Zoo Wants Chimpanzee to Stop Smoking
 

Zoo Wants Chimpanzee to Stop Smoking

Fri Apr 15, 8:39 AM ET

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African zoo is trying to persuade its star chimpanzee to kick a bad smoking habit.

Charlie, a grown male chimp and the Bloemfontein Zoo, has been picking up cigarettes thrown to him by visitors and smoking them -- a habit he probably picked up by observing humans, zoo officials told the SAPA news agency on Thursday.

"Baby chimps pick up habits by mimicking adults and we think he started mimicking smokers at his enclosure which probably led to smokers throwing him cigarettes," spokesman Daryl Barnes told SAPA.

Barnes said Charlie was already showing the signs of a true nicotine addict.

"He even acts like a naughty schoolboy by hiding the cigarette when staff approach the area," Barnes said, adding that the zoo was determined to help him quit.

Barnes said the most important thing was that people stop providing Charlie with cigarettes or any other treats, noting the chimp already had three bad teeth because of all the cans of sweet soft drinks that people throw at him.

Charlie is not the only smoking chimpanzee. A zoo in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou reported last year that one of its chimps had taken up smoking and was desperately bumming cigarette butts off visitors.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...frica_chimp_dc

Just give me 10 bucks for petrol and I'll drive to Jo'burg to bitchslap the fucking Chimp, it'll never smoke again !!!

how does he get them lit? they throw him lighters too?

thats what i was gonna ask

Can't those idiots set up some plexiglass shield or something so that nobody can throw smokes?

I guess it's a lot easier to start crying to the medias

when I was a kid our zoo had a Chimpanzee that would piss on you. Learned it from kids shooting him with water guns.

That would be a more logical solution

i need some chimps submitting and writting articles, anyone selling?

That's the first thing that popped into my head too. But besides that, why are they letting people throw stuff to the chimp anyway? Someone should be watching that area at all times and throwing people out on their ass if they don't know how to behave.

haha...funny stuff Sagi

they should get him the patch

They're trowing the cigarette's at him already lit. The people light them up, take a couple hits, and than toss it over.

Looks like that zoo will have a lot more visitors coming. :thumbsup :2 cents:

Yeah. Smoking is both bad for humans and animals.

Yeah, I'm sure the patch was already tested on chimps so it should work. :winkwink:

I agree with you.
And I never smoked..

The article also says that the chimp has bad teeth from soft drinks. Don't they have "don't feed the animals" signs in South Africa?