Chimp Makes Prank Cell Phone Calls
L O N D O N, July 25 -- Chimpanzees are highly intelligent and vocal animals. They use simple tools such as stones, hammers and branches and now, cellular phones.
For two consecutive nights, three employees of the Blair Drummond Safari Park in Stirling, Scotland, received dozens of calls from an anonymous caller between 6 p.m. and 4 a.m. They heard nothing but heavy breathing and the occasional sniff. Staffer Bob Fotheringham said all he heard was a "strange snuffling" on the other end of the line.
It was only when park staffer Davy Booth shouted at the mysterious caller early Thursday morning and they heard a loud shriek, that they realized they weren't being stalked or harassed.
Chippy, an 11-year-old chimpanzee, had gotten his hands on a phone belonging to one of the workers, and spent the better part of two nights making prank phone calls to the zoo's staff.
Once the zookeepers identified the culprit, they began questioning just how he was able to do it. Gilmour believes that last Wednesday, when he took off his jacket while working, Chippy pick-pocketed his phone, by slipping his hand through his cage and rummaging through the coat.
Once armed, Chippy managed to punch keys to scroll through the phone book and repeatedly hit the re-dial button. Gilmour had only entered three numbers in the phone — all of them for the zoo's offices, so, as Chippy continued to dial, the zoo's phones continued to ring.
Chimp Mimicked Calling Behavior
Gilmour, who has now resolved to always lock his phone and "dreads the phone bill," thinks the chimp was after candy when it rifled through his pockets. He doesn't know if Chippy, one of the "most intelligent chimps" he has worked with, had seen visitors using their phones and was mimicking their behavior, or simply pressed the right buttons by chance. Either way, he like the rest of the staff, was "baffled."
Hannah Buchanan-Smith, an animal behaviorist at Stirling University, explained Chippy's behavior by equating the primate's fascination with the cell phone to that of a child's: "They are intrigued by the different noises the phone makes and the fact that they light up when the buttons are pressed."
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