Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind (18 page)

Two teams of researchers have been studying the chimps in their natural habitat since the early 1970s, one led by Randall
Susman, and the other by Takayoshi Kano, of Kyoto University, Japan. When Kano surveyed the region in 1973 he estimated the chimpanzee population to be about fifty thousand. “For six or seven years following the commencement of our investigations . . . , the forests of Wamba were a paradise for the pygmy chimpanzees and for us researchers,” recalls Kano. “The pygmy chimpanzees, not bothered by the presence of humans, pursued a carefree life moving around the forest, and we followed them around without a care in the world.”
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Beginning in 1980, however, paradise turned into purgatory, as poachers and loggers began to plunder the forest. Instead of looking to the forest for survival, as man had done for centuries, African and non-African alike began to look upon it solely as an immediate source of monetary wealth. The fact that this wealth was clearly of limited supply only caused those wishing to take it to speed up the process.

Sensing impending disaster, Kano and his colleagues appealed to the Zairian government to set aside a region of the forest as a reserve. The appeal was granted in 1987, which put a halt to logging plans in the Wamba forest where Kano’s research was located, and should have prevented hunting and capture. Poaching and killing continued, however, sometimes perpetrated even by government officials. Kano recalls an incident in 1988 when, in the absence of researchers at the station, regional officials entered Wamba and captured several bonobos for export. “That the formal establishment of a reserve was ineffective in checking the capture of bonobos, even by the regional government, came as a shock to me,” he recalls. “The greatest disappointment was that some of the very people who were assigned the duty of protecting the (pygmy) chimpanzees, under the new law, had initiated their capture.”
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Many local people, increasingly including immigrants to the region, remained ignorant of the law, and hunting of the bonobo for food increased rather than decreased.

Now, two short decades since Kano’s first visit, fewer than a quarter of the original number survive, at most no more than ten thousand. In 1990, the Bonobo Protection and Conservation Fund was established in the United States and
Japan, with the aim of protecting an area of six thousand square kilometers around the original Japanese research site, containing three thousand bonobos. It is a grass-roots attempt to salvage some small part of the the last ape’s former paradise. If nothing changes substantially, however, extinction of natural populations is inevitable, and the species will linger on for a while only in scattered captivity. With just eighty-five animals in zoos and primate centers around the world, that does not present a viable future. The last of the African apes to be discovered and the last to be studied scientifically in the field, the bonobo may be the first ape species to become extinct as a result of human activity.

The bonobos Lokelema, Matata, and Bosondjo, two females and one male, arrived at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center toward the end of 1975. They had been wild caught in Zaire, as part of an effort by the National Academy of Sciences to aid third-world nations by fostering the development of unique indigenous resources. These bonobos had left behind a familiar, lush forest and, after what was surely a nightmarish journey of change for them, now found themselves in a small cage, with dry food and surrounded by noisy, boisterous common chimps in neighboring cages. When I first saw them, they were afraid even to eat if anyone was watching.

My goal was to study their social and communicative behavior. I also planned to spend time observing a similarly composed small group of common chimpanzees housed in an adjacent cage. It was clear that whatever I learned about these bonobos would be partially constrained by the small size of the group and their artificial surroundings. But as virtually nothing was known about bonobo behavior at the time, I felt that it was important to begin with what was available. I also believed that these recently wild-caught individuals would provide a reliable index of bonobo temperament and ability. After all, if three New Yorkers were suddenly deposited in Zaire, they might not act as they would in New York, but they would nonetheless remain human beings. If they were well fed and healthy, it
would be possible to observe a wide range of human behavior, regardless of whether they knew the ways of the jungle or not.

I was repeatedly told that I should not count on learning anything at all at Yerkes, because the bonobos were afraid of everything. Even observing was extremely difficult; if you were outdoors, they hid inside, and if you went inside, they hid outdoors.

My first task was to get close enough to these bonobos to be able to see them. This sounds strange for a captive setting, but it was nonetheless true. I decided that I would appear as if I, too, were nervous. I hid behind a brick wall near the cage and waited until they peeked out to determine if everyone had gone. I then hesitantly began to look around with wide eyes, just like theirs, but made certain I quickly retreated with a startled expression as soon as they spotted me. They were quite amazed that a human should be afraid of them, for humans had subdued them, captured them with nets, forced them into small boxes, and poked them with sharp objects with seeming abandon. But now, one was acting afraid of them. Slowly they became a bit bolder and would sit outdoors even when I was peeking at them. They knew that if they wanted to make me go away, all they had to do was flail a hand or stomp a foot in my general direction and I would beat a hasty retreat to the safety of my hiding place. By the end of the first week I was able to be seen quietly in front of their cage, and as long as I pretended to be interested in something other than them, they would stay outdoors and go about as though I were not there.

I then began to show an interest in what they were doing—not in them, but in their activities. For example, if they were playing with a pail of water, I watched every action with great fascination and looked longingly at the pail as though wishing I could play with it myself. I also showed them that I shared their fears and concerns by expressing similar ones myself, thus identifying with their view of the world. When caretakers came by who were talking and laughing loudly as they shoved food in the cage, I, like the bonobos, grew fearful at this loud and strange noise from the people who wore white suits and sprayed water on you and shot darts at you. I, too,
shied away as these strange, boisterous, clanking men approached, not trusting any creature who so carelessly made noise and who always carried objects about with it, as if it were about to become angry and needed something ready to throw. After the first few weeks, I decided to go to the Yerkes kitchen and request permission to give the bonobos their daily rations and, much to my surprise, was granted it. Probably this was only because the caretakers noticed that the bonobos would actually approach me and take food directly from me, something they were all unable to achieve, except for James.

James, already long past retirement age, was the only caretaker still alive to have known Robert and Ada Yerkes. He worked with them in Orange Park, Florida, where the Yerkes center originated as an extension of Yale University.

James, as far as I could discern, was the only caretaker who could walk up and down the long rows of caged apes without being screamed at, spit upon, or plastered with the feces that always lay everywhere in the cages. When James looked at the apes, his eyes were full of care. Somehow the apes recognized this, even the ones that had become crazy from their isolation as infants.

The bonobos, too, had begun to trust James, and soon all of their care fell to James and myself. James began at times to speak to me, something that he rarely did with other scientists there, and told me stories of the “old days” when the Yerkes laboratory had been located at Orange Park, where it had been warm year-round and where the behavior of the chimps had been the focus of everyone’s attention. I could see that James had been happy then, and that he missed those times, for things were now very different at Yerkes. He stayed on, it seemed, for the apes that he had come to love, and to try to show the new caretakers a few things—but most of them then only cared about drinking and carousing and seemed to view the apes as a nuisance.

In the 1970s, to work on the Yerkes great ape wing as a caretaker, you had to be male. I was permitted to be there only because I was a scientist. Had I applied for a job as a caretaker, I would never have been allowed on the wing. I was viewed as
“odd” because I saw value in helping to scrub cages and because I was virtually the only female whom the apes ever saw. I was also the only scientist who spent any time with apes other than the minimal amount necessary for the collection of data. Other scientists thought I was eccentric in wanting to feed the animals or help in their care. However, I found it exceedingly practical, since this way their cages stayed clean and they came to trust me. Both factors made being around them a good deal more pleasant. I make these comments, not to set myself apart, but simply to describe how different were the worlds of those whose daily responsibility it was to care for and relate to the ape and those whose goal it was to understand them.

I knew from my experience with chimps at Oklahoma that groups of apes can easily develop an “us against them” attitude. I wanted Lokelema, Matata, and Bosondjo to feel I was part of “us” against the armada of white-suited caretakers and masked and medical scientists, veterinarians, and research technicians with their multiple needles, probes, charts, and rubber gloves. The idea that to approach apes you had to cover your entire body in white, from the top of the head to the feet, including the main medium you have for conveying messages to apes—the face—was appalling to me. Of course, the primary reason to cover up was to avoid the barrage of feces and water that were routinely tossed in your direction as you passed by the row of cages that formed the “wing.” It seemed to me that it was much more appropriate to try to convey to the inhabitants of these cages that you meant no harm and that you wished only to pass, with their permission, of course. So I eschewed the covers and set about earning the right to pass unimpeded in front of the thirty cages of apes that separated the entrance area from the bonobos, who were housed at the very end of the “wing.” This was important, for it was the only way I could reach the bonobos, and if all seventy-five apes between them and me were conveying messages of anger and aggression as I passed them, the bonobos would rightfully want little to do with me by the time I arrived in front of their cages.

Then there was the simple but obvious fact that you make a more appealing target in a white suit. So I also eschewed this accoutrement of science and walked about in shorts and a T-shirt. I was able to do so only because it was 1975, before strict guidelines about clothing that should be worn around apes were in effect. Now I would never be permitted to violate the white suit and mask code. Across months I slowly earned the right of passage and so, like James, I could walk past the cages unmolested. I regarded this as a great victory of sorts, for it signalled at least a modicum of acceptance by a very large number of apes. Almost everyone else at Yerkes regarded it as foolishness. Strange, I thought, that if your presence were accepted by these same creatures in the wild, it would have been regarded as an important achievement, but in captivity it was seen as foolish and bordered on skirting the rules a bit too much. Finally, I knew that at least Bosondjo and Matata, the juvenile bonobos, had accepted me. They sought me with their eyes at every unusual occurrence and began to identify with my reactions. They seemed to understand that I knew more than they about this strange human land they found themselves in. They also recognized that I was using my knowledge both to ease their way and to protect them whenever I was present. Soon it became clear that they trusted me enough that it would be possible to open the door of their cage and slip in, something I could never have done with wild-caught common chimps.