Coreclass’s Weblog

by: Esteban Olague

News

According to daily news.com a woman was attacked by a 200 pound chimpanzee in Connecticut. The victim’s name is Charla Nash who is actually a close friend to Sandy Herold, the owner of the chimpanzee. The 200 pound chimp, also known as Travis, has always been reported as a nice, gentle and calm animal, which makes the news of this gentle creature so surprising to those who actually knew Travis. During the encounter between Charla Nash and Travis, the owner, Sandy Herold made a 911 distress call that lasted 15 minutes where she repeatedly stated “Help, he’s attacking my friend, send someone with a gun, they need to shoot him!” As the call went on she described the attack as it happened. By the time police had arrived, Charla Nash was lying on the floor struggling for her life as police tried to subdue the 200 pound chimp. Police reports state that Travis the chimpanzee climbed into the patrol car and was shot in the front seat. Later as the police tried to identify Charla they said that her face was so badly beaten that they couldn’t tell if she was a man or woman. As of right now Charla is under professional care but is still hanging on to her life by a thread. After hearing this story and knowing how territorial apes are, I figured that maybe Charla got too close or did something to sandy that Travis wasn’t comfortable with. He did what every child does when they feel like their mother is in danger which is to protect her, and in this case sandy was probably like a mother to Travis.

photo: ucumari/ creative commons- attribution- non-commercial- no derivatiove works

Lately the media has been all over Michael Vick for allegations about him illegally dog fighting on his own property. This raises an important question: should dogs fighting be illegal when you are the person that owns the dog or should he just be allowed to walk away with killing gods creatures? I have mixed feeling about how it should be handled. I believe that he should get a big fine instead of jail time. Animal cruelty is accepted when you’re fishing and putting a hook through an animals jaw is considered sport. Why should one animal cruelty be accepted just because it’s a simple vertebrae and one is mans best friend. In my opinion one is not better than the other. On one hand they’re both harmful to the animals. I believe that if Michael Vick is going behind bars so should the fishermen in America. Can you imagine how many fish have died in the process of fishing compared to the numbers of people killing dogs? I bet that for every dog killed threes like 10,000 fish killed. The numbers are far apart. The only defenses they’ll say is that majority of the fish are killed in sport. Still what makes fish any worst off then dogs?Though I believe both are wrong this is my feelings toward the cruelty. For youth radio my name is Brandon robins you can hear this commentary and more at www.youthradio.org