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I was in the back garden of an elegant home in rural Missouri with a ticklish question hanging in the air. Should we let the big chimpanzee out of his cage? For several weeks I'd been on a kind of suburban safari, on the trail of America's large and growing population of exotic wild animals that are kept as pets. In Indiana, I'd had a close encounter with a baboon called Tatiana. I'd also spent several days getting to know a few of the more than 150 tigers at an "Exotic Animal Sanctuary" in Oklahoma, though mostly through the bars.
But this chimpanzee, called Cooper, was a step up on the exotic animal danger-scale. He belonged to a couple called Jill and Brad James. The owners of a funeral home, they'd raised two daughters when they decided to take on Cooper. Later, to give Cooper some company, they added a second, younger chimp called Tukem Kerry into the mix. Even in the world of exotic animals, chimps are considered somewhat controversial. Fully grown men who would think nothing of rolling around on the ground with a lion would politely decline the opportunity to get in a cage with an adult chimpanzee. Many are mindful of the infamous "Travis incident".
Travis, a 14-year-old, 200lb (91kg) chimpanzee, had once been the star of several TV commercials. He lived in suburban Connecticut with his owner Sandra Herold, sipping wine from a stemmed glass and occasionally popping a Xanax. One day in 2009, he viciously attacked a human neighbour, ripping off her face and chewing off several of her fingers. Chimp owners have been fighting an uphill publicity battle ever since. Earlier in the afternoon, with a little trepidation, I'd spent some one-on-one time with the James' smaller chimp, Tukem Kerry. He is only five years old and the size of a human toddler, though much hairier and with long, powerful arms.
Tormented by visions of him biting off my nose or chewing off my testicles, I was relieved when he clambered up onto me to offer nothing more menacing than a hug. But Cooper is two years older and close to sexual maturity. This makes him much more potentially dangerous, notwithstanding that his testicles are in a jar in Brad and Jill's garage. Exotic animal ownership is rampant in the US. According to one oft-repeated factoid, there are more tigers in Texas than in India. Only last week in Ohio a man with a menagerie of more than 50 animals, including tigers, giraffes and bears, decided to open up his cages and then shoot himself in the head - after being convicted of animal cruelty.
More BBC News - Exotic pets: Why do Americans keep dangerous animals?
