Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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behavior

Rage Baiting

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Chimpanzees are prolific tool users. In the wild, chimpanzees have been documented fishing for termites, ants, and algae. Since we are kind of low on those fishing items, the fish for other things. For instance, as you’ll see in you video, Willy B likes to fish for attention from his neighbors. Though you’ll see Willy B doing most of the work, or lack thereof, we are sure he wasn’t the one who thought of this concept. The one most likely who started this activity is:

Honey B!

Though he didn’t start this behavior, I’m sure Willy B appreciates adding another chaos maker to his repertoire.

Reach

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Chimpanzee gestures carry different meanings depending on the context in which they are delivered. Here we look at the extended arm, or “reach” gesture, which can mean “hello”, “come here”, “give me that”, “hop on my back, it’s time to go”, or “it’s OK to approach me”, among other things.

A New Approach

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I wanted to give you all a brief update on our reintroduction of Cy’s group (for background, see here and here).

We’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that, at this time, these efforts are not going to lead to a level of stability that the chimps deserve. Willy B has shown signs of promise. I really think he could succeed in a group where Cy was the only other male. He’s more composed when it’s just him and Cy. Plus, Cy has the patience of a saint and enough confidence to let Willy blow off some steam once and a while without feeling threatened.

But Willy B can’t seem to control himself to the same degree when Terry and/or Gordo are in the group and neither Terry nor Gordo were gifted with Cy’s equanimity. Their reactions to Willy’s prodding only goad him on further. This results in a lot of stress, and the reintroduction process was not successful in changing these fundamental dynamics.

The reality for social animals like chimpanzees is that each individual’s welfare is interdependent and at times even negatively correlated with the welfare of those they live with. Finding a place for Willy in the group of nine opened up a world of opportunities for him but resulted in unresolved tension that impacted the whole group. Sometimes the pieces just don’t fit together in a way that makes sense for everyone. So we’ve got to keep working on the puzzle and try something different.

For now we are keeping them in subgroups that we believe will be stable and meet everyone’s needs as best as possible: Willy B, Honey B, Mave, & Dora in one group and Cy, Terry, Gordo, Rayne, and Lucky in another. There’s less social opportunity for now but more cohesion. Like the reintroduction process, these groupings will let us test out relationships and evaluate social dynamics, but without the same end goal of integrating all nine. What is the goal, then? One possibility is to keep them in these or similar subgroups. Another is to regularly rotate individuals between subgroups in a way that attempts to maintain most of the beneficial relationships that were formed in the larger group. And then there are possibilities to explore with the group on the other side of the building, which will undoubtedly be changing over the coming years as they age well into their 50s. We’re mindful that many of them will have a need for new social opportunities in the not-too-distant future.

It’s been a difficult conclusion to reach when both the chimps and the staff and volunteers have invested so much in making the larger group work. But that’s the nature of working with chimpanzees. You just have to keep moving forward with an open mind. We look forward to updating you along the way.

Two Awkward Guys

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As Diana mentioned, we swapped Gordo and Terry in the reintro group yesterday to try to get a better idea of what might trigger Willy B’s antisocial behavior. The reunion between Terry and Honey B was easy – after a brief, half-hearted display, Terry approached the mesh and the two began to play, at which point we simply opened the door between them.

We knew that Gordo would be nervous reentering a group with Willy B so we tried to ensure that Cy, the group’s alpha, would be the first to greet him when the door was opened. We could have introduced Gordo to a subset of the reintro group initially but since they all know each other so well we thought we’d just get right to it.

There are several interesting things to watch here. First, you can see how Cy polices the behavior of his subordinates and protects the vulnerable—you can see his “feets of fury” (thank you, Sabrina) in action in the playroom scene as he tells Willy B to step down. He’s a good guy. Second, you can see how the females attempt to modulate the behaviors of the males through distractions and grooming. Rayne is particularly adept at this and very in tune with the needs of her group, always watching for moments when the boys might need a little help getting along. And finally, you can see clearly how chimpanzees express trust in one another—which is, of course, by putting sensitive body parts in each other’s mouths.

This interaction between Gordo and Willy B may seem at first glance like two best friends rejoicing in being reunited but this is actually what is looks like when chimps don’t trust each other. These lengthy, exaggerated displays of vulnerability (e.g., putting your fingers, backside, or scrotum in between another chimps’ gigantic canine teeth) are more common when there isn’t already a solid basis of trust. It’s also common for males to display erections in these circumstances, which may be another evolved display of vulnerability (chimp penises are usually fully retracted into the body for protection). I imagine some of our own greeting gestures such as shaking hands and bowing aren’t that far removed from these same behaviors, though obviously a bit more PG-rated according to our sensibilities.

It will be interesting to see how Gordo’s presence (and Terry’s absence) in the group changes Willy’s behavior, if at all.

 

Reason #2 Why Gordo Will Never Be a Doctor

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The official term for fear of blood, wounds, and injuries is hemophobia. To say that Gordo is hemophobic is true and yet somehow insufficient. What we really need, and what appears to be absent from the literature, is a term for the fear of someone else’s injury which you yourself inflicted.

Last week, I was working in the garage at the house when the Bray erupted with screams, barks, and alarm calls. Did someone see a snake? Is the group fighting? I ran up to the chimp house to see what was going on, expecting to find the staff frantically gathering snake capture equipment or trying to track a conflict. Instead, everyone was going about their business as usual.

I asked what was going on. “Gordo is freaking out over Willy’s toe.” Oh, right.

You see, Gordo hates the sight of wounds. We’ve known this for some time. Thankfully he hasn’t had many opportunities to see one lately. But Willy B’s recent injury, and the subsequent amputation of the of tip of his toe, had Gordo enthralled. Which, come to think of it, highlights another way in which the term hemophobia is lacking when it comes to Gordo’s condition: He doesn’t actually try to avoid the sight of injuries. In fact, he goes out of his way to look at them. Maybe the term we’re looking for, then, is cacospectamania, or the obsession with staring at repulsive things.

This whole episode brought back memories of an incident that I was happy to have forgotten about, however briefly. In the spring of ’22, we successfully completed the long process of systematically introducing Willy B’s group to Cy’s group and had officially formed a new group of nine. For weeks thereafter, the staff took turns sleeping overnight on a cot in the chimp house foyer due to the risk of serious conflicts in the newly formed group. While there were indeed conflicts from time to time, they were largely minor and the group eventually settled into a groove. We, in turn, began to relax our vigilance to the point where Diana and I could monitor the group via security cameras from our house across the driveway.

One evening, as Diana and I were making dinner, we heard whimpering from the monitors. There had been a conflict earlier that day, so perhaps they hadn’t finished what they started. I grabbed my radio and went to see what was going on.

Upon entering the chimp area, I could immediately sense something wasn’t right. Willy B was sitting on the bench in Room 6, where he had made his nest just a few hours earlier, his lips drawn back to expose his teeth in what is known as a fear grimace. Willy didn’t often engage with me in social interactions and rarely made direct eye contact, but at that moment his eyes were locked on mine. Help me, he appeared to be saying.

I looked up to see Gordo perched directly above Willy B in the door that passes through the ceiling into the mezzanine. Terry was positioned on the floor below him. Without a sound, the alpha male, Cy, suddenly appeared and sat in the doorway to Room 5, blocking the only other exit. Willy was alone and frightened, surrounded by three bonded males from another group after his own group mates had gone to bed. I radioed to Diana, “This is not good. You’d better get up here.”

Gordo stared intently at Willy B and began to scream. Was he marshaling his allies to launch an attack? The idea that our months-long effort to unite the two groups would fall apart so suddenly and spectacularly with a premeditated, late night ambush was not out of the realm of possibility. Chimps have been known to do worse things.

I ran through our options in my head. Diana could operate doors while I distracted the combatants with the CO2 fire extinguisher and bear scare darts we kept nearby. If we could separate even one of them, Willy might stand a chance.

Willy slowly turned his gaze from Gordo to Terry, then to Cy, and back to Gordo. He was out of options and he knew it. Gordo, meanwhile, crept closer and closer.

They are on the verge of an all out assault, I thought to myself. This is how it ends. Just then, Gordo squinted his eyes and peered intently at a small wound on Willy’s foot. His screams intensified as he studied the injury. That’s what this is all about? A cut on Willy’s foot? My emotions swung from fear and horror to disbelief. By the look on this face, so did Willy’s. Ironically, Gordo was most likely responsible for the very wound that was causing him so much distress, just as he was the one responsible for removing the toe from Willy B’s foot a couple weeks ago. This may explain why Willy is unable to muster any sympathy for Gordo’s condition.

Gordo eventually stopped screaming and the tension in the room slowly began to dissipate. Gordo, Terry, and Cy returned to their nests in the playrooms and Willy B, Diana, and I were able to breathe again, all three of us having learned an important insight about our pal, Gordo: He is not, in fact, a ruthless midnight assassin, but rather a garden variety hemophobic cacospectamaniac. It’s a slight but important difference, one that I am as grateful for today as I was then.

The Chimps Aren’t Alright

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In 2011, primatologists Lucy Birkett and Nicholas Newton-Fisher conducted a study that sought to shed light on a simple yet provocative question: How abnormal is the behavior of captive, zoo-living chimpanzees? I encourage you to read the paper but I’ll spare you the suspense:

Very.

Their treatment of the issue was only slightly more nuanced. Captive chimpanzee behavior is normal, the authors say, in that they display many of the same behaviors as their wild counterparts—behaviors that we refer to as species-typical. As we know, captive chimpanzees tend to run, climb, groom, and use tools, just like wild chimps. The problem is that they also display a wide range of behaviors that are only rarely, if ever, seen in wild chimpanzees, such as hair-plucking, regurgitation and re-ingestion, coprophagy (eating feces), urophagy (drinking urine), pacing, rocking, self-clasping, and self-biting, which are commonly understood to be a reflection of poor welfare at some stage of life, and perhaps even mental illness. After observing the behavior of 40 chimpanzees at six accredited zoos in the U.S. and Europe, the authors came to the conclusion that abnormal behavior was not only present but endemic in these populations, regardless of group size, composition, and housing. Every single chimpanzee subject exhibited at least one abnormal behavior during the study period, with an average repertoire of five abnormal behaviors and an average frequency of once every forty minutes. This, it should be noted, was in contrast to the whopping total of zero instances that they recorded in over 1,023 hours observing wild chimpanzees in Uganda.

Researchers within in the zoo community rejected this characterization. They conducted their own study, which utilized a larger sample size but substituted surveys of zoo staff for direct behavioral observation, and concluded that only 64% of chimpanzees displayed abnormal behavior. And after excluding coprophagy, which some argue can be considered abnormal without necessarily being reflective of poor welfare, the overall prevalence of, shall we say, meaningfully abnormal behavior in their study dropped to a somewhat lower but still shockingly high 48%. As a rebuttal to the use of the term endemic, the paper may have succeeded, but it should provide little consolation.

Why would half or more of all chimpanzees in accredited zoological institutions exhibit abnormal behavior, in such stark contrast to their wild counterparts? Why, in light of decades of rigorous animal welfare science and the best efforts of hundreds upon hundreds of experts, do captive chimpanzees continue to regurgitate and pluck themselves bald?

One thing I discovered shortly after entering this field is that there is little agreement as to what it means for an animal to have a good life. To some, a good life is one in which one’s basic needs are met. As Dr. Dave Hone argues in an article entitled Why Zoos are Good:

…[zoo animals] will not suffer from the threat or stress of predators (and nor will they be killed in a grisly manner or eaten alive) or the irritation and pain of parasites, injuries and illnesses will be treated, they won’t suffer or die of drought or starvation and indeed will get a varied and high-quality diet with all the supplements required. They can be spared bullying or social ostracism or even infanticide by others of their kind, or a lack of a suitable home or environment in which to live. A lot of very nasty things happen to truly ‘wild’ animals that simply don’t happen in good zoos and to cast a life that is ‘free’ as one that is ‘good’ is, I think, an error.

There’s no question that the best zoos attempt to do all of this and more for the chimpanzees in their care. Why, then, does abnormal behavior persist?

The answer is that chimpanzees are more than just bundles of basic needs. They are complex social and emotional beings with highly intelligent and inquisitive minds. Moreover, chimpanzees are adapted to employ these traits in the environments in which their species evolved—a diverse range of environments, it should be said, from rain forest to savanna, which altogether actually have relatively little in common, save for one thing: their complete lack of resemblance to an urban zoo exhibit.

Should we be surprised that animals whose home ranges are measured in square miles in the wild feel frustrated in zoo exhibits? Should we expect animals that evolved dynamic fission-fusion communities of up to 150 individuals to thrive in relatively static groups of a dozen or less? Do we believe that members of a species that exhibits a predictable pattern of migration, in which males remain in their natal communities while females generally emigrate upon reaching adolescence, would not experience prolonged stress when groups are broken up and reorganized in violation of those patterns? This mismatch between the captive environment and the environment in which chimpanzees evolved both denies them the opportunity to express behaviors that are biologically and psychologically fulfilling and introduces stressors for which they have no innate coping mechanisms. And, importantly, it exists to varying degrees in every situation in which chimpanzees live under human care, from laboratory to zoo to sanctuary.

Regarding Dr. Hone’s point, I would never argue that life for wild chimpanzees is perfect. But I don’t think it requires a defense, either. It very well may be nasty, brutish, and short (actually, wild chimpanzees that reach adulthood live nearly as long as captive chimpanzees), but it is theirs, and has been for millions of years. It would be strange, and perhaps too convenient, to think we could improve upon it.

If we accept that all is not well for captive chimpanzees, we must then ask ourselves why we continue to breed them in captivity. I, for one, am not against all forms of captivity, as for the better part of the last 25 years I have worked to keep chimpanzees behind bars and electric fencing. Sanctuaries are necessary for chimpanzees who have been raised in captivity or who cannot be returned to the wild. And in fact many zoos have, to their great credit, provided homes for chimpanzees from laboratories, the pet trade, and various failed and shuttered institutions. But intentionally breeding and keeping animals in a way that denies their autonomy and restricts the full repertoire of their behavior, and which results in the proliferation of myriad abnormal behaviors despite our best efforts to enrich their environments, requires justification or, at the very least, a bit more reflection.

The modern defense of maintaining chimpanzees in zoos rests on two assumptions. The first is that the captive chimpanzee population serves an important role as a reservoir for one day restoring declining wild populations—the ark strategy, if you will. Given what we know about captive chimpanzees’ behavioral abnormalities and the absence of any kind of culturally-transmitted knowledge that would permit them to survive independently, this is unlikely to succeed and is generally accepted as such, even within the zoo community. The second is that zoo chimpanzees help educate the public and inspire support for conservation efforts. For this there is at least a somewhat more robust debate. But even if we were to accept that these benefits could only be achieved by maintaining chimpanzees in exhibits, our rightness in doing so would depend largely on how we measure the costs on the other side of the ledger; namely, those borne by the captive chimpanzees themselves.

The degree to which abnormal behavior correlates to the internal experience of suffering in captive chimpanzees is difficult to define with precision and we must be careful not to lump all abnormal behaviors together as though each is indicative of the same degree of compromised welfare. But the data appear to support what many of us have experienced professionally and what many others know intuitively: The chimps aren’t alright. And the reason for their troubles, it seems, has less to do with the way in which we keep them than with the very fact that we keep them at all. Our society is just now beginning to wrestle with the fact that, at least for some species like elephants and cetaceans, captivity is simply incompatible with good welfare. If we care enough about chimpanzees to conserve their wild populations, it’s time we think critically about the well being of the individuals serving on their behalf.