Last October, Sueko the chimpanzee went on a mini-rampage near 77th and Indiana, flipping off an animal-control officer and karate kicking a police
car's windshield.
The 21-year-old chimpanzee was later moved to the Kansas City Zoo. But Sueko's owner hasn't given up the fight for his chimp, according to the Star. The Star reported that Sueko has slimmed down since her move to
the zoo. While she once lived a life straight out of Any Which Way But
Loose (going cross-country with a trucker and his girlfriend), she's now eating more fruits and veggies and waiting to be assimilated with the zoo's 15 other chimps. But she won't meet the other chimps until her legal issues are worked
out.
Mark Archigo and Deborah Kaumans were reportedly charged with keeping or
harboring a nonhuman primate within the limits of Kansas City. The city
confiscated Sueko after she got loose in October. It wasn't the chimp's
first run-in with the law. John Michael Oyer told the Star that he's Sueko's real owner (and he
says we're all misspelling the chimp's name, "Suco"). He wants the chimp that he raised since she was a baby, toilet-training her and
letting her ride shotgun with him in his semi.
The city tried to take away Sueko once before. In 1995, she was accused
of biting people. She was sent to the zoo. But the city returned her
after Archigo threatened to sue. He promised to keep her outside of the
city limits, which clearly didn't happen last October.
Oyer told the Star that Archigo gave up his ownership rights to Sueko.
There's more (via the Star):
Whatever Sueko's fate, she doesn't have an easy life ahead of her. IfOyer believes the city has "illegally confiscated his property" and that
her time in the zoo is "undoing years of hard work and training."
Oyer and Archigo bought the chimp in 1989 to start a tree-trimming
service called Monkey Tree Service. Oyer said city codes at the time
allowed "temporary animal display acts," which he believes made it legal
to keep Sueko in the city. But five years later, Oyer said, the city
changed its codes to outlaw chimps without a special permit, and the
city refused to grant him a permit.
"We already had her here," he said. "We should have been grandfathered
in."
the zoo gets to keep her, she'll have to figure out how to fit into the
other chimp's social structure, which doesn't always end well.
Zoo curator Liz Harmon told the Star: "Chimps can kill each other." Yikes! Thankfully, the zoo isn't rushing to integrate her, waiting for the legal wranglings to work themselves out.
Relive Sueko's rampage below.
