Patrick, the Dallas Zoo's star gorilla, has become something of a celeb among the primates in the same way that Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson found notoriety -- by acting like a massive tool.
Patrick hasn't been very friendly with other gorillas, especially females, thanks to an uncaring mother who neglected him after his birth at the Bronx Zoo. The zoo's vice president of animal operations, Lynn Kramer, also noted that he seems to prefer "to live a solitary life." Now they've taken action to deal with Patrick's moodiness and are dishing out a serious punishment on the pouty primate: They are sending him to South Carolina.
Somehow this is not considered animal cruelty.
The zoo announced Monday that Patrick is being moved to a zoo that has a great deal of success in dealing with animals with emotional and behavior problems. Dallas animal lovers, however, will get a chance to bid Patrick a fond farewell with reduced admission prices on September 28 and 29. One can only hope that Patrick will be able to peel away the causes of his raging depression and low self-esteem and evolve to a new level of happiness and acceptance.
In the meantime, we can only speculate on how badly an ape has to behave to be banished from Dallas. So Mixmaster speculated and came up with 10 likely reasons Patrick is being shipped out of state:
