by Jane Goodall
“A group of Congolese children approached him quietly. One girl, about ten years old, had a banana in her hand. Leaning over the safety rail, she called out, ‘Danse! Gregoire—Danse!’ With bizarre, stereotyped movements, the old male stood upright and twirled around three times. Then, still standing, he drummed rapidly with his hands on a single piece of furniture in his room, a lopsided shelf attached to one wall. He ended the strange performance by standing on his hands, his feet gripping the bars between us. The girl held the banana toward him and, righting himself, he reached out to accept his payment.
“That meeting was just after Nelson Mandela had been released from his long imprisonment by the white South African government. I was with a Congolese official at the time, who knew nothing of chimpanzees. After staring at Gregoire for a while he turned to me, his face solemn. ‘There, I think, is our Mandela,’ he said. I was moved by those words, by the compassion that lay behind them.
“The gaunt image of Gregoire hung between me and sleep that night. How had he survived those long, weary years deprived of almost everything that a chimpanzee needs to make life meaningful? What stubbornness of spirit had kept him alive? It was as though he, like other starving, neglected chimpanzees in impoverished African zoos, had been waiting for help.”
At Jane’s insistence, JGI hired a Congolese worker to look after Gregoire. Soon, his barren cage was expanded to include a small outdoor “deck” and he began to grow hair and put on weight. In late 1996, Gregoire was introduced to a four-year-old male orphan named Bobby and an infant female, whom Jane named Cherie. Despite the fifty-year age difference, Bobby and Gregoire played together like children. And the old male treated young Cherie like a much-loved granddaughter.
In May 1997, civil war broke out in Congo. Fortunately, a team of wildlife experts rescued the great apes of the Brazzaville zoo and moved them to safety. Gregoire and his companions were moved to JGI’s Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center, where Cherie slept each night in Gregoire’s arms.
One of the animal world’s most incredible stories of resilience and happy endings came to a quiet close on December 17, 2008: Gregoire, Africa’s oldest-known chimpanzee and a national hero in the Republic of the Congo, died in his sleep. As news of Gregoire’s death circulated, messages of condolence and sympathy made their way to Jane and JGI from around the world.
Gregoire was nowhere better known than in Congo. “Everyone knew Gregoire,” says Lisa Pharoah, JGI’s West and Central Africa program manager. “Children … adults … they all had stories about him. You could tell people you worked for JGI and maybe you would get a reaction. But tell people you work with Gregoire? They’d get so excited: “Oh, Gregoire!”
The 140 chimpanzees at the Tchimpounga Sanctuary consume nearly 1,400 pounds of fresh fruit and vegetables every day.
EVERY YEAR, POACHERS KILL THOUSANDS OF CHIMPANZEES
AND OTHER ENDANGERED ANIMALS, RANGING FROM ELEPHANTS AND GORILLAS TO BIRDS AND BATS—ANYTHING THAT CAN BE SMOKED AND SOLD AS FOOD.
The Commercial Bushmeat Trade
In the last twenty to thirty years, logging and mining companies in the Congo Basin have developed road networks in formerly pristine forests, giving poachers access to new territory. One result: a dramatic escalation in hunting of wildlife for meat. Every year, poachers kill thousands of chimpanzees and other endangered animals, ranging from elephants and gorillas to birds and bats—anything that can be smoked and sold as food. Baby chimpanzees generally aren’t killed, but captured to be sold as pets or to attract visitors to hotels and bars.
The illegal commercial trade isn’t driven by the need to feed local people. Instead, much bushmeat ends up in city markets and expensive restaurants throughout Africa. In great ape range countries, in Europe, and even in the United States, wealthy, elite diners regard fare such as chimpanzee hands as a delicacy.
JGI’s Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center is in the heart of the Congo Basin’s commercial bushmeat corridor. It has been estimated that every infant chimpanzee rescued from the black market and brought to Tchimpounga represents ten to twelve other chimpanzees killed by the trade.
Tchimpounga’s orphaned chimps serve as ambassadors. When local people visit and see these amazing, charismatic beings up close, they realize how similar chimps are to humans. Many say they will never eat chimpanzee again.
In collaboration with the sanctuary, JGI-Congo offers formal environmental education for area communities and targeted schools, encouraging both adults and children alike to appreciate their surrounding forests and wildlife. JGI-Congo education staff members also conduct bushmeat public-awareness campaigns and workshops with police and other authorities, and with the women and men who sell bushmeat in markets. They can see attitudes slowly changing, reminding them of the value of this challenging endeavor.
A severely traumatized infant chimpanzee arrives at the Tchimpounga Sanctuary with burns on her face.
Tchimpounga Natural Reserve ecoguards Christ (left) and Jerome are seen here burning confiscated bushmeat, as per Congolese law. The burning is necessary to ensure that those who find it do not profit from the bushmeat themselves.
A JGI-Uganda veterinary intervention team—led by veterinarians Dr. David Hyeroba, Dr. Peter Apell, and Dr. Tony Kidega—removes a jaw-trap from the wrist of a wild adolescent female in the Rwensama forest in Uganda. The procedure was successful. She regained full use of her hands and went back in the forest with the rest of her group.
This chimpanzee’s wrist was caught in a trap set to capture bushmeat.
Local schoolchildren visit the chimpanzees at the Ngamba Island Sanctuary in Uganda to learn about the importance of protecting chimpanzees and the environment.
TCHIMPOUNGA CHIMPANZEE REHABILITATION CENTER
THE TCHIMPOUNGA CHIMPANZEE REHABILITATION CENTER WAS ESTABLISHED IN THE REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO IN DECEMBER 1992 WITH THE SUPPORT OF CONOCO INC.
Tchimpounga is run by a remarkable team made up of local caregivers, maintenance workers, and veterinary health and management staff led by Dr. Rebeca Artencia. Their dedication has been many chimps’ only hope for survival amid Congo’s civil wars and ongoing political strife.
An escalation of the bushmeat trade supplies an ever-increasing population of orphans; there are now more than 140 chimpanzees living at Tchimpounga, stretching it to maximum capacity. The sanctuary includes large enclosed forests and other outdoor areas that the chimpanzees access and explore daily, as well as dormitories which the chimpanzees use nightly (for sleeping) and which also allow for easy access and/or isolation if a chimp is in need of veterinary intervention.
Tchimpounga is situated on a coastal plain of savannah and galleried mosaic forest patches. It is located within the Tchimpounga Natural Reserve, thirty-one miles (fifty kilometers) north of the city of Pointe-Noire in the Kouilou region. Its mission includes chimpanzee and habitat protection, research, education and outreach, ecotourism, and involvement of local populations in sustainable development initiatives.
A caretaker feeds infant orphans at the Tchimpounga Sanctuary.
SNARES IN UGANDA
THE LEADER OF HIS CHIMPANZEE GROUP, KIGERERE WAS MOVING THROUGH THE FOREST ONE DAY AND SUDDENLY TRIPPED A SNARE.
Hunters in Uganda set such snares for bushpigs, antelope, and other prey more abundantly than chimpanzees, but these illegal snares capture as many as 25 percent of chimps in Uganda. They’re typically made of metal or wire and easily hidden in the forest underbrush. And they are viciously indiscriminate.
When an animal struggles to escape, it only tightens the snare. Some animals chew their own limbs off in a desperate attempt to free themselves.
Of course, Kigerere tried desperately to free himself. The chimps in his group brought him food and stayed by him as he struggled to survive. But Kigerere couldn’t loosen the snare and he couldn’t save himself.
The Jane Goodall Institute in Uganda works to prevent such miserable deaths for chimpanzees through a s
nare removal program that involves local community members, including former poachers. It makes sense to hire these men—they know best where to look for snares and now have an alternative livelihood to poaching.
The project teams scour the forest floor and remove the illegal snares. They use handheld GPS systems to mark snare points, and then use that data to map out high-risk areas for snares. This facilitates future snare patrols.
JGI-Uganda gives the snares to local women to use in arts and crafts such as decorations on greeting cards—a source of income and a proactive way to spread the word about chimpanzees and poaching.
Two forest guides in the Bundongo Forest Reserve in Uganda hold snares often used to trap and maim wild chimpanzees.
ChimpanZoo
On the road, or flying from city to city, auditorium to auditorium, and meeting to meeting, Jane was often asked to visit chimpanzees in zoos, and in so doing she came upon an idea:
“I suddenly realized the exciting potential of these invaluable captive groups,” Jane says. “If only, I thought, we could collect comparable data at a number of different zoo sites, using the same behavior categories as we do at Gombe, and similar recording techniques, a whole wealth of new information would soon become available. We would gradually learn more about the extent to which chimpanzee behavior is flexible. In how many ways do chimpanzees adapt to the different social and physical environments? It would give us a chance to tap into the vast store of knowledge and expertise so often stored away in the heads of individual keepers. And it would also lead to better environments for the chimpanzees.”
In 1984, Jane founded ChimpanZoo, an international program dedicated to the well-being and understanding of chimpanzees in zoos and other captive situations. Volunteers, students, and sometimes keepers participate, collecting information that is shared through a database managed by JGI. Today the program has evolved to include zoos in Europe and other parts of the world. Approximately 130 chimpanzees are involved in ChimpanZoo, making it the largest captive-ape research program ever undertaken.
The program has created a network of zoos with the collective know-how to respond to almost any husbandry problem. Dr. Virginia Landau, the longtime director of ChimpanZoo, has provided a unique service to those seeking advice from around the world, answering questions about health, living conditions, introductions, birth control, and countless behavioral problems.
Kathy peers out from her indoor enclosure to the spacious outside yard at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, Illinois. Former Gombe researcher Dr. Elizabeth Lonsdorf leads the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes at the Lincoln Park Zoo, one of several institutions committed to the research and conservation of chimpanzees. The zoo partners with the Jane Goodall Institute on a number of research projects in Gombe National Park.
ChimpanZoo participants gather data on the behavior of individual chimpanzees in all participating zoos. Data is collected systematically, using the same methodology across the board, and entered into a database to enable researchers to make use of all this information. Notes are kept on important events in the captive group—births, deaths, arrival or departure of individuals, changes in dominance, serious fights, changes in enclosure, changes in primary keepers, and so on. Standard questionnaires may be used to assess the personality type of each chimpanzee (as developed by Dr. James King). There is an annual week-long ChimpanZoo conference that serves as a forum for discussing and exchanging new information and ideas. It attracts the general public as well as professionals from the academic and zoological communities from around the world. Many of the papers presented have been published in scholarly journals, and the ChimpanZoo database is accessible to zoos, students, and instructors.
Finally, ChimpanZoo provides information about chimpanzee behavior to schoolchildren of all ages, especially through Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots, and to their parents and teachers. Involvement of high school and first-year university students in data collection prepares them for higher-level participation. A ChimpanZoo course for undergraduates ran successfully at Colorado University for several years, and ChimpanZoo has developed excellent teaching materials for younger children.
A docent explains the exhibit to visitors at the Lincoln Park Zoo.
Chimpanzees as Pets and Entertainers
In separate incidents in the 2000s, two chimps—one a household “pet” and one a trained “entertainer”—savagely attacked humans known to them, giving the public an unforgettable lesson in the dark side of chimps. The message couldn’t have been clearer: Chimps aren’t meant to be pets or media props. Jane and her staff work hard to spread this message, using action-and-awareness campaigns, as well as direct appeals to the entertainment and advertising industries. Jane stresses one key point: Chimps may be adorable as babies, but they grow to be many times stronger than any human. They are, at their core, unpredictable and dangerous. Despite careful upbringing with humans, they remain wild. Once a chimp is no longer manageable, he or she has to be caged or sent away. Good zoos typically won’t take a chimp that hasn’t been properly socialized with other chimps. The poor creature may end up in a roadside “zoo,” caged for the rest of its life, often alone. Or, he or she could wind up in a research lab. It’s a terrible outcome; both for the original human owners, who often love the chimp dearly, and for the animal denied its birthright—life as a chimp.
Jane comforts a young chimp who serves as a living prop for a beach photographer in the Canary Islands.
Medical Research Laboratories
Even as Jane became increasingly involved in the proper care of entertainment and pet chimpanzees, she was learning more about another deeply disturbing problem: conditions in medical-research laboratories. Though she could imagine the horrors these intelligent and aware creatures suffered in the small, bleak, and sterile cages of the research labs (five feet by five feet by seven feet per chimp at the time), Jane felt she could not speak out on their behalf until she had seen the conditions for herself. In 1987, Jane visited her first medical-research facility, and later wrote about the experience in The New York Times:
“Room after room was lined with small, bare cages, stacked one above the other, in which monkeys circled round and round, and chimpanzees sat huddled, far gone in depression and despair.
“Young chimpanzees, three or four years old, were crammed, two together, into tiny cages measuring 22 inches by 22 inches and only 24 inches high. They could hardly turn around.
“The chimps had each other for comfort, but they would not be together for long. Once they are infected, probably with hepatitis, they will be separated and placed in another cage. And there they will remain, living in conditions of severe sensory deprivation, for the next several years. During that time, they will become insane.
“A juvenile female rocked side to side, sealed off from the outside world behind the glass doors of her metal isolation chamber. She was in semidarkness. All she could hear was the incessant roar of air rushing through vents into her prison.
“I shall be haunted forever by her eyes, and the eyes of the other chimpanzees I saw that day.
“I have had the privilege of working among wild, free chimpanzees for more than twenty-six years. I have gained a deep understanding of chimpanzee nature. Chimpanzees have given me so much in my life. The least I can do is speak out for the hundreds of chimpanzees who, right now, sit hunched, miserable, and without hope, staring out with dead eyes from their metal prisons. They cannot speak for themselves.”
This deformed and abused chimpanzee lies in a small cage at a biomedical laboratory in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Jane is a leading advocate for the abolition of the use of all live animals in research, and, until that happens, the humane treatment of research animals.
And so she did. Jane spoke with people from the National Institutes of Health and directors of laboratories that housed chimpanzees. She spoke with members of Congress. She soon found out that the lab she visited was one of the wor
st, that others had larger cages or group housing. But by studying how the chimpanzees lived in the wild and understanding their rich social life, Jane knew that even the best of the conditions in which they were kept were sorely inadequate. She and her associates fought to have the regulations changed, requiring all labs to provide more humane conditions. They created committees to write recommendations to the government that would address some of their concerns. But of course, Jane also felt that chimpanzees, so much like us, should not be used as living test tubes anyway.
Over the years, others took up the cause of lab chimps. Jane and these advocates have seen great advances. Most notably, several countries now ban the use of great apes in medical research, including the United Kingdom, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, and New Zealand. Unfortunately, the United States hasn’t followed suit. In fact, it is the last large-scale user of chimpanzees in research; but awareness and advocacy efforts have not been fruitless. In 2000, the government mandated life-long care in sanctuaries for lab chimps who are no longer considered useful. Then in 2007—thanks in part to the efforts of JGI—the government closed a loophole that would have allowed the chimps to be pulled out of retirement if deemed necessary. The new rules state that retired chimps never be put back into labs.
The proposed Great Ape Protection Act of 2009 would end all invasive research on chimpanzees and other great apes in the United States, and would also require the federal government to retire all great apes that it is holding for invasive research. It seems only a matter of time before the world ends the use of great apes in invasive research and sterile lab conditions once and for all.