Chimp recaptured after second Las Vegas escape

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

For the second time in almost a month, CJ, a female chimpanzee, escaped from her enclosure shortly before 5 p.m. Saturday, tying up Las Vegas police and the city's animal control for more than an hour in the northwest valley.

Only this time, the consequences weren't as severe: CJ's life was spared. When she escaped with her male counterpart, Buddy, on July 12, he was fatally shot after he "aggressively approached" a group of onlookers, said Las Vegas police spokesman Bill Cassell.

Cassell said CJ, weighing roughly 200 pounds and standing about 5 feet tall, was shot with a tranquilizer in the vicinity of Rowland Avenue, near Jones Boulevard and Ann Road. She was then transported - with a police convoy, no less - to the Southern Nevada Zoological-Botanical Park at 6:15 p.m.

The chimps' escape more than three weeks ago not only made headlines but raised an array of questions in Clark County on how to regulate the ownership of exotic animals in cases when they escape.

Cassell said animal control has decided that the handler has had enough chances and that now is the time to hand the chimp over to the zoo.

"We're talking about a formidable animal, a big animal - not a little chimp," Cassell said. "It was at least the size of a full-grown man. Luckily, we were able to set up a perimeter and contain it."

Said police Lt. H. Walters, who was on scene when CJ was put into the back of the animal control's van: "This monkey had some serious muscle mass on it."

CJ belongs to Timmi DeRosa and Nikki Grusenmeyer, formerly Nikki Riddell, a longtime exotic animal owner and trainer in Las Vegas who had owned the chimps since the early 2000s. The property where the chimps were licensed, 5720 Rowland Ave., is owned by David Potochan, who appeared before the Clark County Planning Commission earlier this year to secure a permit to keep the two primates.

Contact reporter Tom Ragan at tragan@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5512.