Orange and Black "In Action"?

Our First Spring Bloom

The yard is a mess but this proves it's not a lost cause.

Did we learn nothing from Planet of the Apes?

One of my all-time favourite films is the 1968 cult-classic, The Planet of the Apes.

As a plot refresher, Charlton Heston and his astronaut buddies crash on a mysterious planet, and encounter a primate caste system where orangutans are the administrators and politicans; chimpanzees are the cultured intellectuals and scientists; gorillas are the police and military; and humans are but lowly feral creatures - a blight to crops, fit only for destruction or use as a lab animals.

Upon discovery that Taylor (Heston) has the ape-like ability to speak, Dr. Zaius condems him to be gelded... to render him docile for display to curious onlookers. He escapes, chaos ensues.

The following article is a deeply ironic read about a hyper-intelligent chimp (Santino) whose demonstration of the human-like ability to plan, condemns him to be gelded to render him docile for display to curious onlookers.

A deeply resentful, forward-thinking, weapon-weilding castrated super-chimp. You could make a series of movies out of that one!


Belligerent chimp proves animals make plans

STOCKHOLM (AP) - A canny chimpanzee who calmly collected a stash of rocks and then hurled them at zoo visitors in fits of rage has confirmed that apes can plan ahead just like humans, a Swedish study said Monday. Santino the chimpanzee's anti-social behavior stunned both visitors and keepers at the Furuvik Zoo but fascinated researchers because it was so carefully prepared.

According to a report in the journal Current Biology, the 31-year-old alpha male started building his weapons cache in the morning before the zoo opened, collecting rocks and knocking out disks from concrete boulders inside his enclosure. He waited until around midday before he unleashed a "hailstorm" of rocks against visitors, the study said. "These observations convincingly show that our fellow apes do consider the future in a very complex way," said the author of the report, Lund University Ph.D. student Mathias Osvath. "It implies that they have a highly developed consciousness, including lifelike mental simulations of potential events."

Seemingly at ease with his position as leader of the group, Santino didn't attack the other chimpanzees, Osvath told The Associated Press. The attacks were only directed at humans viewing the apes across the moat surrounding the island compound where they were held. However, he rarely hit visitors because of his poor aim, and no one was seriously injured in the cases when he did, Osvath said.

He noted that individual differences are big among chimpanzees so the observation might not mean all chimpanzees are capable of the same planning. "It could be that he is a genius, only more research will tell.

Osvath said the chimpanzee had also been observed tapping on concrete boulders in the park to identify weak parts and then knocking out a piece. If it was too big for throwing, he broke it into smaller pieces, before adding them to his arsenal. "It is very special that he first realizes that he can make these and then plans on how to use them," Osvath said. "This is more complex than what has been showed before."

The fact that the ape stayed calm while preparing his weapons but used them when he was extremely agitated proves that the planning behavior was not based on an immediate emotional drive, Osvath said.

For a while, zoo keepers tried locking Santino up in the morning so he couldn't collect ammunition for his assaults, but he remained aggressive. They ultimately decided to castrate him in the autumn last year, but will have to wait until the summer to see if that helps.

"It is normal behavior for alpha males to want to influence their surroundings ... It is extremely frustrating for him that there are people out of his reach who are pointing at him and laughing," Osvath said. "It cannot be good to be so furious all the time."