Baby Chimps As Smart As the Average Kos Kid

OK, well the story actually says the chimps are as intelligent or even more advanced than infants, but then again, that's who we're dealing with.

CHIMPANZEES have long been known for their ability to mimic humans. Now scientists have found that baby chimps’ mental development can even be more advanced than children of the same age.

At nine months, the animals are just as curious and capable of recognising carers and familiar objects as the average baby. When compared with infants kept in isolated conditions in orphanages, the animals are even more advanced.

The scientists who carried out the research believe their research also provides valuable evidence that chimpanzees, like humans, thrive on social interaction. The more intimate their contact with their carers, the faster their brains develop.

Chimpanzees share about 96% of their DNA with humans. An adult chimp’s level of intelligence has been likened to that of a three-year-old child.

The new research shows that in their early lives, they develop along similar lines to people before humans race ahead.

“Nursery-reared chimpanzees . . . exhibited distress (screaming and crying) in those episodes when they were separated from their favourite caregiver and . . . [touched their toys] when their favourite caregiver was present,” says the study by scientists at Portsmouth University and Leiden University, Holland.

'I Am Not an Animal!'

We laughed at this when it was first noted, but believe it or not, a European court has actually agreed to hear a chimp's plea for human rights.

His name is Matthew, he is 26 years old, and his supporters hope to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights.

But he won't be able to give evidence on his own behalf - since he is a chimpanzee.

Animal rights activists led by British teacher Paula Stibbe are fighting to have Matthew legally declared a 'person' so she can be appointed as his guardian if the bankrupt animal sanctuary where he lives in Vienna is forced to close.

An anonymous businessman has offered a substantial amount to cover his care, but under Austrian law only humans are entitled to have guardians.

The country's supreme court has upheld a lower court ruling which rejected the activists' request to have a trustee appointed for Matthew.

So now 36-year-old Miss Stibbe and the Vienna-based Association Against Animal Factories have filed an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The insists that the chimp needs legal standing so a guardian can be appointed to look out for his interests - especially if the sanctuary shuts down.

Miss Stibbe, who is from Brighton but has lived in Vienna for several years, says she is not trying to get the chimp declared a human, just a person.

'Everybody who knows him personally will see him as a person,' she said.

Oh, well in that case, just proceed!

'Everybody who knows him personally will see him as a person,' she said.

'In his home in the African jungle, he would have been well able to look after himself without a guardian.

But since he was abducted into an alien environment, traumatised and locked up in an enclosure, it did become necessary for me to act on his behalf to secure the donation money for him and to avoid his deportation.

'Since he has no close relatives, I am doing this as the person closest to him.'

Can human-chimp marriage be far behind?

Look, they make such a happy couple.


H/T NYNana.

Previously.

Chimp Not Human, Court Declares

So does this mean Chimpy McHitlerburton isn't a human being?

Court won't declare chimp a person

VIENNA, Austria - He's now got a human name — Matthew Hiasl Pan — but he's having trouble getting his day in court. Animal rights activists campaigning to get Pan, a 26-year-old chimpanzee, legally declared a person vowed Thursday to take their challenge to Austria's Supreme Court after a lower court threw out their latest appeal.

A provincial judge in the city of Wiener Neustadt dismissed the case earlier this week, ruling that the Vienna-based Association Against Animal Factories had no legal standing to argue on the chimp's behalf.

The association, which worries the shelter caring for the chimp might close, has been pressing to get Pan declared a "person" so a guardian can be appointed to look out for his interests and provide him with a home.

Group president Martin Balluch insists that Pan is "a being with interests" and accuses the Austrian judicial system of monkeying around.

"It is astounding how all the courts try to evade the question of personhood of a chimp as much as they can," Balluch said.

A hearing date for the Supreme Court appeal was not immediately set.

I'll tell you this much, the chimp looks more human than this animal.