A chimpanzee in a South African zoo has taken up smoking after closely watching smoking visitors, an official at the zoo said Thursday. Charlie, a grown male chimpanzee, smokes cigarettes thrown to him by visitors, a bad habit the zoo is trying to get him to quit. "Baby chimps pick up habits by mimicking adults and we think he started mimicking smokers at his enclosure which probably led to smokers throwing him cigarettes," Daryl Barnes of Bloemfontein Zoo told Sapa news agency. The zoo has appealed to visitors to stop offering Charlie cigarettes and help him to quit smoking. "It's part of a problem all zoos battle with in that people should not feed or give snacks to the animals," Barnes said. --SP 0031 Local Time 2131 GMT
