In odd news of the day, a Belgian woman was banned from the Antwerp Zoo after the owners disapproved of her relationship with one of the primates.
For the past four years, Adie Timmermans has visited a chimpanzee named Chita every week to interact with the animal. According to the zoo, Timmwemans’ visits started affecting Chita’s ability to interact with the other chimps in his habitat, so they had to force her to call things off with the chimp for good.
“When Chita is constantly busy with visitors, the other monkeys ignore him and don’t consider him part of the group, even though that is important. He then sits on his own outside of visiting hours,” the zoo said.
No, there wasn’t any “monkeying around” between Timmermans and the chimp. The so-called “affair” just involved them waving and blowing kisses to each other from opposite sides of the glass. Still, zoo reps claimed their relationship negatively impacted Chita’s rapport with the zoo’s other chimps.
“An animal that is too focused on people is less respected by its peers. We want Chita to be a chimpanzee as much as possible,” the spokesperson for the facility said.
Timmermans is pretty sad about the whole ordeal, saying, “I love that animal, and he loves me. I haven’t got anything else. Why do they want to take that away,” Timmermans said, per Newsweek. “We’re having an affair, I’ll just say.”
She also thinks the zoo is treating her unfairly, mentioning, “other dozens of visitors are allowed to make contact. Then why not me?”
Do you think she has a point? Meanwile, the zoo is working on getting Chita to interact more with his fellow chimp friends.
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