“She would perform little tricks like touch her nose, bow and raise her arms to greet visitors. The exhibit is simple, with a moat separating people from the enclosure, and a handful of visitors from school children to the elderly were in that area as the keeper shouted instructions at Dallae. In an email with TIME, she described how the scene unfolded. AP noted that renovations to the zoo, built in 1959, began two years back in an effort by leader Kim Jong Un to construct additional leisure centers around Pyongyang. Read more: Peek inside North Korea through a new set of eyesĪlongside colleagues who were visiting on a business trip, Wong and Talmadge went to the zoo that had reopened over the summer and now welcomes thousands of daily visitors. Part of that includes covering mass staged events, but she also hopes to lift the veil and focus on daily life or the quieter moments. She and Eric Talmadge, the AP’s Pyongyang bureau chief, try to make monthly visits into the country for about 10 days each. Wong, based in Singapore, became the organization’s lead photographer in North Korea in 2014. “Gradually, zoos are learning that spectacles like chimpanzee tea parties, elephant rides and photo ops with tiger cubs are inappropriate and exploitive, with the big question now being, why are we keeping wild animals behind bars at all?” “How cruel to willfully addict a chimpanzee to tobacco for human amusement,” PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said in a statement released to TIME. Pictures from the visit, shot by longtime AP photographer Wong Maye-E, garnered attention and prompted a sharp rebuke from advocates against animal abuse. The 19-year-old female chimpanzee named Azalea-her Korean nickname is “Dallae”-smokes about a pack each day and can light them herself when tossed a lighter or an already-lit cigarette from a trainer, AP reports. Zoo officials in Pyongyang told the Associated Press during a visit on Wednesday that she doesn’t inhale, but animal rights activists still aren’t pleased. Yes, that’s a real chimpanzee smoking a real cigarette.
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