This blog may help people explore some of the 'hidden' issues involved in certain media treatments of environmental and scientific issues. Using personal digital images, it's also intended to emphasise seasonal (and other) changes in natural history of the Swansea (South Wales) area. The material should help participants in field-based modules and people generally interested in the natural world. The views are wholly those of the author.
Wednesday 18 February 2009
Travis Terminated (With Extreme Prejudice)
The sad story of Travis, the celebrity (he advertised 'Old Navy' clothes and appeared in several TV shows) and hard living (he drank red wine from a long-stemmed glass and watched baseball on TV using the remote) pet Chimpanzee in Connecticut USA(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5755497.ece). Although house-trained, an avid brusher of teeth and a user of the Internet, the almost 90 kg, 15-year old animal seemingly went berserk, grabbing the house keys to escape and eventually attacking a female friend of the 70 year old woman owner. The friend had arrived at the house to help (and was very seriously injured). The owner stabbed Travis with a butcher's knife (to try to stop the attack on her friend) and a police officer (fearing attack) subsequently shot him dead. There is some speculation that the Chimpanzee may have suffered complications from an infection with Lyme disease or the anti-anxiety drug, Xanax, that he had been treated with. The point remains that, no matter how 'human' in appearance and action, Travis was a potentially dangerous animal. It is easy to forget this basic fact when you get close to a beast.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A New Type of Money Laundering?
Thames Water is the UK's biggest privatised (thank you, Mrs Thatcher!) water company, with around 15 million customers. All such water...
-
The UK government continue their quest to turn England's rivers back into sewers. They first facilitated the privatised water companies...
-
North Yorkshire's Drax electricity-generating station was an enormous coal-fired plant, later converted to burn 'biomass'. In ...
2 comments:
You could say....
The point remains that, no matter how 'animal' in appearance and action, Travis was a potentially dangerous human!
It's wise to recognise the animal in us.
At the risk of sounding facetious, Travis didn't appear to be unlike many humans I have met!
Post a Comment