The Observer, April 20, 2007
Volume XXXIX, Issue 25
World and Nation
Antwerp Zoo: Don't stare at the chimps
ANTWERP, Belgium (AP) — We all know not to feed the animals when visiting the zoo. Now the Antwerp Zoo has urged visitors to stop staring at the chimpanzees.
New rules have been posted outside the chimp enclosure at the city zoo urging visitors not to form a bond with a particular male chimp named 'Cheetah.' He was raised by humans but is now bonding with the seven other apes at the park, a zoo official said Wednesday.
"We ask, we inform our daily visitors and other visitors that one of the monkeys is particularly open for human contact," zoo spokeswoman Ilse Segers told AP Television News. "He was raised by humans in a family and therefore we are trying to integrate him, to try to get more social integration with the group."
She said Cheetah's continued interaction with humans was "delaying the social integration of the animal in the group," and isolating the ape from the others.
A sign posted on the glass enclosure asks onlookers not to stare at the apes. "Look away when an animal seeks to make contact with you, or take a step back," it says. "Some individuals are more interested with visitors than their own kind."
Segers said the zoo was not barring visitors from looking at the chimps altogether. "Of course eye contact is not forbidden. We have more than 1 million visitors a year and of course they are very welcome still to have a look at the animals."
The 164-year-old Antwerp Zoo is one of Europe's oldest animal parks, attracting around 1.3 million visitors a year.
Principal enters plea to kissing feet
LORAIN, Ohio (AP) — A former principal who kissed the feet of three male students to settle a bet on a volleyball game entered a no-contest plea to a misdemeanor sex charge.
Robert Holloway resigned from St. Anthony of Padua School in this town west of Cleveland after the 14-year-old students and their parents reported the foot-kissing to police in February 2006.
Holloway told authorities he paid each student $15 and kissed their bare feet 50 times each in the school's library and gym to pay off the bet on a student-teacher volleyball game.
"They didn't think he would literally do it," police Sgt. Mark Carpentiere said.
Holloway pleaded no contest Tuesday to sexual imposition and unauthorized use of public property, also a misdemeanor. He faces up to 15 months behind bars when sentenced in June.
"It's not behind me yet," Holloway said as he left court.
Carpentiere said 400 photos depicting adult foot fetish behavior were found on two school computers seized from Holloway's office. The photos depicted the scenarios that he had engaged in with the boys, according to Carpentiere.
"This appears to be a legitimate sexual fetish that adults are into, which is fine," he said. "The problem here is he was engaging in this activity with juveniles."
