous it seems to be talking about punishing this chimp as if he were some adult human who just happened to have an entitled, pissy attitude? Would you advocate putting a 6 yr old child into a wood chipper for killing someone, because I'm pretty sure that kid would have more reasoning capability than a wild animal.

None of this was the animal's fault. Not one little bit of it. It is beyond stupid to think otherwise. Blame the foolish people who insist on trying to play Tarzan in their living room.

In the annals of recorded history, I would be willing to bet that there has never been a six-year-old girl who has bitten the face, eyes, jaw, nose, and hands off another human being. However, if it had happened, I would be up for a medieval type of punishment for the precocious little monster who committed that act.

And yeah, it was the animal's fault. Every little bit, while it was doing it. I'm sure the woman screamed and flailed pitifully, begging for it to stop, while it systematically tore her apart. An animal, particularly an animal with a documented high level of intelligence, that commits such an act should be chopped up into little bits. And the owner should have her ass thrown in prison and be sued in to poverty.

I don't think it's too unreasonable to anthropomorphize chimpanzees to a certain extent, especially since they share 98% of their DNA with humans. And according to behaviorists exhibit higher-order characteristics like altruism, deception, planning, use of tools, etc.

Would I put him on the level of Hannibal Lechter? No.

Ummm....that might have something to do with the fact that 6 yr olds aren't, you know, wild animals, so they don't have the capability to rip your face off. Because, you know, they aren't wild animals.

So do mice. Random Facts brought to you by Chilly.
Posted from my iPhone

also fruit flies!

well, that settles it. mice should be tried in court. if they are leaving poo pellets in people's houses and squatting private property, they are obviously doing it out of spite and with malicious intent.

I say they should be hanged, or at the very least made to provide free housekeeping services to atone for their selfish misdeeds.

Well, I just have to say that this all was one of the more interesting exchanges here in Gr. For the record, I don't really think the bloody chimp was acting in any way than was natural...and not natural for a 6-year-old. I mean, really, are we going to send the chimp to trial or is it already dead? Some parts of this discussion are bordering on scary anti-evolution stuff.

[celeb_2006]

US woman gets face transplant after mauling

US woman gets face transplant after mauling - Yahoo! News


WASHINGTON (AFP) – A US mother who was mauled by a frenzied chimp more than two years ago has been given a full face transplant, doctors said on Friday.

The patient, Charla Nash, also had two hand transplants but those operations were not successful and the hands had to be removed, said surgeons at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

"The hand transplants turned out to be very challenging," said plastic surgeon Bohdan Pomahac who led the team of physicians, nurses and anesthesiologists on the US hospital's second full face transplant.

"A few days post operatively Charla developed pneumonia and she became septic," said Pomahac.

"After several days of doing everything possible to maintain the hands it was clear they were not thriving, so we removed the hands."

The same hospital earlier this year performed its first full face transplant on a man named Dallas Wiens, who lost his face and eyesight in an electrical accident.

Nash's full face transplant "was very different," said Pomahac. "She required significantly more work."

In the attack, Nash lost her eyes, nose, upper jaw and lips and most of the soft tissue in her face, he said.

Nash did not appear at the press conference and doctors declined to reveal any information about the donor to protect the family's privacy.

She is expected to gain muscle control over her new face over the coming weeks and months, however she is not likely to be able to see again.

The hospital said it would be several months before any images are released, and that she would not resemble the donor because the muscles and tissue would form to her own bone structure.

Nash's brother Steve described her as "simply beautiful," and doctors said she hoped to attend her daughter Briana's college graduation, after skipping her high school ceremony for fear of drawing too much attention.

Nash was injured by a friend's chimpanzee during a visit in 2009.

The world's first full face transplant took place in Spain, and doctors at Vall d'Hebron hospital in Barcelona showed off their work to the public in July 2010.

The first successful partial face transplant was performed in France in 2005 on Isabelle Dinoire, a 38-year-old woman who had been mauled by her dog.

Since then about a dozen face transplant operations have been carried out in China, the United States and Spain.