http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=fnhkq1&s=5&tag=chimp&hid=4

The story of Jerry is one of love and loss. The story evolved in ways the Duttons could never have foreseen and hopefully will not be repeated by others. The jungle was built for Jerry to provide a home for him and his companions (animals). The property evolved into a private Zoo. It was open to the public free of charge.

Duttons Jungle Gardens became the first Anaheim tourist attraction. To help defray the cost of maintaining the jungle and free admission Jack built a Japanese style tea garden for visitors. The tea garden turned into a hamburger stand and evolved into the Palms Restaurant.

In the mid to late 60′s it became increasing difficult to protect the animals from humans.

Some drunk fed Anna a baby elephant a glass which she took and tried to eat causing severe cuts to her tongue, requiring hundreds of stitches.

People would jump the fence at night, cut the spider monkey cage to “set them free”. Most would stay in the jungle but those that did not were hit, injured and killed by cars on Orangethorpe and Raymond (East street).

People teased and tormented the caged chimps. Punky was the wilder of the two caged chimps, he had bars on his cage. Joe as a baby chimp played Cheeta in the Tarzan series, his cage was of chain link. Jack acquired both of these chimps as adults, most people didn’t understand that full grown chimps are many times stronger than a man.

Kids took soda acid fire extinguishers from the adjacent Motel and sprayed the chimpanzees. Jack responding to the noise woke up and went to investigate the racket the chimps were making. Jack didn’t have time to put in his contacts so when he tried to calm the chimps he couldn’t see the hardness in Joe (the chimps) eyes and the chimp bit the tip of his index finger off.

It got to the point that Jack could not protect the animals from the public. Jack was FORCED to remove all potentially dangerous animals from the property. He managed to find homes for all the caged animals. Jerry was the only one Jack could not find a home for. Because Jerry was a humanized chimp zoo wanted him (Jerry would go berserk if caged) and he was too big, too old for any other options to be viable.

There was no Gorilla that got free, it was Jerry. Because of how Jerry was raised he could not be caged (he would go berserk). Jack arranged for handlers/caretakers to watch Jerry 24-7-365 however Jerry would escape from them and at times enter the Palms Restaurant. The Restaurant would call Jack to retrieve Jerry and take him home. Jerry was never any danger to anyone but this type of instances and the issues with protecting the other animals from the public that FORCED Jack to remove all dangerous animals from the property.

How Jerry was put down seems to be an issue with some. Jack was born in 1910, he was born and raised on a farm. How Jerry was put down is how animals were dispatched at the time. It seems horrific to us but for the animal death is instantaneous. Jack went into such a depression following that employees and friends feared possible suicide.

“I think there’s a lesson in here for Michael Jackson and Bubbles” Exactly the point for any exotic dangerous animal. As an elected official Jack voted for ordinances that would keep people from making the same mistakes he made.

I talked with Jack shortly before his death at 92 years of age. He told me his biggest regret was humanizing a chimpanzee.