Smoking Chimp

I have never heard of this famous smoking chimpanzee, but it appears he died in a South African zoo at the age of 52. From news clips I've read it seems that years ago someone threw a lit cigarette into the cage and he started smoking it, of course other zoo visitors then did the same thing. My question is who was the first douche bag to throw their lit cigarette? Was someone watching the chimpanzees and thought, hey it would be funny to throw my lit smoke at that monkey.
Maybe the American Heart Association can help me understand too, if the average age of a captive chimp is 40 years old, then why did a smoking one live 12 years past that?