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A baboon who acted as assistant to a disabled railway signalman in South Africa
- chasingthewind 7y agoThis is one of those articles that is so outlandish and incredible that I'm left half wondering whether it's an elaborate prank. Either way I love it! Thanks for posting it.
- hackeraccount 7y agoYeah. My impression of Baboons is that they are ... ornery. Who knows ,though. Also, is the Baboon taking a piss in that picture?
- dustinkirkland 7y agoReminds me of the Grateful Dead song I sing my kids when I put them to bed, "The Monkey and the Engineer".
- milquetoastaf 7y agoGreat version of the tune from Reckoning - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2DwAcDZF4Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2DwAcDZF4Y
- piokoch 7y agoGreat story, reminds me the one about Wojtek - Syrian brown bear who was a soldier of the Polish II Corps during World War II - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_(bear) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_(bear).
- michaelscott 7y agoAnother one from South Africa, though perhaps a little less impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Nuisance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Nuisance
- emilfihlman 7y agoThis is great! It would make a great feel good story, perhaps with the ending changed.
- fit2rule 7y agoWhy change anything about this story, and really .. with what privilege? Jack was clearly a special creature. For the purpose of 'feel good', you'd alter his story?
- chriswwweb 7y agoThey should make a movie out of this ;) ... @netflix
- fit2rule 7y agoTotally. Only thing is, who's gonna play Jack?
- lelima 7y agoI wonder why they stop the training/business, we will have now baboon guides for blind people or something similar.
- zamalek 7y agoBaboons are pretty terrifying, they wouldn't make a very good service animal if you expected to be around other people.
- dzhiurgis 7y agoThat's what they used to say about * people
- BurningFrog 7y agoYou could breed it out of them in N generations. Wolfs are terrifying too!
- kwhitefoot 7y agoYou could try but you might end up breeding out the very qualities that made them useful as well.
- Wowfunhappy 7y agoThe breeder would need to select for both types of traits. It would just take a very long time, with no certainty of success.
- BurningFrog 7y agoThe Russian Fox domestication experiment has come pretty far in 60 years: http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160912-a-soviet-scientist-created-the-only-tame-foxes-in-the-world http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160912-a-soviet-scientist-c...
- dpflan 7y agoFascinating; I want to know if Jack, the baboon, drank the half-bottle of beer each week. Connected by the topic of railways: Reminded me of the the Peter Dinklage film The Station Agent (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0340377/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0340377/).
- cknoxrun 7y agoI find it quite humorous that he may drink beer and as far as I can tell, seems to be actively urinating the picture of him on the platform.
- xkcd-sucks 7y ago> James "Jumper" Wide had been known for jumping between railcars until an accident where he fell and lost both of his legs.
- parliament32 7y agoMore comprehensive article: http://www.knoxvilledailysun.com/news/2012/august/jack-the-signalman.html http://www.knoxvilledailysun.com/news/2012/august/jack-the-s...