They only look cute to dupe humanity into a false sense of complacency:
The truth is far more sinister:
A recent story in the New York Times, entitled, Chimps, Too, Wage War and Annex Rival Territory, describes accurately how dangerous chimpanzees can be. It’s about time someone wrote honestly and forthrightly about the chimp menace. For years, I’ve suspected that humanity has been fed a bill of goods by the so-called “scientific community,” most especially the screwball Englishwoman, Jane Goodall.
Chimps, especially young ones, can be deceptively, duplicitously cute. It’s all nonsense. No tire swing, no small tricycle, should beguile innocent humans into a false sense of security. Chimpanzees are deadly, vicious wild animals. The NYT story explains accurately what chimps do to each other: “Enemy males will be held down, then bitten and battered to death. Females are usually let go, but their babies will be eaten.” The story notes that, “[c]himpanzees are immensely powerful, and since they can tear each other apart, they could also make short work of any researcher who incurred their animosity.”
Yes, they could. They’re violent, murderous cannibals. If they’ll treat each other this way, then we can be sure that they’ll be even more violent with humans. Much more violent, I wouldn’t wonder.
(Jane Goodall made a career out of ignoring the truth of chimp violence, and for it she should be roundly criticized. England, however, is a disordered place of nutty aristocrats, so she’s now Dame Jane Goodall. The English reward error, stupidity, and mediocrity at every turn. It’s how, after all, they came upon the idea of a hereditary monarchy.)
I don’t believe that there should be legal restrictions on the kinds of animals people can own, but scientists and naturalists owe the public a realistic description of chimpanzees’ tendency toward inflicting mayhem on defenseless humans. People are foolish to own chimps as pets, and should be liable for the damage they cause to property, neighbors, etc.
These animals should be left in their native habits. Alternatively, they should be kept in private zoos, surrounded by deep moats, high fences, solid walls, and strategically-placed machine gun nests.
It’s the least we owe each other, and all humanity.