Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Chimpanzee Attack - Moe the Chimp Has a Really Weird Birthday

Episode Date: November 21, 2020

Wes navigates the twists and turns of a story about a chimpanzee attack that should probably be made into a movie. Saint James rescues a baby chimp whose mother died at the hands of poachers, and he takes the little guy back to California to raise as his own. But this seemingly sweet, direct-to-TV Lifetime flick quickly devolves into more of a Planet of the Apes kind of situation. ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone, welcome back to Tooth and Claw, a podcast about true stories of wild animal attacks told by the wildlife biologist Wes Larson. So this week's story. Every story we've covered so far has been upsetting to one degree or another. This week's episode is particularly violent, so if you're at all squeamish or you like to put us on for your children as they drift off to sleep, maybe don't do that this time around. Maybe don't do that second thing ever, actually. But yeah, this story has it all.

An attack, adventure, legal, and relationship twists and turns. We think you're really going to like this one. Also, a huge shout out to all of you who have written in with questions. We see them all, and unfortunately, we can't get around to answering them all. But we do appreciate you, and we see all of you. You can send all your messages to our Instagram account, Tooth and Claw Podcast. Again, that's Tooth and Claw Podcast on Instagram. Thanks to everyone who's liked and subscribed to the podcast as well.

And if you haven't done that yet, just know that we're grateful to you for listening anyways, but do it because it helps us out a lot. It really does. Thank you. Let's get on to the episode, this time on The Chimpanzee. Hey guys, tooth and claw podcast here. We got Mike, Jeff, and Wes. We're back. Coming at you live. Wes was just showing us a movie where there's people on death row that just gets sent to be attacked by dinosaurs. Yeah, Jurassic Games was the of the movie, just kind of stumbled on it the other day. We haven't watched it yet. It looks good.

I'm going to watch it. Probably right after this. Looks like the citizen cane of movies. Speaking of movies, we just finished with our annual Lord of the Rings Marathon, where we watch all three extended editions back to back to back. Every year, Mike and Jeff try and convince me that Pippin is a better character than Mary. This was a big year for us. And you know what?

I think they accomplished circle this year, finally. We're turning things around. I will say, I, you know, in the books, Mary is still my favorite. In the movies, I'm starting to see why you guys prefer Pippin to Mary. I do think it's kind of unfair that we're pitting them against each other in the first place. But Mike especially has very strong feelings about this. So anyway, we did just finish that. We've been spending a lot of time together.

We, as we mentioned before, all got sick together last week and now we're back to pretty much. tooth and claw. I gave it to Wes and Mike when we were editing. Yeah, exactly. I had a bowl of ice cream and West just couldn't help himself. So we're really sacrificing life and land for this podcast. Yeah, we're all feeling good again. We're doing good.

Totally. Today's story is very different from the other stories that we've told in that it involves a wild animal that was brought into someone's home as a pet. and it is just a doozy. Today's story is, I mean, buckle up. Yeah, because it is brutal, and there are twist and turns. What Samuel Jackson said in Jurassic Park?

Hold on your butt. Your seat belts. Hold on to your butts, I think. That's right. Hold on to your butts because this is a good one. Yeah, and just like a little trigger warning, I guess, for some of you guys. We've gotten into some pretty grisly details. on this podcast. This one, this one kind of takes it to a new level. So if you do have little kids or

whoever that's listening, you might want to skip this one while they're. I don't think they will. But it's a good one. I mean, it's a really great story. The title of the article that I read is actually the worst story that I've ever heard was the name of the article. It was an article in Esquire. It's a really great article. It was written by Rich Shapiro in 2009. Again, the title is the worst story I've ever heard. So if you really want to dig into this story after we talk, go ahead and access that because it is truly a crazy story. Well, we've got our butts seatbelt.

Okay, you're holding onto your butts. Yeah. All right. So we are talking about Mo the Chimpanzee. So in the mid-60s, we're in West Covina, California, and our two main protagonists of this story are this guy named St. James. That's his name. His last name's Davis.

And the woman's name is Ladana. So their high school sweethearts, St. James is this tall, kind of impressively built dude, and she's kind of a quintessential California girl. She's, like, blonde and pretty and, like, in the 60s, kind of they're living this idyllic 60s California lifestyle. He's really obsessed with building hot rods and cars, and they're dating throughout high school. And then after years of pressure in 1966, St. James finally agrees to marry LaDena. Donna. He's reluctant because he's so obsessed with cars and he's worried that marriage might put a

wedge into hit this hobby that is such an obsession for him, but he decides to get married. So when their wedding day finally comes, he doesn't show up. Leaves are alone at the altar in front of all the family and friends. And his excuse was he was just working on one of his cars and never left the car. So they're in a pretty small city and that's a terrible excuse. Yeah. I mean, he got cold feet is essentially what happened. They're in a small city and word gets out about this wedding, you know, that he left her there and it kind of turns into this gossipy thing. And he can't really escape it and it's like the worst time of his life. So he just kind of on an impulse decides to join this merchant ship that's going to sail the world.

He has no sailing experience or anything. But he joins on as a deckhand and they leave. They go off on, he goes off on this boat. He doesn't even talk to her before he leaves. He left her at the altar and then gets on the ship. haven't talked since. So he goes off and the ship actually ends up suffering damage off the coast of Africa and he's forced to go ashore in Tanzania with the rest of the crew. Now while they're ashore he makes friends with some local hunters and one day he follows them into the bush. And now I'm going

to do like another little kind of disclaimer here. This is his story and there's no proof to it how he got ended up with the chimpanzee. But this is his story so we're just going to believe in. But some of the details seem a little suspect. But that's just a disclaimer. We're going to believe him. We're going to give him the benefit of the doubt. So he finds these local hunters. One day they're out in the bush, and he witnesses a group of poachers slaughtering a female chimpanzee that had just given birth.

So he returns the next day, and he finds this newborn chimp, and he just decides to take care of it. He jumps ship. He remains in Tanzania, and over the following months, he does his best to forage for food for the chimpanzees collecting like fruit and eggs and stuff and water and he loses drastic amounts of weight and that you know that lines up like when he gets home he's really skinny and he has open sores from claw marks from this champion chimpanzee so he's in rough shape finally a local villager who named this chimp mogambo helped st james get in contact with some german missionaries

and those german missionaries help him get a flight home where mo is just sitting quietly on his lap the whole flight. Mo is what he ended up named. So he has a pet chimpanzee that he just grabbed in Africa. And that also speaks to how lenient flights used to be. It was like a bus you just walked on and he could just have a chimp on his lap and no one cared. So he's named this chimp Mo from its original name Mogambo. When he gets to the airport, his mother and his estranged girlfriend, Ladana, are both there. His mom's thrilled to see him. Ladana is just seething. She's pissed off at him. She hasn't seen him since the day before their plan. How long has it been? It's been months. And she refuses to talk to him. But his mom

gives him a big hug and his mom totally falls in love with this baby chimpanzee that he brought home. And then his mom is really good friends with La Dana's mom. La Dana's mom starts coming over to see the chimp. And as she comes over, she starts bringing La Dana. La Dana falls in love with the baby chimp and then she falls in love with St. James again. So they end up getting married in 1970. Guys, take notes. Yeah, if you need to get a girl back, get a baby chimpanzee. Baby ape.

They're not monkeys. Anyway, they get married in 1970. Mo is the best man at the marriage. He's dressed up in a little tuxedo and he held hands with the flower girl. And then during the reception, I guess he was like running across the tables and drinking from everyone's champagne glasses and got really drunk and started hanging on like one of Ladonna's friends the whole night. and then ended up like peeing all over her.

And everyone thought it was like the funniest thing they've ever seen in their lives. A year into their marriage, LaDonna goes in for a routine OBGYN visit, and she learns that she has to have a hysterectomy because she has cancer. They dreamed of having a large family with like five kids, and so this news was really life-shattering to them.

LaDonna falls into this deep depression, and she even thought that St. James should divorce her so that he could move on and have kids with someone else. Oh, wow. But he at this point asserts that he's not going in, anywhere and that they already have a kid, which is Mo the Chimpanzee. So they really just double down on making Mo part of their family. He's no longer a pet.

He's their child. And he really falls into that role. They start riding around town on a three-seater bicycle. They're eating meals together. He goes everywhere with them. They would watch his favorite Cowboys and Indians show every night, and then they would fall asleep, like, with linked arms on the ground. Like some really cute details in this article about sign them up for.

the local hockey team. Pretty much, yeah. Would he dress in people's clothes? Yeah, they dressed him every day in like these really funny clothes. Yeah. The backwards hat on a chimpanzee's eyes. It's a good, yeah, it's a good move. Yeah.

So in 1971, it's been a couple years since they got Moe. The city of West Covina decides to charge the Davises with harboring a wild animal. And they go to court. And Mo actually goes to court dressed in a checkered shirt and white pants. And as he enters the courtroom, he kissed the court room. he kissed the court reporter and like played with the the policeman's keys as he went in, the bailiff's keys. And then the press in the community just have a field day with this.

It's like the cutest trial ever. The community is 100% behind the Davis is so much so where like they pretty much say the court had decided the second that Mo entered the room that they were going to let him stay with the family. And they do. And the judge even says that Mo was better behaved than most humans that he had ever met. So the next- be like a lawyer for like real cases. They just like, you just know anything.

Case dismissed. It's like a double murder. You know what? We're going to go with Mo on this one. Great argument, Mo. You're free. The next years are blissful for the Davises and Moe. Mo's doing things that a young human child would do,

and they'd notice this really deep understanding and innocence in his eyes. He would sleep in their bed. But when he grew to be about 50 pounds, they started making him sleep in his own room, but he would actually, like, hours later, crawl into their bed almost every night. He loved coloring, chasing leaves, playing with the rector sets, and he was even featured in a number of TV shows and movies, and kind of became a local celebrity in West Covina. Now, at this point, St. James is a mechanic, and he's also a NASCAR driver, and so he's kind of become somewhat of a public figure as well, and he's also regained his huge

build that he had lost while he was in Africa. So he's a really big guy. I think he's like 6-2 and he was a former linebacker. So originally St. James had planned on giving Moe to a zoo, but they just fell in love with them so quickly that they knew they would never willfully give them up. But ultimately, they'd be forced to. So as Moe got older, his moods and his behavior got more complex, just like in humans.

You know, as we get older, our hormones start kicking in and things get a lot more complex. So he would throw tantrums when things didn't go his way, but he also learned some basic sign language. For example, he'd cross-es. his arms over his chest if he wanted to hug, and he'd motion as if he were turning a steering wheel when he wanted to go for a ride. So through his teens and 20s, he continued to be really playful. Are these like ape teens and 20s, or is it like he's actually... This is like in human

years. Okay. Yeah. So in captivity, they can live to be like in their 30s, but sometimes they live to be up to their 60s. Oh, wow. But average in captivity is like mid-30s and in the wild average is like 15 years, but in the wild they can still live to be like 52. There's a pretty big range, but the average is a pretty like 15 and 30 something. Anyway, so when he came to the U.S., he was a baby, he was less than a foot long, and he only weighed about 10 pounds.

But now in his 20s, he stands four feet tall, and he weighs about 130 pounds. So St. James is doing all this research as Moe is growing older and older, and he's realizing that no matter how docile they are when they're young and no matter how soon they were in human possession, they still almost always become more aggressive as they get older. So I think a lot of times when we see chimps in movies,

they tend to use really young chimps or baby chimps in movies because they're just so cute. And so I think we have a kind of a misplaced idea of how big chimps actually can get because we tend to see these really small ones. They can get really big. I mean, they stand four feet tall and they can be like up to 160. 60 pounds. It's like your size, Wes. That weighs more than me, but I am a little taller than that. Anyway, this peaceful existence in the Davis home with Moe starts crumbling in 1998 when a welder is

repairing Moe's cage and a piece of equipment shocked Moe unexpectedly. So Moe is so spooked that he runs out of the house. The police are called. They have to close off the street. And by the end of the night, Moes dented a police car, he's injured a police officer's hand, and he's scratched an animal control worker. But he was returned to the Davises after that whole incident. Now a year later, a woman's visiting Mo, and she has these long red fingernails, and she was told not to stick her fingers in the cage, but she did anyway, and Mo bites off the tip of one of her fingers. And the Davises are convinced that he thought it was a piece of licorice, because that was a common treat they would give him. But at this point, the city's

had enough and they order Mo to be taken away. He's a mature chimpanzee and there's some debate on how strong they are. I heard everything from like they have the strength of four men to the strength of they have they have the strength of one and a half men. But even if it's one and a half, that's significantly stronger than a human. So they called in a bunch of cops. They swarm the home. St. James comes out and he's like yelling at these cops. He demands a court order. He demands a warrant. They physically restrain him, throw him to the yard, and then they go in, animal control people go in, fire two darts into Mo, who's screaming and just freaking out, and they drag him out of the house while St. James and LaDonna are on the yard, like, sobbing. Because essentially this is their

child that's being taken away. And I'm being really kind of forgiving to them. Obviously, it's a terrible idea to have a chimpanzee as a pet. This was the 60s when they got him. They didn't really have the access to information that we have now, and they really bonded with this animal. Don't ever take a chimpanzee into your home. It's going to become aggressive. But I'm telling this kind of from the more human interest side of the story because it is such a fascinating story. I sold my car in Carvana last night. Well, that's cool. No, you don't understand. It went perfectly. Real offer, down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong. So what's the problem? That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes a smoothie. I'm waiting for the catch.

Maybe there's no catch. That's exactly what a catch would want me to think. Wow, you need to relax. I need a knock on wood. Do we have wood? Is this tablewood? I think it's laminated. Okay, yeah, that's good. That's close enough. Car selling without a catch.

So your car today on... Carvana. Pick up these may apply. So Mo's taken to a 160-acre refuge for wild animals near Los Angeles. Nine days later, the owner of the facility calls the Davises to let them know that Mo was refusing to eat and that he's dying. So they rush to the facility, they find him on the floor of his tiny cage, covered in his own stool, and he's too weak to even acknowledge them. So a vet comes in, starts taking care of Mo. He starts to recover, and the Davis has launched this legal battle to sue for custody of Mo. And this legal battle stretches for years, and they even get pro bono representation from Gloria Allred, who's kind of a famous lawyer who's taken on a lot of really public-facing trials.

They're able to create a larger enclosure for him at the rescue facility. They put into TV, some of his other comforts from home, but they're not allowed to touch him. And when they'd visit, he's signal for hugs, and he'd make that steering wheel sign saying that he wanted to go home. So it was really heartbreaking for them. Yeah, that's awful. Yeah, and this is after almost 30 years of them having him as essentially a child.

And then he's in this little concrete cage and, you know, really homesick. So in 2000. And he doesn't understand. that there's court orders and laws and stuff. Right, right. Unless he's a lawyer, then you would have to. Yeah, that's what I seem to have his lawyer game on point. It's a pretty smart guy.

Okay, so in 2004, they successfully get Moe transferred to an animal haven ranch, which had a much bigger enclosure, and the Davises are now allowed to visit him as much as they want, and they're even allowed to go inside of his cage and play with them. So they'd bring treats and presents for Mo, and all in all, there's seven primates at this ranch, but they all agreed that Mo would live by himself for the first couple years there

because it takes a while to socialize for them and he's never lived with other primates outside of humans. And he's getting pretty old, so it's hard to teach an old chimp, new tricks, essentially. That's the same. Yeah, that's what we always say around here. Okay, we're to the day. This is a crazy day.

So it's March 3rd, 2005. St. James and Ladona drive to the ranch to celebrate Mo's third. 39th birthday. They brought a big sheet cake and a bunch of presents and toys for him. And as soon as they got to the ranch, Moe starts jumping and clapping and hooting because he's so excited to see him. St. James goes straight to the cage and he hands Moe some cake and Moe devours it really quickly and gives St. James a big kiss. And the family seems really happy. Finally, they've had all this time apart and they're finally in this situation where they feel like it's the next best thing to having Mo at home. This next little bit I'm lifting directly from the art. article because they go into some pretty crazy detail. So again, just buckle up. And I'm going to read it, but then we'll take a little break afterward and we'll talk about what actually happened. So out of the corner of her eye, Ladana suddenly noticed a large form about 40 feet away. It was a chimpanzee, a young adult male, somehow out of his cage. So again, they're at Mo's cage, but this is another

chimp that she sees. And he was glaring at her. The chimp held her gaze for a moment and then charged. St. James rushed to his wife. The animal barreled into Ladana's back, knocking her into St. James. She wrapped her arms around her husband's neck, but the chimpanzee locked his jaws around the thumb of her left hand. With a single ferocious jerk of his neck, he tore it off. So he tore off her Oh, wow. St. James threw his hysterical wife under the picnic table and pushed her further underneath as the chimp tried to pursue her. La Donna was screaming commands, no, stop, sit in a desperate bid to stop him. The remaining cake was on the table still in its box, but the chimp didn't go for it. Instead, he went straight for St. James. So is this Mo attacking them? No. So this is a wild,

a chimp that got out of its cage at that same facility. Yeah. As St. James confronted the chimp, the 6-2 former running back, a running back, not lineman, turned to find a second chimp, also a male, this one older and bigger, bearing down on him as well. With both hands, he pushed the bigger animal. Both chimps pounced. One of the animals grabbed him in a bear hug before chomping into the bone above his right eyebrow. He then stuck a finger in St. James' right eye, gouging it out. The same animal clamped his teeth onto St. James' nose, biting it off, as the other chimp chewed away at St. James' fingers. In the melee, one of the chimps dug in his claws and ripped the skin off the right side of St. James' face, causing it to flop over and cover

his left eye, temporary blinding him. Because he already lost his other eye Right, and then his skin has been peeled off his face And it's flopped over on his other eye One of the primates sunk his teeth into St. James' skull He then closed his jaws on St. James' mouth, ripping off his lips and most of his teeth. St. James tried to put one of his hands down the animal's throat,

but the chimp just kept chewing on it and chewing on it And he couldn't pull it out. St. James fell to the ground, it gets worse. No longer able to defend it. himself, and for at least five minutes the mauling continued as he lay helpless. One of the chimps gnawed on his buttocks and bit off his testicles. They ravaged his left foot, leaving it shredded. Blood poured from his body, and Ladonna was screaming.

It looked as they were eating him alive. Finally, Ladana's scream drew the owner's son-in-law, Mark Caruthers, who came running with a 45-calibre revolver. After struggling to find a clean shot, he opened fire on the younger primate, and the shot had no apparent effect. And Caruthers race back to his house, a few dozen yards away, to reload with more powerful ammunition. When Caruthers returned, he focused on the older male, the prime aggressor.

Kneeling down, he shot him once in the head from close range. As the animal fell to the ground, the younger chint began dragging St. James' mutilated body, down a hill leading away from Mo's cage. Dirt filled St. James' lungs, and he seeped into his bloody openings. The level of details. And this is him telling the story to this reporter. He doesn't like telling this story. So this is like one of the only places he's told.

Oh, yeah, I can imagine why. For the briefest of moments, Ladonna looked towards Mo. He was sitting in the corner of his cage, frozen, seemingly stunned. The lone chimp continued tearing at St. James' limp body with his teeth, until Caruthers caught up to him and shot him once in the chest, ending the attack. St. James, lying face down, felt the lifeless animal fall in his back. When the paramedics arrived, St. St. James was still conscious somehow.

His face and body, however, were mutilated beyond recognition. Where his mouth, lips, and nose had been there was only a bloody hole. Where his right eye had been, there was a pit. Where his fingers had been, he only had stumps or simply gaps. This is the Kern County Fire Captain Kurt Merrill. I had no idea a chimpanzee was capable of doing that to a human. It looked like a grizzly bear attack. I mean, we've talked about a grizzly bear attack, and this seems like

worse. It's just like, to me, reading this, thinking about the fact that a lot of that damage was done with their hands. Yeah. You know, having an animal get at you with its claws or its teeth is obviously terrible, but just thinking about a chimp using its just really strong hands to like gouge out eyes and rip away teeth and stuff, I guess the teeth were with its mouth. But some, it's just so, so intense. Yeah. Are they like trying to eat part of them? So we'll talk about that second. They were definitely eating a little bit, but I don't know if it was because they were hungry or was just like kind of a display of dominance. The chips had escaped because a keeper had forgot to lock their cage. So their aggression, you know, to your question, it could have been from

the fact that they're just territorial and they saw these other primates in their territory. Well, I think it's because Mo got birthday presents and they didn't get any birthday presents. That actually was like one of the reasons. They said that it might have been a jealous attack because they're just Mo was constantly getting all this attention and they weren't or it just could be rage from them having been mistreated in the past that worker's probably going to get a real stern talking to yeah i think so i don't even know if they know who it was but anyway they're not totally sure why it happened they're really complex animal which we're going to talk a little bit more about it was just a terrible terrible brutal attack yeah yeah so he's taken to the hospital st james

and he's put in a medically induced coma, and he underwent dozens of surgeries. He remains in that coma for months. They leave him in the coma for months while they're working on him. And when doctors temporarily brought him out of the coma in May, his first question was how's Mo? Oh, wow.

Yeah. After the attack, St. James is completely dependent on LaDonna. He can't bathe himself, he can't go to the bathroom on his own, he can't even eat without her help. He still has no teeth. He has limited control of his mouth. His vision and his remaining eye is blurry, and he has a swollen, punctured left foot that they're thinking they might have to amputate.

How old was he at this point? You said 2005? Yeah, so I'm not totally sure. I think he was around 20 when he left on that boat. So like an older guy at this point. So yeah, he's probably like in his 60s. And to be honest, I couldn't find out if he's still around or not. There wasn't a lot of information after like the late 2000s about this couple. But there's still one twist left. in this story.

Oh. Yeah. What injuries does Ladona have? I think she's missing her thumb. But aside from that, she's fine. Yeah. Yeah. So he's like missing is pretty much his whole face.

And then he's going to have to have his foot amputated. So Moe is transferred to jungle exotics. It's a 60 acre sanctuary in the San Bernardino Mountains. And in 2007 after St. James kind of starts recovering a little bit, they start. visiting him again. And they make improvements to his enclosure in his new place. And they even start to set up a video camera and a monitor that would let them kind of talk to Mo full time. But then in June 2008, they get a call from the owner of Jungle Exotics, who nervously tells Ladonna that she just went to Mo's cage and that Moe isn't in it. He's disappeared. So the couple speeds to the sanctuary,

and by the time they get there, a kind of weird thing is his cage is completely cleaned out. So none of his toys are in there. None of his stuff is in there. It's like totally clean. And that's a little confusing to them. A huge search ensues. It involves helicopters and like national media. The Davises are going out in the mountains in their in their minivan every day and like yelling for Mo. And in July, the search is finally called off. Now Mo had broken the welds on his cage and a worker claimed to see him jump the perimeter fence. But the crazy thing is no one's seen him since. Yeah. He just completely disappeared. That's really strange because they're social animals and he was used to people

So it'd be weird for him just to disappear and not ever like he wouldn't really know how to take care of himself outside Right and like if he just went off and died he was pretty old at this point Someone would have stumbled upon his skeleton by now And been like what the hell is this? Yeah You know that's the story that this place is sticking to I guess it's kind of what we have to accept I kind of wonder if they didn't sell them or like I don't know Like I don't want to like create some sort of controversy or speculate or whatever, but I

It doesn't make sense that it was like all cleaned out and that it just was like oh hey he's gone, you know and everyone looked for it Right for a month and it's like a full grown chimpanzee in a pretty an area of the country where there's lots of people and this place that he was at actually worked a lot with like movies and stuff they would loan their animals out to the movies yeah I don't know I'm not going to point any fingers but he completely disappeared and no one's seen him since. This is in 2008. But that's pretty much the end of the story. I do know St. James was still undergoing surgeries, the last article I could find, and that his prosthetics are getting better.

But we'll probably share some photos of kind of the aftermath of his attack, not really graphic ones, but just ones to kind of show him on his day-to-day. On our Instagram. Yeah, on our Instagram. Yeah, on our Instagram. Tuesday, Kla, podcast Instagram account. Great.

Yeah, thanks for reminding us. He has, like, like, the, Voldemort nose. He's like missing a nose and there's just like the two holes there. Yeah. Anyway. Michael Jackson. Yeah, kind of.

All right. So that's the story. It's one of the wildest stories I've ever read. I totally advise you guys to read the whole article. Again, it's called the worst story I ever heard. It was on Esquire. So do you guys have any questions about the story? I'm just glad Moden attack them.

Like the whole time you were building it up, I thought like, oh man, or this team Chimpanzee's so cool. Yeah. Like it sucks. It's going to attack him. And then I'm glad that like Mo stayed pretty good chimpanzee. Yeah, he's a good guy. Yeah, like Mo.

He even cleaned up after himself after you laugh. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But that just made the story like so tragic and heartbreaking too because Mo is like such a victim in all this. Yeah. And also the part that really hurt was that obviously it's bad to have a chimpanzee in your home. They learned that lesson, you know.

Did they though? Like what happened to them from having mo? Well, the lady got bit and they had all these crazy court cases. I don't think they regret it because pretty much it was like their child. Right. But the thing is like they had gotten to this point where they had mowing an enclosure, but they had worked out a good visiting schedule and they could go see him and play with him. And he could kind of live out the rest of his days in like a relatively safe environment.

Yeah. And then everything just got completely torn apart. Yeah. Well, if you think about how sad it is when you lose a family pet, like a dog, for instance, that's one of the most tragic things I've ever had to go through. And that was like a 14-year relationship that I had with that animal. Right. This is a 40-year-long relationship with an animal that's fairly, for all intents and purpose, is very intimate. It's a surrogate child to them. Yeah. Yeah. And like, again, I don't condone people, especially like taking them out of the wild. Sure. And having a wild animal in their house. But again, this is like the 60s when they got him. He was a kid. He was

like 20 years old. Didn't know better. And they probably gave, you know, him the best possible life that they could have for a captive chimpanzee. There's definitely people out there that are doing a much worse job than these people did. Again, we can point fingers all day. It's not something good that you should ever, you should never take a chimpanzee into your home. But it's a crazy story. And it's really tragic and totally heartbreaking. And I hope if Mo's still out there, he's doing great and just having the best possible life without, you know,

his family. Okay. Any other questions about the story? No. It's a doozy. It's rough. It makes me think, like, I agree with you like they shouldn't, you shouldn't be able to have a chimpanzee as a pet. But had he not been taken away from him, nothing probably would have happened too serious.

Probably not, yeah. But you never know. Like the licorice thing, I can see that. Yeah, totally. You know? Okay, so a quick little breakdown of chimp biology. I'll admit this is an animal I don't know quite as much about compared to the rest of the animals that we've talked about. So I'm just going to go through some real basics with you guys.

They live in the wild primarily in central and western Africa. They're really social animals. They live in large groups. Those groups can be as big as 150 individuals. But within those group, they split into smaller groups that they all have their defined roles. So you'll have like a group of males that go and hunt and a group of females that raise the children. They have all these different little hierarchies within the big group.

And that's actually called a fission-fusion group dynamic. So who named it that? I'm not sure. It's an interesting name. Kind of confusing. Yeah, I shouldn't have. They're omnivores. They're omnivores, but the majority of their diet is fruit, vegetation, and insects.

For those of you who don't know, omnibor just means you eat vegetation, meat, you pretty much eat everything. However, chimps do hunt other animals, including colobus monkeys and other small mammals. Meat makes up a small percentage of their diet, but some chimps do really become expert hunters. And within their hunting group, they have like ambushers and stalkers, and they have their own little roles, and they're really coordinated. Jeff, I don't know if you remember this. You're probably too young. But when we were pretty young, Mom bought me this Wildlife series, like a documentary called Trials of Life. Do you remember that at all?

No. Okay. But there was one episode that was all about hunting. And I was probably like eight or nine when we got this. And the final segment in the hunting series was this group of chimps that they hunt down a colobus monkey. And it's so brutal. And I was like eight. And it was the first wildlife thing I ever saw that really shook me.

Really? Because they hunt down this monkey and then they're just holding it on the branch. And the monkey's screaming and the chimp is just like eviscerating it and eating its like intestines and stuff. While the monkey's just sitting there screaming. And I'm just watching it. And I'm like, oh, because I think to most people. You probably showed it to like a little four-year-old me too. Yeah, probably.

Yeah, come look at this. Probably. It scarred me though. Because I think for us, chimps are so similar to us. they just seem like such a passive, nice animal. And then to see them like rip apart a live animal and eat it was just, it was such a departure for me of what I saw them as before that. And it was like when you watch a horror movie and a little kid ends up being the killer or something, you know,

it just seems like this really innocent thing that's capable of this terrible act. Anyway, it's not that it's terrible that they're hunting and stuff. That's obviously just part of their nature. Sure. But to eight-year-old me, it was very scary. Crack a Cayman Jack margarita and taste your escape. It's America's number one for a reason. Cayman Jack is a premium malt beverage with flavors.

Please drink responsibly. Camden Jack beverage company, Chicago, Illinois. Okay, so they can weigh anywhere from 60 to 160 pounds. They get much bigger in captivity. They're stronger than humans. Again, that can be anywhere from 1.5 times stronger to 4 times stronger. that's mostly due to high concentrations of fast twitch muscles. They live anywhere from rainforest to savanna to dry forests and mountain forests.

They're incredibly adaptable. Talked a little about their lifespan already. When they get older, their fur gets gray, and they age and they even develop bald spots. And they actually are our closest relative in the animal kingdom. So a common myth about chimps is that we evolved from chimps, and that's not true. We evolved from a common ancestor. but they are our closest living relative. They're extremely intelligent.

They've shown different signs of advanced intelligence, including tool use, counting, cooperation, and even language and culture. They even laugh and seem to really enjoy tickling each other, which is like you, Jack. Yeah, no, I'd fit right. Yeah, you would. You'd make a perfect chimp. They've been used extensively as medical research subjects,

and we've even launched them into space. So we've really, I mean, we've done a lot to chimpanzees. A quick breakdown on attacks, they're really, really rare, but a number of chimpanzee attacks have been documented in the wild, and they actually are increasing as chimpanzee habitat becomes more and more fragmented. They generally occur on these fringes of like the forest where people are doing some sort of agriculture, and that's because a lot of times when these food sources in the forest fail,

the chimps will start raiding crops. that puts them into direct confrontation with people, and they start attacking people. And they're pretty vicious. There's a number of children that have been stolen out of these villages and completely eaten by chimpanzees. And attacks are often just displays of aggression towards humans because they might see us as competition for these resources.

So those attacks, again, are super rare, but they have been increasing. There's a really cool Nat G article that came out a little while ago about a particular village in Uganda that has just constant attacks, or maybe it was Rwanda. Oh, really? Yeah, and then Jane Goodall, who's the really famous chimp researcher, I think it was in the early 2000s, her, like, favorite chimp, or one of her favorites, it was really used to humans and had been, had become really obituated to their presence, was named Frodo. Cool name.

Yeah, which is a great name for a champ. but one day Frodo actually grabbed a kid off of a woman's back, a 14-month-year-old baby, and ate it. What? Yeah. Just like right there? Yeah. Did he think he was licorice?

Anyway, so there isn't much out there about what to do if a chimp attacks you, because again, they're really rare and there's just not a ton of research on it. I had to delve into actual scientific literature to find out this, which is what I try to do anyway just so I'm giving you guys. It seems like in a lot of our stories, they try stuffing their arm down their mouths so far. Yeah, this didn't work with St. James. So if you encounter a chimp in the wild that seems like it's aggressive, the main thing you, the main thing they say to do is to keep calm, to avoid screaming because they

scream at each other when they're aggravated. And then the main thing is like, don't run because that really triggers them. You want to group up, which is really the thing that we've learned in every single. single animal we've talked about. Grouping up is really effective. And you try and hold on to something stable, whether that's another person or a tree or whatever, because they're going to try and pull you onto the ground, kind of like they did with St. James, and that's where they can really do a lot of damage. That's when they got at his balls and stuff. So, I don't want that. I really got to make some friends if I ever want to go outside. Yeah. You can have to go. So the majority of attacks have been on children and

young children. And you should definitely, if you're ever in Chimp Habitat, don't leave children on the fringes of the forest alone. And another main thing that they talked about is if you're in those areas, you want to have a man in your group because they are, they have these hierarchies in their group systems and the male is always dominant. And so when they, they can realize, like a human male versus female. And if they see a male in a group, they think that they might not have a chance to attack and get a kid or whatever. Well, St. James seemed like pretty man the guy. Yeah, I mean, so those weren't wild chimps again.

It's like seven feet tall. Yeah, they weren't wild and there's a million different reasons they might have attacked them. The cake, jealousy. Could have been jealousy, could have been territoriality, could have been a lot of other things. It sounded like a good cake. Yeah, it could have been, but they didn't want the cake. Well, they might have ate it all already.

No, the cake was, they mentioned that in the story that the cake was on the table. They didn't touch the cake. Again, what we're talking about here is wild chimps. When you take an animal like that into captivity, a lot of those rules go out the window. Okay. And that has to do with pretty much any animal that we're talking about. Okay, so that's kind of what you're supposed to do.

And if you're actually being attacked by a chimp, from what I found out, there's not really any rules. So I'll ask you guys later what you guys would do, and then I'll kind of explain what I gathered as best practices. Okay. I think I'll nail it. I think you will. That's it for the story and for our kind of rundown on chimp biology.

Again, this is an animal that I know a decent amount about, but I'm not an expert by any means. So if there are any primatologists out there that need to write in and correct us on anything, we're happy to get corrections and we'll definitely mention them in future episodes. But that's what I could gather from the literature. Okay. All right. Okay. So we're going to launch into our categories.

Categories. The story's a little long, so we're going to probably skip one or two of our normal categories. But let's start out with our favorite chimp in pop culture. All right. Yeah, I can start us out. So I want to give an honorable mention to the monkey in Pirates of the Caribbean. I know that that's not a chimp. But there's not going to probably be a podcast where we can do it.

And I just really like that monkey. Totally. That's a Capuchin monkey. For reference. So for chimp, I'll just go to Caesar and Planet of the Apes, the new series. I actually thought of the first one with James Franco a lot during your story because he takes a chimp as a pet and raises it. And it actually has like a lot of similar things. Like they do really well until it like breaks out and gets angry once.

And it's just like one freak out. So it took to get it taken away. So yeah. Totally. That's a good pick. And those are great movies. Yeah. Thank you.

So it turns out I kind of don't know what a chimp is. I kind of just thought that they were the same thing as like, obviously the small little pirate monkey is not a chimp. Right, right? Yeah. That's a Capuchin monkey. Yeah. So I broke my own rule this week. I apologize everybody right in.

I deserve all of your scorn. But I had to look it up on the internet. And I found a couple of good ones. Bubbles has come up, Michael Jackson, but that reminded me of bubbles in Dragon Ball Z, which is basically just Michael Jackson monkey in an anime. And that makes me sound incredibly dweeby. So I'm not going to go with either of those.

Okay. I am going with, shoot, Diddy Kong isn't a... No, he's a chiela. He's a gorilla. Because he has a... Didi Kong is? Well, we don't know. He's got a long tail.

He has a tail. So he's probably a monkey, actually. Okay. Because gorillas and chimps don't have tails. Also, the rare moment for me to teach a little, maybe. Bonobos are subspecies, I think. Bonobos. No, they're a fully different species.

They're fully different. You just got taught. Okay, well, there you go. Learning opportunity provided by me. Yeah. But I was going to say the electronic artist Bonobo. Okay. Particularly these Black Sands EP.

I could be wrong about them being a subspecies, but I'm pretty sure they're their own species. Like 90% sure. But they look just like chimpanzees. They're both... So chimpanzees are pan troglodyte, is their Latin name. And bonobos pan something else. So they're the same genus different species.

Okay. Bonobos are much less aggressive than chimpanzees. Right. There's this crazy Natji article, if you ever want to read it, about how bonobos use sex to communicate. And the author goes into how they like scissor each other. and stuff. It's wild. Wait, didn't Tarzan have a chimp, a pet chimp?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's another one. Oh, there you go. That's mine. Okay. How about you, Wes? So mine is a ham, who was the chimp that we launched into space. So cool. Either the 50s or the 60s, he was an astrochimp is what they called him. He's a hero. And he actually survived. Like, a lot of the animals they launched into space didn't survive. And they taught him how to flip levers. Before a human had been in space? Yeah.

So he was the first primate ever launched into space. We count as primates. He's like the first like alive thing that's ever gone to space and come back. I think so. It sounds like a plant or something. I don't know if any of the rats or dogs or anything came back. Oh yeah. Because they launched those first.

But he came back and then. He could like do levers. Yeah. They like taught him how to do levers in space. That was like his mission. But he came back and then they put him in this facility. like a rescue facility with a bunch of other chimps and I just imagine him being like guys. Yeah.

You'll never believe. You guys are not going to believe where I've been. They should have made him a hero. Well, he kind of is. Did they give him a parade? I'm sure there's statues for him and stuff. Yeah, he's kind of a hero. So those are our favorite chimps.

Okay, so our next category, the always entertaining. Let's ask Jeff and Mike what you guys would do if you were attacked by a chimp in the wild. I feel like I always start. Okay, Mike, so my idea, it's a bad idea, guys. I'm going to apologize in advance. But I was going to say, feed it a plantain because it'll think it's a banana. And that's as far as my idea got. Okay.

All right, I'm not going to comment on it yet, Jeff. Yeah. So mine, you showed us like the sign for hug, you put your arms on your chest like this. Yeah, for a moment. So I would face up. this wild chimpanzee, sign language hug, it comes up to me, gives me a hug. I lift its arm up, sneak around it, grab it by the waist,

suplex behind me, it's out. Okay, yeah. So we've got a plantain and a suplex. Again, I don't know a ton about what you're supposed to do, but I do know that those are both bad ideas. the plantain especially because that's, well, I don't know if it's a bad idea. Well, the plantain, it's raw. They eat, and those are gross.

They eat plantains. Like, they eat pretty much any kind of fruit they can find in the forest. And as we've learned, they're going to want more food after you feed it. So maybe it's not the worst idea because it might. I'll just bring one of those cakes then. It might just be looking for food and you hand it food and it might, you know, be done. So maybe that's actually not a terrible idea. Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

The suplex idea is terrible. they definitely are a lot stronger than us and they can just rip your face apart with their hands as we've learned. So I think the main thing from what I've read is again having like a human man with you in your group is really important. And then as far as what you can do

if you're actually being attacked, I couldn't really find anything that great. You're trying to stay upright if you have any kind of weapon you should use it. But a lot of the stuff I read said like the more you kick and fight back, the harder they fight back. So really, it seems like it's just a losing battle. Again, if there's someone out there that knows better, please write in, let us know.

But I think the main thing with them is just avoiding it in the first place. It's kind of like our gray-white where once it's happening, you don't have a lot of recourse if you don't have like a pretty serious weapon. But again, these attacks are really, really rare. They hardly ever happen. When they do happen, they're usually on children. and yeah so just be really careful if you're around chimpanzees okay so jeff yeah do you have some listener questions i have some listener questions we'll go with ashley what animal looks relatively

harmless but can actually cause a lot of damage this is a question for me yes uh a chimpanzee oh wow like that honestly like that's the one i think of or like a monkey because they're just so strong and they have like pretty crazy teeth and we always just associate them with being really nice animals but they're actually like really powerful. All right. Mike. Yeah. If you could have a body part ripped off by an animal, which animal and which body part.

So this is from my friend Seth. Well, there's, it's a lot of. Let's switch could with had to have. Yeah. Okay. Ripped off. Yeah. It seems a little too.

It seems like there's some hands have to be involved. Not necessarily. Well, I guess not. It could be a mouth or something. Yeah. I'll just go with... Nose. You can still procreate with one testicle, right?

Yeah. Yeah, let's go with that. A single testicle. Yeah. All right. Clean grip from like a... I can't believe that's what you picked. I don't know.

That is shocking to me. I'd go with an ear. Yeah, I'm losing like my pinky finger. or something. Not my testicle. No. No, that's your answer. Wes.

From Christina, who do you think would win between a bull shark and a saltwater crock? Thanks for the question, Christina. I think that really depends on the size of both of them. If we're talking max size for bull shark and max size for saltwater crock, I'm going to put my money on the saltwater crock because they can get to be like 23 feet long. and I think a bull shark is going to grow to be like maybe 12 to 15 feet long and crocodiles are just a bigger kind of more impressive animal okay so this one is from Maris I'm guessing Marissa maybe what's the most aggressive animal and why

who um the most aggressive animal I you know what from my personal experience the most aggressive animal I think I've ever encountered is probably a sloth bear. And that's just because they are, they cohabitate with tigers and they're smaller. And they just really have to like be super aggressive to survive. Otherwise tigers will kill them. And so they're really hyper aggressive.

They're responsible for the most attacks in all the bear species. But that's, there's so many animals out there. It's hard to come up with a good answer. What's the, is it like the honey badger being super aggressive for, Remember that thing from a while ago? Yeah, I think it's mostly that they're just like so sturdy.

They're carefree kind of. Yeah, nothing really hurts them, but they're not like overly aggressive. I was thinking maybe an ant. Yeah, I mean, like the second an ant gets on you, it bites you. It bites you. Yeah. And they don't, they're not afraid to get on you. That's true.

They're trying to get to you every time they can. Right. Okay. And it's a good answer. So I think that's it for questions. We got a couple more categories. First, how are we messing things? up for chimpanzees. The main thing is habitat fragmentation, habitat loss, and poaching.

They're on the IUCN list. They're classified as endangered. There are like, from what I read, there's like 170,000 to 300,000 of them. They live in really remote places so we don't have a great number. So there's a lot of them still, but there used to be like over a million. So they've definitely been drastically reduced. And the places where they live were losing those habitats really quickly. So that's the main thing is just habitat loss. I mean, that's kind of what a lot of our animals, it's habitat loss. But they are hunted too, and there's a few other things. Okay, where can you see them? There's three main countries, Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania. And there's places that you can go and, like, go on a little tour where you, it's kind of like

people that go and see gorillas. You can hike up and see chimpanzees, too. And you'll be with a guide that kind of knows what to do. Probably knows a lot better than me on what you're supposed to do if one becomes aggressive. And there's a slight chance you can find Mo out in the wilderness. Yeah, if you're in the San Bernardino Mountains, he'll have all this little stuff. He'll watch TV with you and just be like the chillest chimp that you've ever could imagine. Okay, so our final question, our final category, do we like this animal?

Let's start with Jeff. Yeah, I like it. I mean, I really like in commercials or movies. when a chimpanzee is wearing people clothes and has a baseball cap on. Okay. I think it's really cute. Yeah. So I guess my answer to this would be if it's wearing people's clothes and a backwards hat,

it's probably in my top ten favorite animals. Wow. But if it's not, then it's probably like number 30 or 40. Okay. Okay. I'll go next. So I have a complicated relationship with chimpanzees because of that show that I watched when I was a kid.

They became kind of a really scary animal to me. And I do, I love all animals. I would be absolutely thrilled to see a chimpanzee in the wild. They're like pretty, again, like this is on a list of animals that I love, because I love them all. They're lower on that list. They're one of the few animals that kind of induce a little bit of terror in me. And I think they're really cute when they're,

babies when they get a little older because I know what they can do they kind of freak me out a little bit so they're pretty low for me but I do still love them kind of an upset here he hates I do like I did not see that coming at all I'm actually kind of in the same boat so it's not that I dislike them but when I see apes I kind of get something akin to the uncanny valley effect going on and it's just a little too creepily close to like a human and like kind of animal that I know could just totally kill me. Yeah. So they creep me out a little bit, but you throw that backwards hat on them.

It's sad. It makes such a difference. Yeah. So I don't, and I don't feel that way about the other apes. Like, I love orangutans. I love, gibbons are like one of my favorite animals. But something about chimpanzees and bonobos just kind of gives me the willies a little bit. Now, I'm not saying that, like, I think they're a bad animal.

Some of them will take your willies. Yeah, exactly. I think they're an incredible animal, and we've definitely taken advantage of them in a lot of pretty terrible ways. But there's something about them that kind of is scary to me. Yes. It's them eating that monkey alive. Okay. So that's pretty much it for chimpanzees.

We'll probably come back to them at some point. Again, we love animals. We just want the best for them possible. This show is designed to make you guys like animals, not to be afraid of them. But if anyone ever has a pet chimpanzee, don't get close to it. Probably don't even go in their house. All right. You guys got anything else you want to add?

I think that's good. Okay. Thanks for listening, guys. Write in if you got any questions or any suggestions or anything like that. Also, make sure to rate and subscribe. And sponsor. And sponsor us. It really does me.

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