grape ape

the chimp is considered as a "great ape." i remember learning this many year ago, but re-learned it tonight. i was having problems sleeping tonight, so i watched a national geographic special on captive chimps and increasing violence. Half into the show, one woman worried about why male chimps in captivity have heart failure more than ones in the wild and speculated that it was the stress of living in captivity. Good theory. However, my counter theory is that it's the fact that they were feeding the chimps mcdonal's and pizza hut not to mention fried eggs and bacon on a regular basis. Having that as a steady diet causes heart problems in people, so why wouldn't it do the same for chimps, who are practically identical internally to people? Chimps don't eat cooked food in the wild and they really don't eat deep-fat fried foods either.

personally, i don't think people should be allowed to have chimps as pets, as they're dangerous after 10 or so years of age and most of them end up becoming test animals after a few years anyway. According to the special, there are two "western" countries that allow chimps as test animals, the US and Gabon. Although, without chimp testing, we wouldn't have many of our vaccines and woudn't be able to have new vaccines. Have to fight over the "rights" of chimps and the needs of people there, so people get ugly at this argument. It was an interesting part of the show. apparently, in spain, great apes are given rights as animals akin to "human rights." huh. The idea is that chimps have the abilities of a 2 year old human, so experimenting on them is the same as experimenting on humans with the abilities of a 2 year old, which is illegal based on ethical standards and thus should be illgal to experiment on apes.

i'm not sure where i stand on that point. i feel bad for the apes, but i like having vaccines and hope we get more of them in the future. but anyway, if you feed a chimp crap, don't be shocked when he's got a heart problem.