Jane Goodall Institute of Canada, institute dedicated to wildlife research, education and conservation, has reported that keeping chimpanzees as pet could be an unpleasant deal. According to the institute, as chimpanzees are wild animals, it is good to keep them in wild.

Like humans, chimpanzees learn from their adults. Chimpanzees that do not grow in a normal group of the creatures could not learn actual behavior of a chimp. An adult chimpanzee could have five times the strength of humans and could be very dangerous for humans, institute stated.

On the other side, Lincoln Park Zoo thinks that first four years of a chimpanzee's life shape its behavior. To find more about the creature, researchers from Lincoln Park Zoo have observed about 60 chimpanzees and found that chimps that spent early years of lives far from their mother and were raised by humans were prone to behavioral and social deficiencies as adults.

Steve Ross, Director of the Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes at Lincoln Park Zoo, has conducted the study with other researchers. The team had studied the 60 chimpanzees for more than 14 months. They have gathered data about those chimpanzees with the help of Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance (NAPSA).

Out of the 60 chimpanzees, they had about 35 former pets or performers in the study. Other chimpanzees had spent early years of lives with their mothers or other chimpanzees.

After the study, researchers found that the chimps that were raised by humans as pets or performers had a propensity to show reduced social competencies as adults. The study has also observed that chimpanzees with less experience around their own species engaged in less social grooming with other chimpanzees.