by Jane Goodall
Gaia was five years old when, during one of my rare visits to Gombe in 1998 (and during the making of the IMAX film Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees), Gremlin came into the feeding area with twin girls, Golden (Goldie) and Glitta. I was the first human to see them. It was an exciting moment—that turned to horror when Fanni, supported by Fifi, tried to seize the babies. Again Bill was able to film the shocking event—and again Gremlin somehow managed to protect her babies.
She was a marvelous mother to the twins, and Gaia was a great help, spending much time playing with, grooming, and carrying one or the other. Gaia preferred Glitta, while the more adventurous tomboy, Goldie, formed a really close bond with Galahad until his tragic death.
The twins have flourished. When Gremlin gave birth to her next child, Gimli, the twins took it in their stride. Perhaps because they were always together—or perhaps because their father was the tough Frodo—they showed early signs of independence. It will be fascinating to see how their relationship develops as they attain maturity. And it will be especially interesting to see what happens on their first consortships. If, as is likely, they continue to cycle in synchrony with each other, will each go off with a different male? Will one male try to take both? Or shall we see our first example of a double date! (There was an occasion when Satan's ancient mother, Sprout, accompanied him on one of this consortships with a young female!)
Gaia had her first baby, Godot, in 2006. To our utter astonishment and dismay, Gremlin "stole" Godot very soon after his birth. He lived for five months but was always weak. Gremlin's son Gimli was tolerant of the sudden intrusion of his infant nephew. He was two years old and possibly got more than his fair share of milk. A year later Gremlin took Gaia's second baby—an autopsy showed it was stillborn and had never drawn breath.
Gaia soon became pregnant again and in 2008, to our delight, gave birth to twins. The gene for multiple births is, indeed, strong in this family! But our excitement turned to dismay when, for a third time, Gremlin intervened, snatching both babies away from her daughter. Neither survived, one dying at five days old and the other at thirteen days. It is hard to explain Gremlin's behaviour. When she stole Godot I thought that perhaps, after looking after her twins for so long, she felt she needed a second infant to keep Gimli company. And Gaia was so used to Gremlin taking one or the other of the twins from her that she accepted the loss of her own baby in the same way.
Recently I was thrilled to receive news of the family from Gombe. "We are extremely happy to report that Gaia has given birth again and her infant is doing well," wrote Anna Mosser, the field director. At 6 P.M. on June 5, 2009, Gaia and her newborn son joined a big group. At midday on the sixth Gremlin appeared for the first time. She showed some interest in her grandchild, but Gaia kept her distance from her mother and held the infant close. "We continued to follow the G-family (Gremlin, Gaia, and infants Golden, Glitta, and Gimli) for the next five days," Anna wrote. During this time Gremlin continued to maintain possession. Her son is still alive at the time of writing.
Wilkie, as we have seen, took the alpha position from Goblin and reigned for three and a quarter years. He has always been a great groomer, and he has always been not only very highly motivated to mate with females but successful in his endeavours. DNA analysis shows that he has fathered at least six children, including Gaia.
THE F FAMILY: Fifi almost made it through the fifty years—she disappeared in 2004 along with two-year-old Furaha (meaning "Joy" in Kiswahili) and six-year-old daughter Flirt. They had been spending time in the north of their range and, although we shall never know, there is speculation that she was fatally attacked by Mitumba males—for she had shown no signs of ill health. To our delight, little Flirt showed up some weeks later. She often travelled with one or the other of her older brothers, Freud or Frodo.
Fifi was an incredibly successful mother—between 1971 and 2002 she gave birth to nine offspring, seven of whom are alive and well as I write. As she got older and rose in rank to become alpha female, so the intervals between births grew shorter. Her children all had different fathers, except for Fanni and Flossi, who are full sisters, fathered by Goblin. Fifi was a very special chimpanzee. I had known her since she was a tiny infant and there was a strange bond between us. Gombe, for me, can never be quite the same again.
But her sons and daughters and grandchildren are much in evidence: What an amazing family. We have seen how Flo's son Figan, with the help of his brother, rose to become a powerful alpha male. And three of Fifi's sons, Freud, Frodo, and Ferdinand—Flo's grandsons and Figan's nephews—have risen to the coveted alpha position.
Freud took over from Wilkie in 1993 and reigned for almost five years. He was, for the most part, a very laid-back alpha and spent much time grooming with the other males. But he did display, vigorously and repeatedly, at his childhood playmate Frodo, keeping his young brother in a state of terror. I was there once when Frodo, emitting small whimpers of fear, was kept up a palm tree for over an hour while Freud sat calmly grooming himself below.
Freud lost his position when he fell sick during an epidemic of sarcoptic mange. He began avoiding the other males. And then one day Frodo found him, hiding in thick vegetation. The scene that followed was extraordinary—and Bill Wallauer captured the whole sequence on video. Freud, hearing calls from the group of males that Frodo had just left, at once tried to move away. But Frodo displayed around him and, as Freud screamed in fear, repeatedly shook branches as does a male who is trying to persuade a female to follow on a consortship. Freud, still screaming in terror, repeatedly tried to flee, but his younger brother showed no mercy, relentlessly forcing the sick male to follow him into the group of highly roused males. Bill was steeling himself to witness a fearsome gang attack—but to his amazement Frodo then protected his older brother, throwing rocks at the roused and displaying males.
Despite much opportunity, Freud is not known to have fathered infants during his tenure as alpha, but subsequently fathered Candy's infant Cocoa.
In 1997 Frodo easily took the alpha position from Freud after the incident described above. He was twenty-one years old, in the magnificence of his prime and the largest male we have known. He never lost the aggressive bullying behavior he had shown as a child, and was feared by chimpanzees—and many humans too. The other males would often leave a group when Frodo appeared—just as infants used to stop playing when he arrived nearby. Frodo seldom groomed others, preferring to sit and allow them to groom him. He had no need to form alliances—he could make it on his own. Like his uncle Figan, Frodo was a very successful hunter. Unlike Figan, he is also very successful at passing on his genes—DNA profiling shows he has fathered at least seven of the infants of his community, five during his five-year reign as alpha. One of these infants was conceived during incestuous matings: Fred, the seventh of Fifi's offspring, who died in infancy during the mange epidemic, as mentioned above.
Like his brother, Frodo lost his top status during a bout of sickness. Indeed, when I saw him at the end of 2003 I hardly recognized him, so wasted and drawn he had become. Bill and I were sitting with him when we heard a group of males calling nearby; quickly and quietly Frodo slipped away into the bushes, glancing nervously over his shoulder. It seemed for a while that he would not recover, but eventually he regained his health and much of his bluster—though not his alpha status.
Faustino and his young brother, Ferdinand, were Fifi's fifth and sixth offspring respectively. Faustino, Wilkie's son, rose to second rank in 2005—but then became very sick so that he dropped to a low position. After recovering he once again began to challenge other males. Today he is the main challenger to the current alpha—his own young brother, Ferdinand, who took over (from an older male, Kris) in March 2008.
Fanni and Flossi, although close during infancy, subsequently parted ways. Fanni remained in the same general area as Fifi, and mother and daughter were often together. Indeed, as we have seen, she supported Fifi in her murderous attacks on Gremlin's infants.
Flossi left her natal community and emigrated to Mitumba in 1996. Although the resident females were aggressive, she was assertive and solicited support from the males. She rapidly settled in a prime area in the bottom of Mitumba valley and has so far given birth to four offspring—son Forest born in 1997, son Fansi born in 2001, daughter Flower born in 2005, and a new infant born in 2009 —also with the short interbirth intervals characteristic of her family. Although not the oldest, she is one of the two top-ranking females of the Mitumba community.
PASSION'S FAMILY: After Passion's death, Pom, without the support of her dominant mother, received a good deal of aggression from the other females and after a year she emigrated to Mitumba. Unfortunately we lost touch with her, and although she was seen with a small infant in 1986, she was not spotted again.
Prof, as predicted, never attained high status. He maintained his close relationship with little Pax throughout his life. Sadly, he disappeared at the start of 1998. It is thought that he moved south, possibly falling victim to the Kalande males. We shall never know, but it is interesting that Pax led several expeditions to the south after Prof's disappearance, and it was speculated that he may have been searching for his lost brother. Unlike other males, Pax never grew larger than an adult female, and as a result of the injury he sustained in infancy has never mated. He is unusually playful—a sort of Peter Pan in chimp's clothing.
PATTI'S FAMILY: Patti became a high-ranking and successful mother. She had a very central range, overlapping with that of Fifi. Her mothering skills, initially terrible, as described in this book, improved considerably over time, and she did a good job of raising Tanga, Titan and Tarzan. Like Fifi, she began spending more and more time in the north. In 2005, Patti, along with five-year-old Tarzan, was observed on a consortship with Frodo far to the north, near Mitumba valley. And there a group of two Mitumba males and four females found them. Frodo ran off, but Patti did not manage to escape and was severely attacked by the males. Two weeks later she died and was found to have suffered many severe internal and external injuries. It was a horrific incident, but during the assault, a young Mitumba female persuaded Tarzan to leave his mother and escorted him to safety. This prob ably saved his life. He returned to the south and now spends his time with his older brother Titan. They are both Frodo's kids and have inherited many of his aggressive ways—Titan, for example, is a frequent and accurate thrower of rocks.
Patti's eldest daughter, Tita, emigrated into the Mitumba community, gave birth there to a baby that died, and then was encountered only infrequently until 1998, when she disappeared. DNA from fecal samples recently found in Kalande suggest that she is still alive and now lives in the Kalande community with a son. Tanga stayed in Kasekela in Patti's range and has two infants, Tom and Tabora.
Almost all the orphans I watched so closely and described in the preceding pages have died or disappeared, in many cases along with their protectors. Gigi vanished in 1993 and little Mel died a year later of wounds inflicted by an unknown assailant. After Gigi's death, Skosha, who had for a while associated closely with her, became a somewhat tragic female. I shall always remember seeing her, when all the others were sharing meat after a successful kill, creeping around below and licking a few drops of blood from a few leaves—all that she could get. But gradually her situation improved and eventually she acquired middle-rank status, although she never gave birth. She was thirty-three when she disappeared and we do not know her fate.
Both Wunda and Wolfi vanished, and although there were reports of two individuals, who might have been the brother and sister, seen in the community in the south, this was not verified.
Darbee has survived, though; like all orphans, she matured slowly and did not show her first full swelling until she was thirteen. So long as she stayed within the Kasekela range she was subjected to attacks by the females of the community, and eventually in 1998 she emigrated to Mitumba. Eight years later she finally gave birth to a healthy infant, Maybee. Her brother Tubee has always been a bit of a loner. He has been a mid-to high-ranking male for many years and has fathered one child so far—Gimli.
Fifty Years Later
When I return to Gombe these days and find myself surrounded by a group of chimpanzees, I cannot help yearning for the days gone by when I could glance up into a tree and instantly recognize who was there. For I do not know the younger generation. Only Gremlin and Gaia. And Fifi's older offspring. And Wilkie. One by one the others whom I knew so well, with whom I shared so many fascinating, exciting or tragic hours, have gone. I find myself spending more time, as I sit on the Peak or by the waterfall, thinking of David Graybeard and Goliath, of Flo and Melissa. Remembering the excitement of new discoveries, the explorations into unknown territory as I found out ever more about the forest world and its fascinating inhabitants. Yet fifty years have passed since those days—half a century. We have learned much during those years about Gombe chimpanzees. What new secrets, I wonder, shall we uncover during the years ahead?
JANE GOODALL
October 2009
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
HOW, AFTER ALMOST thirty years, can I begin to thank adequately all the people who have made it possible to continue the research at Gombe? It is hard, looking back, to differentiate between contributions towards the actual study and contributions to my personal well-being. After all, the years at Gombe, the observing and documenting of the lives of the chimpanzees, are so entwined with my own personal life that it is often difficult to separate the two. Possibly I should not even try. But this means that I should write a whole separate book, for the help and support that I have been given has been so great. Sometimes I have been overwhelmed by the kindness, generosity and desire to help that I have found in people around the world. It makes for a warmth around the heart that has, again and again, given me strength to cope when times were rough.
I believe, and hope, that I did express my gratitude to all those who helped Gombe during the first ten years of the study—in my first book, In the Shadow of Man. Here I will try to express my thanks to those people and organizations who have enabled me to carry on since then.
First I must mention my gratitude to the Tanzanian government: to our past President, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, now Chairman of the Party, conserver of forest habitats, a botanist in his own right and to his successor, President Hassan Mwinyi, and to the many individuals in various governmental departments who have been so helpful and supportive over so many years. Special thanks to the various regional commissioners and district development directors of the Kigoma Region who have given assistance at all times, and to the Director of Wildlife, Costa Mlay. Very special thanks to the Director of Tanzania National Parks, David Babu, and many of the Wardens; to the Director of the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute, Karim Hirji; to the Director and staff (especially Addie Lyaruu) of the Tanzania Scientific Research Council.
Many foundations, institutions and individuals have contributed funds over the past twenty years. For the National Geographic Society a very special word of gratitude. The Society funded the entire research programme for many years and continues to support the work in a variety of ways. The publicity that the Gombe chimpanzees have received over the years through magazine articles, TV programmes and, more recently, magazine advertisements, has, more than any other single factor, made it possible for me, and for all those helping me, to raise money for various chimpanzee programmes. I must mention, especially, Melvin Payne, Gil Grosvenor, Mary Smith and Neva Folk who, over recent years, have been so very, very helpful.
Many individuals have made donations that have helped to maintain the research at Gombe since the generous funding of the Grant Foundation ended soon after the 1975 kidnapping, when forty armed men abducted four students (this is described in Chapter 7). The donors are too numerous to mention by name, but my heartfelt thanks go to every one of you, not only for major contributions, but also for the smaller gifts that represent the same magnanimous spirit on the part of the givers. One of my most treasured donations came to me in Africa from a small boy who mailed a quarter, taped to a sheet of paper, with a note saying that there would be more when he could earn money himself.
And let me thank so much my good friend Jim Caillouette who has long assisted with medical supplies for the Tanzanian staff.
A number of companies have made donations, and I should especially like to thank Jeff Walters and the Sony Corporation for generously providing a number of video cameras, players and tapes for the recording of behaviour in the field.
Many people have been helpful in Kigoma, nearest town to Gombe. Special thanks to Blanche and Toni Bescia, Subhadra and Ramji Dharsi, Rahma and Christopher Liundi, Asgar Remtulla and Kirit and Jayant Vaitha.
I am continually grateful to Robert Hinde for his patience with me in the early days when I was his student, and for his subsequent help and support. And my thanks also to David Hamburg who, in 1972, negotiated an affiliation between Gombe and Stanford University and secured major funding that enabled a succession of talented students to work at Gombe as research assistants, giving new vigour to the project.