POOR TRAVIS

The case of poor Travis, the 14-year-old chimpanzee who was shot to death last week by the police in Stamford, Conn., raises a number of vexing questions about human-chimpanzee interaction in general, and about the consequences of our studying, or even living with, other primates. Travis was not, strictly speaking, an experimental animal except in the sense that he was raised almost as if he were human. Travis enjoyed a nice steak dinner, washed down with a glass of wine. He knew how to log on to a computer and to channel-surf with a television remote control. He followed baseball, if you can believe Mrs. Herold, and briefly rooted for the Mets while Bobby Valentine, a Stamford native, was manager, and then switched to the Yankees. He liked to watch “anything with action,” Mrs. Herold said.

Travis, in short, enjoyed the life and displayed most of the essential character traits of a typical American male between the ages of, say, 18 and 35. If he had only had a disposable income, advertisers would have happily paid to attract his attention.

On Monday afternoon, though, Travis went berserk and severely mauled a friend whom Mrs. Herold called after he became overly rambunctious. The police arrived, along with paramedics, and when Travis began attacking them, they shot him. He died, heartbreakingly, after making his way back into his room. No one knows for sure what set Travis off. He might have been suffering from Lyme disease, and one theory is that the illness could have caused him to become psychotic.No one knows for sure what set Travis off. He might have been suffering from Lyme disease, and one theory is that the illness could have caused him to become psychotic. We'll never know.