Barbary apes of Gibraltar prove humans are idiots.

[BurtWorm]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/international/europe/28monkey.html?8hpib=&pagewanted=print

It is not uncommon to stroll past the popular Caleta Hotel on Catalan Bay here and see a pack of large monkeys, with babies in tow, shinnying up drain pipes, sunning themselves on balconies, peering into open windows and waiting expectantly for a tourist to toss them a handful of potato chips, which the British call crisps.

While tourists find the monkeys amusing (at least until a camera gets snatched), the hotel management most certainly does not. A sign posted at the entrance warns visitors to close their windows when they leave their rooms and resist the urge to feed the monkeys.

The monkeys - despite being called apes, they are really monkeys - have grown so adept at the game that they can easily tell the difference between a maid and a tourist (the maid wears a uniform and cleans the windows).

"People think they are cute, and they hand them crisps and biscuits, so the monkeys climb up and take the food," said Eric Shaw, who works for the nonprofit Gibraltar Ornithological and Natural History Society and is in charge of the monkeys. "I mean, if you want to buy me a free drink, I'll take it. It's not that they are so clever. It's that we are thick."

[Hugin]

1. Don't Feed The Monkeys.

Is that sort of like "Don't Fear The Reaper?"

[Blue-Jay]

2. I'd feed the monkeys.

C'mon...Who wouldn't feed a cute begging monkey?

[BurtWorm]

3. I bet that squirrel wouldn't.

The monkeys are fed by official monkey-feeders, I think, though I doubt that is their title. So it seems redundant (not to mention unhealthy) to feed them the shit we eat.

[Blue-Jay]

10. Don't care.

Who am I to deny a monkey access to a tasty treat? If I was sure that he'd fling some poo, I'd light him a smoke as well.

[BikeWriter]

4. That's dangerous as hell. That is a wild animal, after all.

[shockra]

5. I was at the Rock of Gibraltar about five years ago.

The tour bus stopped at a monkey hangout. One of the monkeys reached in my pocket and grabbed a package of airline peanuts. How did he know?

They are very used to people and unafraid.

[Der Blaue Engel]

6. The tourists won't think it's so funny

when the monkeys start raiding in packs and slapping schoolgirls and stealing loaves of bread like they do in Punjab...but I will!
:rofl:

(Can't find the article online anymore, but these are my two favorite quotes from last year's story on Punjab's Monkey Jail):

Monkeys slapped students inside a girls' school in a south Bengal suburb.

"He used to eat our guavas," Bhagwanti Devi said. "He would throw stones and try to hit us. Until we gave him flat bread, he wouldn't leave."

:headbang: Go monkeys!!!!! I love monkeys. (Have I mentioned that I love monkeys?)

[BurtWorm]

7. They do roam in packs on Gibraltar.

They're fairly fearless. But they're not totally rude like the Punjabi ones.

[Der Blaue Engel]

8. I think we deserve whatever we get from wild animals

Especially when we think we're so great with the thumb-having. Monkeys are all "oh, yeah? I gotcher thumb right here!" Slap!

[BurtWorm]

9. We really don't have that one over on them.

We should give the opposable-thumb taunt a rest in the face of any primate. In my humble opinion. ;)