Zoo makes chump of chimp
NO one knows who taught her to smoke.
But since Dallae the chimpanzee got the hang of it, she has sadly become an expert.
So much so in fact, that her troubling habit of chain-smoking has made her the star attraction in North Korea’s newly reopened zoo.
According to her keepers at Korea Central, the 19-year-old chimp, whose name means Azalea, smokes about a pack of cigarettes a day.
They insist, however, that she does not inhale. Thrown a lighter by a trainer, Dallae, one of two chimpanzees in the zoo, lights her own cigarettes.
If a lighter isn’t available, she can spark up from a lit cigarette, chain-smoking her way through one after the other.
While it’s a trick that would horrify zoo visitors in most places across the world, crowds in the secretive communist dictatorship roared with laughter as Dallae sat puffing away yesterday, egged on by her trainer.
Dallae’s treatment raises serious questions about animal welfare at the zoo.
Animal activists People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said it showed the zoo had little regard for the animals.
“Smoking is as dangerous to Azalea the chimpanzee as it is to humans, and yet her caretakers facilitate her habit just for the sake of a few cheap laughs,” PETA Australia’s associate director of campaigns Ashley Fruno said yesterday.