Moe on the Lam -- Joining the Camels?

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Moe the chimp was orphaned in Tanzania when poachers killed his mother. A West Covina couple raised him for more than 30 of his 42 years, toilet-training him, teaching him to eat with a knife and fork and sitting with him on the couch to watch TV.

But Moe was taken away after some woman stuck her finger in his cage -– and he bit it, probably thinking her red nail polish was licorice.

Then, last week, he took himself away from his current home, slipping his cage at a wild animal training center that’s a kind of Actors Studio for critters.

Moe may have been sighted roaming the San Bernardino Mountains this week. But if you’re inclined to think, ``Go, Moe!’’ think again. He’s no doubt happier out of a cage but in a lot more danger –- from thirst, from hunger, from rattlesnakes, from morons with guns who think they’re going to bag Bigfoot. No wonder his human parents have rented a helicopter to try to rescue him from the wild, dry landscape.

And chimpanzees, our closest genetic relatives in the rest of the animal kingdom, are inclined to be sociable; at some point, Moe will miss company. You can’t even wish for him to find a nice girl chimpanzee and have his tribe increase – there isn’t one in the Southern California wilds.

There were other exotic creatures roaming these parts once. The Army brought camels to L.A. before the Civil War -– one desert is just like another, right?

The Great Camel Experiment failed. Some were sold, many were abused, and some survivors were turned loose into the same desert region where Moe may now be. Camel sightings have persisted throughout the Southwest since then. Topsy, the last L.A. camel in captivity, died in 1934 in the Griffith Zoo, forerunner to the present zoo. She’d been given to the zoo by the Fox movie people. Her hump had been crushed in a circus train wreck. The zoo refused to take Topsy’s partner because he had been too badly disfigured in the same train wreck – guess it was too upsetting for people to see the results of human handiwork.

So Moe: be careful out there.

-- Patt Morrison