Owner of chimp in mauling attack dies

[sinkingfeeling]

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/37338191/ns/today/

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - The Connecticut woman whose chimpanzee mauled and blinded her friend last year, leading to lawsuits and a national debate over the regulation of exotic pets, has died, her attorney said Tuesday.

Sandy Herold died Monday night of a ruptured aortic aneurysm, lawyer Robert Golger said. She was 72.

Herold's 200-pound chimpanzee, Travis, went berserk in February 2009 after Herold asked her friend, Charla Nash, to help lure it back into her house in Stamford. The animal ripped off Nash's hands, nose, lips and eyelids before the animal was shot and killed by police.

[valerief]

1. I wouldn't be friends with an idiot who kept a chimp. Sheesh. The morons in this world. nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. We had some friends in college who had a pet monkey

We went over to visit them one night and the monkey got into my purse and found a tampon.

Talk about embarrassed!

We didn't hang out with them much after that.

[valerief]

14. Ha! A little monkey can be nasty, but chimps are incredibly powerful and aggressive.

Chimps, like lions, belong in the wild (what's left of it).

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Tragic..and sad. the chimp was like a child to her...too bad it came to such a horrific end.

[nashville_brook]

3. RadioLab did a show on a failed attempt to socialize a chimp -- Lucy -- >> link

well, maybe it wasn't "failed" -- it was successful, but that was worse.


http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2010/04/09

Check out the video at the link, and definitely listen to the whole show -- it's amazing.



LUCY
Chimps. Bonobos. Humans. We're all great apes. This hour we take a look at what happens when we all try to live together. Is this idea utterly stupid? Or might it be our one last hope as more and more humans fill up the planet?



...the haunting epic of Lucy the chimpanzee. When Lucy was only two days old, she was adopted by psychologist Dr. Maurice K. Temerlin and his wife Jane. The Temerlins wondered, if given the right environment, how human could Lucy become? We hear from Lucy's language tutor, Dr. Roger Fouts, Lucy's caretaker and eventual friend, Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, and Mr. Temerlin himself... or his words anyway, read by radio host David Garland. And writer Charles Siebert helps us to make sense of Lucy's story. Check out this slideshow of Lucy's life, including the photo snapped as Janis and Lucy hugged in Gambia:

[BrklynLiberal]

10. THANK YOU!!! I love that show...but missed this one.

I was crying by the time it was over......
:cry:

We should NEVER EVER train wild animals to love and trust humans....It can only end badly for them...

[Sebastian Doyle]

4. Oops

I clicked on this, thinking it was about Pickles Bush. But then I guess she's not from Connecticut. Though her chimp is.

[alp227]

5. Two famous violent chimps from CT:

- Travis the face mauler
- George W. Bush, who attended Yale and went on to start a fraudulent war that's led to the unnecessary deaths of 1000s of troops and Iraqi civilians

[Jamastiene]

6. DUzy!

[BrklynLiberal]

8. Made me laugh!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[beam me up scottie]

7. Well, she's off the hook now, no more guilty conscience

Too bad her friend will suffer a much longer, much more cruel and painful fate.

And that an innocent animal was just as much a victim of Herold's willful ignorance.

Sucks for everyone involved.

NO ONE should be allowed to keep wild and/or exotic animals as pets.

Hell, most dumb ass humans shouldn't be allowed to own domestic animals, either.

:mad:

[BrklynLiberal]

9. Perfectly stated....

[fujiyama]

11. Candidate for a Darwin award?

nt

[Raine]

12. She must have felt enormous guilt

it was so awful for all concerned, in the end though she's luckier than the other woman.