On the perils of adopting primates of African origin and treating them like household pets

The dreadful attack on German mayor Iris Stralzer shows the folly of trans-racial adoption and also indicates some potential problems for mixed-race marriages

From time to time, one reads of cases where somebody has raised a chimpanzee in their home as a pet and treated it as though it were a particularly strong, mischievous and active toddler. The animal is given free range of the home and lives, eats and even sleeps with the affectionate, but misguided, owner. This is an exceedingly chancy enterprise, because every so often, one of these adopted ‘children’ goes berserk, attacking and inflicting the most fearful injuries upon either their owner or a visitor to the home. There have been the most gruesome incidents, with people have their eyes gouged out or their noses bitten off. The reason for this sort of thing is obvious; chimpanzees are wild animals and given certain circumstances, their feral nature will break free. I was reminded of this recently when reading about the ferocious attack on German mayor Iris Stalzer, which was evidently carried out by her adopted son and daughter.