Won't be able to look at an orangutan again without thinking about a special on PBS that we saw of one raised from infancy in a home by a researcher at a university here in the U.S. He learned to sign, and quite intelligently made his needs known to those who could interpret the signing. And one of his favorite activities was to go to Dairy Queen and pay the cashier at the drive-through for his ice cream. They gave him big washers as tokens to pay with, and the humans would fork over the cash a little later.
Well, the orangutan got big and, being a male, aggressive with some of the female students on campus at night after he'd broken out of his enclosure (which happened night after night...he was too smart to stay locked in). Sadly, for the protection of the students they had to hand him over to the nearest suitable zoo, which was a couple of hours' drive away, to live with other orangutans.
He was at the zoo for a bit before the keepers observed that the hammocks set up in their habitat would be taken down. Staff put them back up, but almost every night they'd be laying on the ground again. The researcher, who visited frequently, was informed of this and asked if her orangutan could be the culprit. She discover that of course he was! The clue? As part of the rigging to suspend the hammocks they used the same big washers that he'd used to pay for his ice cream...he was hording cash for his next trip to Dairy Queen!
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