Despite Cy being the tough, alpha male that he is, he is easily frightened by random things. As you all know, Cy loves to “read” and consumes probably 5-10 magazines every day. Due to his reading obsession, we have discovered a decent number of things that frighten Cy and cause him to alarm call. Chimpanzees naturally alarm call to warn their group members of danger.
On the list of things that frighten Cy, is cows. Doesn’t matter the kind of cow, the look of the cow, any cow is enough to make him jump back and drop his magazine. Kelsi captured this exact scenario on video last year if you haven’t seen it already (click here)!
A few days ago, Cy was flipping through a farm magazine when he suddenly stumbled upon some photos of cows. We quickly knew what was happening as Cy began to loudly alarm call. Cy’s group members are used to this behavior from Cy, but they still always come to investigate in case it is more than a scary magazine. After several minutes of Cy alarm calling, Terry decided to save the day (or maybe he was annoyed with the endless alarm calls) and attempted to destroy the magazine that was causing Cy to be upset. He began ripping it apart with his teeth and even passed pages to me (who was sitting on the other side of the caging) because he knew I could throw them out.
We now have a theory that Cy must love the thrill of a scary magazine because Cy then reclaims the magazine scraps and tried to still look through them, while continuing to alarm call.
This isn’t the first time I have seen Terry try to save the day. Last October, I posted a blog about Cy alarm calling because of a giraffe in his magazine and Terry attempted to rip the pages apart for Cy but ultimately just threw them down the stairs. I will link that video here!
