Osaka zookeeper caught stealing chimpanzees’ food

Victims claim to have seen no evil, heard no evil, nor spoken no evil.

Many works of crime fiction have explored criminal psychology over the years, but we still seem no closer to solving the mystery of what drives a man to steal from an ape – and not just any man but the very man charged with their care.

These cases of primate-on-primate crime that have baffled philosophers for millennia has once again played out in the Tennoji Ward of Osaka City. On 2 October the Osaka Prefectural Police announced the arrest of a 47-year-old zookeeper for stealing fruits and vegetables intended for chimpanzees.

For about a month leading up to the arrest, Tennoji Zoo management noticed that the chimps’ supply of food had been decreasing at an unusual rate. An in-house investigation traced the disappearance to the suspect, who at the time worked in the Animal Care and Exhibition Department.

▼ Tennoji Zoo, located in the heart of Osaka, is a common destination for school field trips.

The suspect is currently in police custody, but a spokesperson for the zoo said, “Because the police are still in the investigation stage, we cannot disclose the motive.” This left readers of the news to assume why he did it and wonder how good chimpanzee food really could be.

“Resale?”
“This is horrible. Is the economy that bad?”
“If he likes it so much, they should keep him in the cage with the other apes.”
“Make him face ape justice.”
“I wish I could pretend to be an ape and live with them.”
“If the animals didn’t eat well, they’d attack and kill each other, so they probably get good food there.”
“This is what happens when they keep raising prices!”

There aren’t enough details to make a good guess as to what happened here, but the fact that the price of just about everything is continuing to rise in Japan might very well suggest he’s trying to make ends meet by skimming off the chimp feed.

On the other hand, if that were the case, the zoo would have probably just fired the man without reporting such a petty theft to the police, from whom the story of a guy stealing food from apes is almost certain to get picked up by the media. As we can see in the comments, this publicity is just putting the spotlight back onto the zoo over whether they’re paying their employees enough.

We’ll have to wait for further reports to know for sure. Until then, I’m assuming the chimpanzees are very particular about their food and only eat those square watermelons or Yubari King melons that would fetch a high amount on the black produce market.

Source: The Sankei Shimbun, Itai News
Featured image: Pakutaso
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