Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Friday, December 13, 2024 75° Today's Paper


No more monkeying around with Puiwa’s place

BRUCE ASATO / BASATO@STARADVERTISER.COM

The Chimpanzee exhibit at the Zoo is now empty because of the recent escape from the exhibit.

That’s one smart, and persistent, chimp.

Puiwa the chimpanzee tried to make a break at the Honolulu Zoo — again — causing a brief stir Sunday when he escaped his exhibit and ended up in a nonpublic enclosure; just a minor incident, fortunately. The exhibit is closed indefinitely while the humans work on improved security to Puiwa’s exhibit. Seems the chimp had scaled a 15- to 20-foot cement back wall after creating a finger hole in the smooth wall to leverage his jump over the fence top.

Improvements had already been made after Puiwa’s first escape from his exhibit in 2014. A check of the Hawaiian-English dictionary shows his name means to startle or astonish. Pretty apt — or maybe, we’ll just call him MacGyver.

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