Thursday, April 06, 2006

Monkey heart Cell Phone

This is the greatest story of the week, if not exactly well-written:

Zoo's phone monkeys forced to tone it down, from the U.K. Daily Mail.

The ring tones and bright lights [of visitors' mobile phones] proved just too attractive to the squirrel monkeys in their new no-barrier enclosure.

Visitors who held out their phones to video or take photographs attracted attention from the monkeys who attempted to take the object.

Hilariousness ensues, right? Well, the zoo's administrators apparently decided that monkeys and cell phones do not go together, so things got insidious:
A short training programme was developed which put an end to their interest and the monkeys are once again roaming their environment in a more natural state of play.

"Put an end to their interest," eh? What could that possibly mean? Sounds fishy to me. As it turns out, the program consisted of slathering a sticky substance onto old cell phones. The squirrel monkeys didn't care for this, and "learned" not to touch phones any more. Now they're back to "foraging," playing, and -- one can presume -- flinging poop, as monkeys are wont to do.

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