Monkeys, continued!
Legal Monkeys
No discussion of monkeys would be complete without a discussion of law and monkeys. Admittedly, if you are a rational person, you might think, what exactly would monkeys have to do with human law? Good point. But sadly, monkeys are seemingly a rather touchy subject and as such, there is indeed material here.
1) The infamous Scopes Trial:
The Scopes trial really didn't have to do with monkeys at all, but touched on the discomfort of the American public with the relationship between humans and monkeys and as such, is often referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial or some other version of "Monkey Trial." The "Scopes" in question was John Scopes, a teacher in the obviously intellectual state of Tennessee, who broke state law in teaching his students the theory of evolution. As with many of the great cases in history whose initiators/victims are lauded, this wasn't really Scopes' idea but a test case put forward by the ACLU. In fact, all the evidence seems to point to this being a flat out farce, with Scopes and his students perjuring themselves on the stand to establish that evolution had been taught, when it actually hadn't.
This is really just the standard boring argument about teaching evolution to students in schools. Honestly, everyone just needs to take a deep breath and say, okay, even if I don't agree with it, this is the way the world thinks about things so my children need to know about it. Tell them about any contradictory religious beliefs on the side and move on with your lives.
2) Matthew Hiasl Pan, your primate friend and mine
I like Austria, even with their creepy xenophobia, but demanding a legal declaration that a chimpanzee is a person? I can't jive with that. I mean, just using simple deductive logic, surely there is a reason we call them chimpanzees and not people. Monsieur Pan is about 27 now and ended up in the legal system after the shelter where he had spent most of his life filed for bankruptcy - but that's not the rub - the deal is, under Austrian law, only a human can receive a gift. M. Pan requires approx. $6800 a month for expenses and while donors have stepped up to offer that, he can't receive the donations under current law. So the Association Against Animal Factories decided the best idea was to say he was a human, based on the notion that the only legal remedy involved giving him a guardian, also not available to animals under Austrian law. Really? That's the best plan? What about passing a pet trust law or creating a NFP or any number of NORMAL legal solutions?
Just to give you a sense of how off the radar this is, see the public statement of the organization representing the chimpanzee: "Group president Martin Balluch accuses the judicial system of monkeying around. "It is astounding how all the courts try to evade the question of personhood of a chimp as much as they can," he said."
Yeah. Of course, a chimp isn't a person. It's a pretty straightforward analysis. A horse is also not a person. Nor is a giraffe, an amoeba, or any number of other random beings. Oy.
3) No, animals that could easily kill you are not good choices for pets
So this is a touchy subject lately, due to the ridiculous woman who decided to keep a chimp as a pet and was in no way equipped to deal with complications related to such a decision. For whatever reason, the story really caught people's attention (my guess is that it dealt with white people in Connecticut, but that's just me) and as a result, the U.S. House just passed a bill to limit the interstate transport of primates for use as pets (Captive Primate Safety Act). Tons of state legislation is in the works. Now, to be fair, I don't understand at all the interest in having a chimp as a pet. It's just not a pet. It's a rather complex being that is very similar to humans, but lacks the social restraint that is required in our society. It's pretty well summed up here: "Chimpanzees can live to be more than 50 years old, and many chimp owners get rid of the animals when they become too much to handle at 6 or 7 years old, Truitt said."
So, first off, you're saddling yourself with an animal that you're going to have to get rid of after about a tenth of its life. There are limited places to put the animal - there are sanctuaries (see the Primate Rescue Center, e.g.) but that's basically placing the burden for your absurd decision on someone else. Seriously, even Jane Goodall has spoken out about how chimps are not pets, stating that "a chimpanzee can never be totally domesticated" and further notes that by taking them out of the wild and raising them in a home, it assures that they will spend their lives in difficult conditions, at best, as they can never be returned to the wild after being abandoned by their owners because they have become potential killing machines.
I can't help but make the point here that people who engage in this sort of thing clearly have issues that should be dealt with professionally. Just like children aren't a good way to deal with your personal issues, nor are pets.
NB - ridiculously lame monkey who will receive no extended analysis here.
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