3 years ago
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Judy seems relaxed behind the walls in the chimpanzee holding exhibit at the Little Rock Zoo. The 37-year-old primate enjoys some lettuce playing alongside her son, Casogee. Earlier, however, the chimp went bananas when she escaped from zookeepers.
Great Ape zookeeper Ann Rademacher explains, ?It was during the morning routine, where we were shifting the animals and cleaning the cages and unfortunately one of the cages that we thought was empty turned out not to be empty."
It happened in the service area. It?s a place where the night cages are kept. Judy saw an opening and made a break for the food.
Rademacher explains, ?She went right for the refrigerator and right to the cupboards and we had food buckets for all the animals and she checked all of those out."
They tried to woo Judy back into her cage, but she continued eating everything in sight. That?s not all she did, however.
Judy surprised zookeepers when she acted only as a domestic diva could and began cleaning house.
?She was sitting up on the sink and picked up the sponge and just looked at it, wranged [wrung] it and started wiping down the outside of the refrigerator," Rademacher says. ?Then, when she entered the bathroom, she entered it, looked right away and saw the toilet brush picked it up immediately and went and stuck it in the toilet."
Zookeepers weren't too surprised of Judy?s actions. Up until she was 5 years old, she was kept as a house pet.
Rademacher says, ?We knew that she had probably been exposed to a lot of household chores just in those early years, but for her to have retained it for that long."
After an hour of raiding the service area, keepers sedated Judy. She fell asleep holding a loaf of raisin bread.
Rademacher says the curious chimp left behind quite a mess, but zookeepers still have one complaint.
?Well, she didn't finish the job," she says laughing.
However, since they are keeping Judy secure behind walls, she won't be finishing it anytime soon.
Little Rock zookeepers say they always check and double check the locks, but things like this unfortunately happen.
