Through a Window (36 page)

And that, of course, made the anguish worse. Jim is one of the most gentle and compassionate people I know. That insight into the hell which, for much of the time, he must endure, added a whole new dimension to my understanding. It is not only for the chimpanzees that the lab conditions must be improved—it is for the caring people, too. The technicians whose own eyes fill with unshed tears when I ask them how they can bear to supervise the snatching of infants from their mothers, the separating of a carefree youngster from the nursery for the start of his life in prison. I know that my visits bring them new hope, courage to fight on for improvements. And so, for them and for the chimpanzees, I go back again—and again. Into what, for me, is hell.

Unfortunately, those who are working, from the inside, for better conditions have a difficult and thankless task. For one thing, most of their colleagues have absolutely no understanding of
real
chimpanzee behaviour. They only know
lab
chimps. And lab chimps, deprived of almost everything they need for their
physical comfort and mental stimulation, are likely to be bad-tempered, even vicious. They may spit and throw faeces, grab and bite. It is partly through frustration and aggression, partly because they are trying to establish some kind of contact with people, partly because there is almost nothing else to do. These chimps are poor ambassadors for their kind, and it is not surprising that many technicians and veterinarians dislike and even fear them.

It is true that in many labs the chimpanzees appear to be in reasonably good physical condition, despite their sterile environment. There is a mistaken belief that if animals look healthy, eat well and, above all, reproduce satisfactorily, they must be content—therefore their environment must be suitable. Change is not necessary. Of course, this is not true—certainly not where humans are concerned. Even in concentration camps, babies were born, and there is no good reason to believe that it is different for chimpanzees.

For the most part, the scientists who design the experimental conditions under which their research is to be carried out forget that they are dealing with living, sentient beings. They insist on the animals being maintained in the traditional manner. Only then, they believe, will their experiments and tests yield reliable results. A bleak, sterile and restricting environment, they say, is
necessary
for laboratory animals. Cages must be barren, without bedding or toys, because then the inmates are less likely to pick up diseases or parasites. And, of course, the cages are easier to clean when they are uncluttered. Cages must be small because otherwise it is too difficult to treat the subjects—to inject them or draw their blood. The chimpanzees must be caged individually to avoid the risk of cross-infection.

In fact, things need not be that way, and there
are
labs where more humane attitudes have led to improved conditions. Cages can be bigger because chimpanzees can be taught to approach
and present their rumps for injections, their arms for the drawing of blood. They can be taught to go into smaller cages for other kinds of treatment. They can be persuaded to exchange toys, blankets and so on for food rewards so that cage cleaning is easier. And there are even a few labs where single housing of chimpanzees is the exception, rather than the rule. Recently, a number of eminent immunologists and virologists from the USA and Europe have published an article stating that experimental protocols that have, traditionally, required chimpanzees to be housed
singly
during experimentation, can, for the most part, be adapted quite satisfactorily to
pairs
of chimpanzees. This means, for all those chimpanzees currently used in hepatatis and AIDS research (the majority of all experimental animals) that the end of solitary confinement should be in sight. Surely anyone caging chimpanzees singly should be forced to prove, convincingly, to a panel of qualified scientists, the need for such inhuman conditions—particularly in view of the growing body of evidence showing that such conditions, which produce stressed animals, are not only cruel but may actually be
harmful
to the results of experiments. Because stress affects the immune system, data pertaining to drug efficiency collected from stressed subjects may be misleading.

Unfortunately, all of us who are fighting for improved conditions in the labs are up against the Establishment. And the Establishment, typically, resists change. The Establishment pits the suffering of experimental animals against the suffering of humans. Reforms, they argue, are costly. If the chimpanzees have bigger cages, social groups, an enriched environment, and better care, it will cost more. Crucial experiments will come to a grinding halt. And this, they argue, will be paid for in human suffering. This, of course, is not true. Truly essential research and testing would continue. It is difficult, on moral grounds, to justify
any
use of chimpanzees as living test tubes under even the
best of conditions. That we can tolerate their continued use in lab conditions such as I have described is a damning indictment of the ethical values of our times.

In fact, the winds of change are blowing. Attitudes towards all non-human animals are changing as the general public becomes increasingly aware of the cruelty that goes on around us.

In some primate centres around the world, ethical concerns regarding the use and maintenance of our closest relatives are routinely discussed, and attempts have been or are being made to create better conditions. In some labs there are large outdoor compounds for breeding groups, and experimental animals are at least housed in pairs and given access to outdoor runs. Programmes designed to enrich the lives of the inmates are being introduced in more and more labs, to the benefit not only of the chimpanzees, but also the mental well-being of those employed to care for them. These programmes do not necessarily involve the expenditure of large sums of money—a chimpanzee's day will be far more enjoyable if he is given, for example, a magazine to read, or a comb or toothbrush and a mirror, or a tough plastic tube stuffed full of raisins and marshmallows along with a supply of twigs which he can use as tools to poke the goodies out. More sophisticated ways of alleviating boredom—such as video games—are in the planning stages.

One of the unexpected rewards I have found as I become increasingly involved in conservation and welfare issues, has been meeting so many dedicated, caring and understanding people who are fighting the same battle, fighting to improve conditions for chimpanzees in captivity, to reduce suffering, to create sanctuaries for abused or orphaned individuals, and to conserve natural habitats. These remarkable people give their time, their money—and sometimes their health—to help chimpanzees in this time of dire plight. Geza Teleki, for example, got river blindness, an incurable disease, when he worked for the government
of Sierra Leone to set up a national park there specifically for chimpanzees. These people have already accomplished so much, often struggling alone against powerful adversaries. And now, as though an invisible conductor had suddenly waved his baton, many of these people are joining forces. This will, inevitably, be of great benefit to chimpanzees worldwide. (For a fuller account of the efforts to help the chimpanzees, see Appendix II.)

What, realistically,
is
the future of the chimpanzee in Africa, the wild, free and majestic being whom I have come to know so well? The best we can hope for is a series of national parks or reserves, well protected by buffer zones, where the chimpanzees and other forest denizens can live out their natural lives in peace. This, I have no doubt, we shall somehow achieve. Of course it is necessary to persuade the governments of the countries concerned that it is worth their while, that conservation of their natural resources is preferable to immediate exploitation for instant profit. Research projects bring in foreign exchange. Tourism brings in far more. The two must be planned in conjunction so that an influx of visitors disturbs neither the research nor, more importantly, the animals. Education programmes build awareness among local people. Employing field staff from villages surrounding reserved areas, as we have done at Gombe, helps the local economy and, just as important, creates enthusiasm in those people involved, enthusiasm that spreads to families and friends. This is one of the reasons why the Gombe chimpanzees are so safe from poaching.

We must remember that the people living near areas recently set aside for wildlife may have every right to feel resentful. Why should they be deprived of land that their forebears have utilized for generations past? Conservation, education and the influx of tourist dollars are not sufficient recompense. Imaginative agro-forestry projects surrounding forest reserves and parks—the growing of trees for firewood, charcoal, building poles and so
on—not only protect the indigenous species, but enable people to utilize the land very much as they did in bygone years. Some conservationists tend to forget that humans are animals too!

I cannot close this chapter without sharing a story that, for me, has a truly symbolic meaning. It is about a captive chimpanzee, Old Man, who was rescued from a lab or circus when he was about eight years old and placed, with three females, on a man-made island at a zoo in Florida. He had been there for several years when a young man, Marc Cusano, was employed to care for the chimps. "Don't go on the island," Marc was told. "Those brutes are vicious. They'll kill you."

For a while Marc obeyed instructions, and threw the chimps their food from a little boat. But soon he realized that he could not care for them properly unless he established some kind of rapport with them. He began going ever closer and closer when he fed them. One day Old Man reached out and took a banana from Marc's hand. How well I remember when, at Gombe, David Graybeard first took a banana from mine. And, as for me with David, that was the start of a relationship of mutual trust between Marc and Old Man. Some weeks later Marc actually went on to the island. Eventually he could groom and even play with Old Man, although the females, one of whom had a baby, were more standoffish.

One day as Marc was cleaning up the island he slipped and fell. This startled the infant, who screamed, and his mother, her protective instinct aroused, at once leaped to attack Marc. She bit his neck as he lay, face down, on the ground, and he felt the blood run down his chest. The other two females rushed to support their friend. One bit his wrist, the other his leg. He had been attacked before, but never with such ferocity. He thought it was all up for him.

And then Old Man charged to the rescue of this, his first human friend in years. He dragged each of the highly roused females off Marc and hurled them away. Then he stayed, close by,
keeping them at bay, while Marc slowly dragged himself to the boat and safety. "Old Man saved my life, you know," Marc told me later, when he was out of hospital.

If a chimpanzee—one, moreover, who has been abused by humans—can reach out across the species barrier to help a human friend in need, then surely we, with our deeper capacity for compassion and understanding, can reach out to help the chimpanzees who need us, so desperately, today. Can't we?

I
T IS THIRTY YEARS
since I began to study chimpanzees. Thirty years during which there has been much change in the world, including the way in which we think about animals and the environment. My own personal journeys during this period, through the peaceful forests of Gombe and through the thorny jungles that have sprung up around issues of animal welfare and conservation, have led me a very long way from the naive young English girl who, with her mother, stepped so eagerly from the boat onto the Gombe beach. Yet she is still there, still part of the more mature me, whispering excitedly in my ear whenever I see some new or fascinating piece of chimpanzee behaviour—not only at Gombe, but sometimes in a captive situation also. I am as thrilled today, when I first see a new baby close up, when a mother reaches, with a slight pout of concern, to gather up her straying child, when one of the big males charges past, hair bristling, lips compressed in magnificent pride, as I was during the earliest months of the study.

My journeyings among the chimpanzees have been enriched by experiences more exciting and rewarding than any we could have imagined, back at the start of it all. The harvest—the understanding that has come from long hours spent with our closest living relatives—has opened many windows onto a world all but unknown thirty years ago. How fortunate for me that fate
directed my footsteps to Louis Leakey and he, in turn, directed them to Tanzania—where, for all these years, I have been able to pursue the quest for more and ever more knowledge, helped and supported by one of the most stable, peaceful and conservation-conscious governments in all of Africa.

The information gathered at Gombe, along with that from other study sites in Africa and from research on captive chimpanzees, has enabled us to paint a fascinating portrait of our closest living relative, an ever more detailed likeness of a highly complex being. Of course the picture is not yet completed—we have neither plumbed the depths of chimpanzee aggressiveness, nor measured the upper limits of their capacity for care and compassion. We have not been studying them for long enough—after all, thirty years represents but two-thirds of the chimpanzee's life span. Above all our experience at Gombe has emphasized the need for long-term study if we are to attempt to understand the complex society of these chimpanzees. Much of their social behaviour only began to make sense when we had been among them long enough to work out who was related to whom among the adults. And only by staying there, year after year, were we able to document the close, supportive and enduring bonds that grow up between family members. Moreover, had the research come to an end after a mere ten years we should never have observed the brutality that can occur during intercommunity clashes. If it had stopped after twenty years we should not have documented the touching story of little Mel's adoption by adolescent Spindle. And who knows what the next decade will reveal? That there will be more surprises I do not doubt, for every year, from 1960 onward, has brought its own rewards in terms of new observations about chimpanzee nature, new insights into the workings of their mind. They are such complex beings, their behaviour so flexible, their individuality so pronounced.