Loose Chimp Shot in Vegas

A pair of chimps had an unlucky escape in Las Vegas yesterday. Police responding to calls from panicked residents shot a male chimp dead and tranquilized a female, CNN reports. The chimps, which had escaped from a home, had been banging on cars and damaging vehicles, police say. The male was shot as he aggressively approached a group of bystanders, some of them holding their children.

Police say they treated the chimps with extreme caution, bearing in mind recent well-publicized chimp attacks on humans. "When you see the size of these animals, we think reasonable people would understand (to stay away)," a police spokesman tells the Las Vegas Sun. The surviving chimp was returned to her owners, who had a permit for the animals and will be keeping her in a more secure cage from now on. (More Las Vegas stories.)