[monkeywire] The surprising true story of the late Bill the Chimp
Carrie McLaren
temporary181 at stayfreemagazine.org
Fri Jul 27 12:48:46 EDT 2007
The surprising true story of the late Bill the Chimp
July 26, 2007
http://www.northcoastjournal.com/072607/cover0726.html
By Daniel Mintz
When the Sequoia Park Zoo's oldest and most popular animal rejected
food and water and struggled to breathe for a second day, his
caretakers made an announcement that riveted the Eureka community:
Bill the Chimp was dying.
The press release declaring that the 61-year-old chimpanzee was
"gravely ill" got instant responses from reporters, and when the news
broke on June 26 it magnetized emotional reactions from the many
people who considered Bill their longtime friend. Finding the zoo
closed as its staff tended to the dying chimp, well-wishers hung
cards and ribbons on its front gate, but by the end of the day, the
decision to euthanize the city's favorite zoo resident was deemed
unavoidable.
Perhaps the suddenness of Bill's death made it hit harder. The zoo
had begun a renovation of his exhibit space barely a week earlier, a
project that would have brought the chimp's living conditions
somewhat closer to modern professional standards. Not long before
that, he'd been visited by famed primatologist Jane Goodall, who
spent about 45 minutes with him and concluded that he was in good
condition. Undiagnosed heart disease was about to intensify, however,
forcing the zoo's staff members to make the most painful decision of
their lives. And those who'd only known Bill as zoo visitors shared
the sense of loss, summarized in a Times-Standard newspaper
editorial. "He Was One of Us," its title proclaimed.
But Bill the Chimp wasn't a human being, although through twists of
circumstance he became involved in human society and took on various
roles in it. Considered a member of the community, he was also its
captive. In many ways nothing is as it seems with Bill. His history
and his relationships with people reveal a lot about him, however,
most of it surprising.
In the summer of 1957, Eureka's biggest event was a boxing match
featuring a fighter known as Billy the Champ. It was a rigged fight,
like all of them had been, but this would be the only one he'd ever
lose. A "retirement" to the city's zoo awaited the 11-year-old
chimpanzee, who'd become too savage for the circus.
Bill the Chimp's initiation to human society likely began years
earlier in a Central African jungle. Chimpanzees and other exotic
wild animals were rarely bred in captivity then, and after being
captured in the jungle they were marketed by animal dealers to
circuses, research labs and collectors. Infant chimpanzees were of
high value and were often obtained through the killing of their
parents. The circumstances of Bill's capture may never be discovered,
but by the early 1950s, he was performing in England with the Bertram
Mills Circus, the British equivalent of Ringling Brothers. He formed
one of his closest human bonds there, with a Dutch animal trainer
named Willy Lenz.
Lenz joined a circus in Holland when he was 17 years old, and animal
photo of bill performing in the circustraining became his specialty.
After establishing himself internationally working with brown bears
in various circuses, he was hired by Bertram Mills to train its team
of six chimps. His wife, Ann, a trapeze artist and high-wire walker,
joined him and together they helmed one of Bertram Mills' most
popular attractions.
Billy and the other chimps did somersaults on trampolines, rode
bicycles, beat on drums and pretended to play musical instruments in
a mariachi band, but the act that really got crowds going was the
chimp boxing match. The elaborate spectacle featured chimps playing
the roles of boxers, referees and nurses. Lenz chose Billy and
another chimp, Pepe, as the fighters, and dubbed them "world
chimpions of the ring" in his advertising. Nicknamed "The Professor"
for his smarts, Billy was one of the troupe's most engaging
performers and best fit the role of The Champ. The matches
highlighted Bertram Mills' annual Christmas show at the Olympia in
London, where Billy vanquished Pepe in front of audiences that
included Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret.
A half-century later, Ann and Willy still remember one of tphoto of
bill performing in the circushe smartest and most appealing chimps
they'd ever met. In a telephone interview from their home in North
Carolina, they described the origin of a habit that endeared Billy to
zoo visitors in Eureka decades later -- the "raspberry" noise he
made, which they trained him to do after Pepe fell to the mat in mock
knockouts.
"Billy was always the one who was the champion and then the
ringmaster came to him and say to Billy, 'Billy, what do you think of
him as a boxer,' and he said, 'pftttttt' ... you know, and that's why
he has those raspberries," said Willy. "And that went over very good
with the people."
With Billy as its charismatic lead, the act was ready for import to
America with the Pollack Brothers Circus. On a boat ride from England
to New York City's Radio City Music Hall, Billy lived up to his
nickname. The chimps were held in cages in the boat's storage room
but Billy had other plans.photo of Bill playing drums
"I was not feeling too good on that boat, you know, and they knocked
on the door and they said, 'Oh boy, you better go look in the mail
room, there's something going on in there,'" Willy said. "Well, I
opened the door and all the chimps were out in the mail room and they
were eating bananas and throwing all sorts of things around."
Examining the cages, Lenz surmised what had happened. Billy had burst
out of his cage and grabbed a set of keys hanging on the wall, using
them to let out the rest of the chimps.
Billy was also something of a ladies man. "We were working one time
in a show, and a lady came close by, and he liked that lady," Ann
said. "And she had a zipper up her back, you know, from her dress,
and he liked to open the zipper -- up and down and up and down. I
mean, that was Bill."
But the likeable chimp would soon be a threat.
Above four photos: Bill and Pepe perform in their popular circus
acts. Photos courtesy of Willy Lenz.
Knocked out photo of bill as retiring boxing champ
Sexual maturity triggers sharp changes in a chimp's behavior and
physical power. The Champ eventually lived up to his role, asserting
himself as a dominant male. By the time the circus reached Eureka, he
was performing at the end of a leash. Billy the Champ was too
dangerous for Ann and Willy to keep.
"He goes against you, you know," said Willy, "He wants to have the
upper hand, and instead of going against him, let's say, 'It was nice
time and let's forget it,' and I'll find him a good place. Otherwise,
you have to go to rough stuff and I don't like that."
"And if something happens, then we are to blame," Ann added. "So we
should know when it makes sense to stop."
The timing of the transformation led to Billy's residency here. "We
were playing in town, at the fairgrounds, and then I got acquainted
with one of those photographers from the newspaper," said Willy. "And
then we start talking and I said, 'Well, that chimp, we have to do
away with him,' and then he said, 'Boy, that would be something for
our zoo' -- and that is the way we got the whole thing going."
photo of Bill on a bikeIn the near-legendary stream of events that
followed, a media-driven effort to raise the $350 to buy Billy for
the zoo was banked with the pocket money of city schoolchildren. Lots
of fanfare preceded the move to his new home, and his final boxing
match was a big draw, with an outcome that set up his exit from the
ring and circus life. "You watched him take his K.O. like a true
champion," a July 12, 1957, report in the Humboldt Standard told
readers.
His arrival at the zoo was heralded with a massively attended
celebration and an honor from city officials. "Bill Devours Key to
Eureka," read a Humboldt Standard headline, referring to the
key-shaped cookie he'd been presented with. A Dixieland band provided
upbeat music, dedicating aPhoto of Bill and Willy Lenz song called
"Down in Monkey Town" to Bill. It seemed that the city welcomed a new
member of the community, but the reality of the transition went
unreported until many years later.
In a letter Ann wrote to the zoo's management last year objecting to
its description of Bill being "rescued" from the circus, she
described his first day in his permanent home. She and Willy had
parked their 18-foot chimp transport truck at the zoo and all of the
chimps were led into Bill's cage. "We let them play, and then after
some time, take one out, then one hour later, another, until Billy
was alone and waiting his turn," Ann said in the letter. "We were
parked with our truck and trailer by the fence, and six o'clock in
the morning I started the truck, and Bill start crying, and so did
we. From that time on, he was alone."
Ann emphasized that Billy had a social life with other chimpanzees in
the circus, and with his trainers. "As you can see, we had a special
bond with our chimps," she wrote. But those bonds were broken by
something stronger. "Chimpanzees, at an older age they get, you can't
trust them anymore," Willy said in the interview. "So, you can't go
against nature."
Above three photos: Bill retires after his final boxing match; Bill
on a bike; Willy Lenz and Bill embrace. Humboldt Standard, 1957
'Complex personality'
The Sequoia Park Zoo was a very different place decades ago.
Zookeeping was still in its developmental stages in Eureka. A small
zoo is not a good place for chimpanzees, as they need social settings
and spaces with natural features and lots of room. Bill the Chimp's
home was basically a steel cage, described in newspaper accounts as
10 feet by 14 feet. His presence at the zoo was challenging from the
outset. One Humboldt Standard newspaper account informed that despite
signage, "The Champ's life and health are endangered every day by
visitors who feed him or give him things to play with." Chimpanzees
are susceptible to diseases and germs carried by humans, and years
later Bill tested positive for Hepatitis A and B.
The zoo had several other animals it probably shouldn't have,
including lions, a Bengal tiger and a polar bear. By the mid-1960s,
zoo managers decided to add something else: another chimp. Ziggy, a
hand-raised male chimp who'd performed in Las Vegas and ended up in
an animal shelter, was introduced to the zoo in the spring of 1966.
Bill's original enclosure had been dismantled and a new one was
built, with double compartments for each chimp. Pairing two adult
males is risky, and they were enemies from the start.
Their first meeting was observed by former city Community Services
Director David McGinty, who worked as a weekend zookeeper at the
time. He said each side of the enclosure had a sleeping chamber
attached, and Ziggy was let out of his and entered one side of the
outer exhibit. McGinty and other workers were preparing Bill's side
of the exhibit when he unexpectedly broke out of his inner chamber
and loped past them. As McGinty and the others scurried out of the
cage, Bill and Ziggy had their first meeting.
"Bill probably acted the way he would in the wild," McGinty said. "He
did not know who this strange chimp was in the next cage over. Bill
was very independent and he was always the master." The two chimps
sprang at each other, gripping the partition, howling and showing
teeth. "They were face to face," McGinty said, adding that Bill
probably would have tried to kill Ziggy if the divider hadn't been
there.
So began a confrontational relationship that never warmed. When Ziggy
died of liver cancer in 1996, Bill seemed glad to be rid of his
adversary, and now he had the exhibit and its audience to himself.
The two chimps had developed contrasting personalities, Ziggy's being
less demonstrative, and visitors gave Bill more attention. He
commanded it, often by flinging his turds at people. They'd either
find it amusing or run screaming, and either way, the assertive chimp
was able to manipulate reactions.
McGinty's memories of Bill vary. "He could be very loving if he
wanted to be," he said. "He had a very complex personality and his
range of behavior was incredible." Bill particularly enjoyed human
interaction early in the morning. "He liked a nice hot cup of tea in
the morning, and he'd drinkphoto of Bill grooming keeper's toes it
like you and I would," said McGinty. "It was like having tea or
coffee with a buddy."
Right: Bill gently grooms his keeper's toes. Photo by Jan Roletto.
Other substances probably found their way to Bill through visitation.
When McGinty worked at the zoo, there was only one full-time
zookeeper tending to all the zoo's animals, and the grounds were
unsecured. Visitors had access to them 24 hours a day. Current zoo
managers believe it's likely that people gave Bill and Ziggy
cigarettes, and one contributor to a recent Times-Standard online
comment page claimed to have witnessed Bill smoking a marijuana joint.
Describing the zoo's development over time, McGinty portrayed the
last 15 years or so of Bill's life to be the best. "He has had
excellent, excellent keepers and a lot more oversight, a lot more
caring and concern," he said. "In the early days, we had what we had.
I would characterize the zoo in those days to be a place to go to
show your kids animals. Now, it's much more interpretive and
educational."
Here to stay
Improvements to Bill's living conditions advanced gradually. Only so
much could be done within the zoo's budgetary and space restraints,
however, and even minor upgrades were hard-won. Gretchen Ziegler, the
zoo's current manager, was first hired as head zookeeper in 1995 and
found Bill and Ziggy's conditions to be "a bit shocking." (Editor's
note: Full disclosure -- Gretchen Ziegler is reporter Daniel Mintz's
companion.)
Ziegler had worked with all varieties of great apes at the Topeka Zoo
in Kansas and wanted to know why Eureka's chimps were housed in
sterile, concrete enclosures, the kind that give zoos a bad name. But
a few years after Ziggy's death, she would inherit the situation
herself and balance a desire to give Bill the Chimp something better
against factors like his advanced age, his long residency at the zoo
photo of junior zookeepers watching billand the risks involved with
moving him.
Right: Junior Zookeepers watching Bill. Photo by Gretchen Ziegler.
The zoo saw a milestone in 1995, gaining accreditation from the
Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which noted the obvious
deficiencies with the chimp exhibit but also "recognized the
situation we were in," Ziegler said. It was a scenario that continued
to work against the zoo's modernization. "The hardest thing, bar
none, about the management of the zoo was the fact that we had this
archaic situation that, by the year, became less acceptable," said
Ziegler. Yet there were positive aspects. Bill's lack of neurotic
behavior and his increasingly strong relationships with staff members
made the zoo a reasonable place for him to stay.
In 2003, Ziegler hired Jan Roletto to be Bill's primary keeper. A
former Sequoia Park Zoo intern, Roletto had graduated from Humboldt
State University and worked with great apes at bigger zoos in Salt
Lake City, Utah and Columbus, Ohio. Roletto's hiring is part of a
gender reversal in the zoo's staff -- once in the minority, women
keepers now form a majority, part of a national trend in the zoo
industry. And Roletto said Bill showed an obvious preference for
women that was even reflected in his choice of possessions. A
golden-haired Barbie doll became his favorite one, and he exercised
his curiosity by peeking up its dress.
He also had a foot fetish, and liked women who wore short skirts and
boots. In grooming sessions with female keepers, Bill would reach
between the bars of his enclosure and seek tactile experiences that
inevitably involved bare feet. His tendency to "display," or assert
dominance by making noise and aggressively acting out, was contrasted
by his grooming behavior. "If he needed you to move because he wanted
to look at something that was on your foot, he would delicately touch
it photo of Bill and Jane Goodalland gently push it in the way that
he wanted you to," said Roletto. "It was never forceful, it was very
respectful and sensitive."
Right: Bill meets Jane Goodall. Photos by Gretchen Ziegler.
But any contact shared between Bill and his keepers was done through
a wall of bars. That necessity was strictly followed until a foggy
night in October 2005, when vandals cut open Bill's cage.
Beyond bars
Roletto got a call from Eureka police late in the night of Oct. 6,
2005, letting her know that Bill was out of his exhibit and had been
seen in a neighborhood near the zoo. She sped to the scene, thinking
of a previous escape episode at another zoo. In the late 1990s, she
was working at the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City when three chimpanzees
got out of their enclosure because a keeper left a gate unlocked.
Physical characteristics can set off aggressive responses in chimps,
and they may hone in on things that mark people as being different,
like disabilities. The chimps at Hogle immediately went on the hunt
for a volunteer who appeared mentally disabled, and found him inside
a zoo building. They savagely attacked him, severely disfiguring his
face and hands. Two of the three chimps had to be shot and killed.
Arriving where Bill had been seen, Roletto found police in the area
of a backyard bordering an alley near W Street. Roletto told them
she'd try to coax Bill out of the yard. She took a risk, as even
people familiar to chimps can be attacked. "I told the police
officer, 'Get about 20 feet away from me and don't get any closer,
but if you hear me screaming, come running,'" she said.
She heard a rustling sound in the backyard, and opened its gate,
softly calling Bill's name. "I slowly opened up the door, and there
he was, just standing right in front of me," said Roletto. She
crouched down, ready to curl into a fetal position in case Bill
attacked. He didn't. "I was floored, he just came over and he had a
very soft hoot, his eyes had recognition and he just hugged me, and
smelled me. I don't remember being scared after that, because it was
either going to happen then or not at all."
Roletto told Bill it was late and they had to go home. She took his
hand and they started walking through swaths of fog toward the zoo.
Ziegler had just gotten there to load a tranquilizer dart gun in case
things went wrong. The zoo entrance had been remodeled since Bill's
previous escapes over the years, and she knew it would disorient him.
When she left the zoo and got out onto W Street, she heard Roletto
calling, "Gretchen, stand there so Bill can see you, he doesn't want
to go in!"
Ziegler said Bill "made a beeline toward me" when he saw her from
across the street. "It was the most surreal thing I had ever
experienced, with the fog and the time of night and a chimpanzee at
my side, for the first time without a barrier between us. All I could
do is stand there and talk softly and encouragingly to Bill, hoping
it would all go well." It did -- Bill hugged her leg and acted
submissively, focusing on her feet. Ziegler obliged him by taking off
her shoes and rubbing his shoulders. Bill took her hand and Roletto
joined them, and all three entered the zoo.
Gradually and after a series of grooming sessions, Bill complied with
his keepers' suggestions and went back into the enclosed "night room"
within his exhibit. Things were back to normal but would never be the
same. "After that, I told Gretchen, 'If Bill is ever on his way out,
you can just clear me of all insurance claims, because I'm going in
with him," Roletto said. "I told her, 'I don't want him to be alone
when he dies.'"
'Going to Africa'
Eight months later, in June 2006, Bill's 60th birthday was celebrated
at the zoo with the unveiling of a statue of himself and the
announcement of a $100,000 renovation of his exhibit. It would be an
eventful year, as he'd also meet Jane Goodall, who visited him prior
to giving a lecture at Humboldt State photo of Bill
paintingUniversity. When some of the students there pressured her to
agree that Bill should be moved to a chimp sanctuary, Goodall told
them what they didn't want to hear -- that keeping him at his
longtime home was best.
Right: Bill painting, one of his favorite pastimes. Photo by Jan Roletto.
The zoo's centennial this year would have coincided with Bill's 50th
anniversary there. But soon after construction on his exhibit
started, a longtime respiratory condition suddenly worsened. Although
his raspy breathing tended to flare and subside, this episode was
more serious and, as discovered later, was actually caused by fluid
pressure on the lungs from heart disease. His caretakers became
alarmed when his tongue turned blue. Then he refused food.
Going into the last weekend in June, Bill stopped sleeping in his
night house. He took medication but his condition worsened. "He spent
the days at the top of his exhibit, just looking out at the zoo,"
Ziegler said. The medicine became harder to administer, and had to be
mixed into special treats like soda pop. And by the end of the
weekend, Bill's medicine was morphine.
He was dying, and the staff struggled with the realization that the
process might have to be helped along. "At this point, he was just
gasping for breath and having to position his body so he could get as
much air as he could -- it was extremely uncomfortable for him," said
Ziegler. "He was exhausted, and we knew he couldn't sleep very well.
We could see his weariness grow every day." Eventually, he couldn't
make it down from the upper platform anymore. "Jan finally said,
'Look, the only way I can bring him water or coax him to take his
meds is for me to go in with him,'" said Ziegler. She agreed to it,
and went in with Roletto. "Even then, we felt we needed to be
cautious," Ziegler continued. "But Bill was cool, he was out of it
but pretty interested that we were actually coming in -- he looked at
us as if to say, 'Wow, what are you doing?' He let us give him water
and some of the meds. He was always so trusting about what we wanted
to do, even though we wanted him to take some funny tasting things.
He was always so patient with us."
They doubted whether he'd make it through the weekend but he did.
After another rough day, his lips were blue and his condition "was
worsening by the hour," said Ziegler. The staff had been talking
about how euthanasia would be carried out, and now its necessity was
clear. At about 7 p.m. on June 26, Ziegler, Roletto and a veterinary
team gathered around Bill. They gave him an initial oral dose of
Telazol, an anesthetic. He became groggy. Roletto held his head and
his hand. Ziegler tried to give him a follow-up injection of the
anesthetic, but Bill swung his arm away. The vet tech volunteered to
do it and Ziegler left and returned a few moments later. Roletto said
that she also "lost it a little bit" and started to cry, something
she'd held back so Bill wouldn't be unnerved. But now he was going
under. "I just wanted him to go to sleep, so I held his hands and I
said, 'Go to sleep, babe, go to sleep, you're going to go to
Africa,'" she said. "To be there at the end and to have him holding
my hands meant a lot -- I hope it meant something for him. I didn't
want him to be alone. And he had Gretchen there ... I just wanted the
last thing he saw to be the keepers, and to have that love around
him."
Finally, the veterinarian administered an injection of Euthanol, a
heart-stopping barbiturate. Bill was brought down from the perch and
his death was confirmed. His body was transported to the coroner's
office for an autopsy, observed by a researcher from University of
California, Santa Cruz. She noted that Bill's skull cavity had an
unusual shape for a chimpanzee, and as a community debate started on
the propriety of using Bill's body for research, the zoo's staff
considered its potential for revealing new information about Bill and
the population of chimpanzees he was part of as an infant.
photo of Ziegler by memorialHis exhibit will be torn down and a
memorial to him and Ziggy will replace it. The Sequoia Park Zoo will
never have chimpanzees again. "We can't go back there, to those days
when Bill first got here," said Roletto. Asked how the chimp exhibit
fulfilled the zoo's education goals, Roletto said it "educated us
about our shortcomings."
Bill's significance might have had more to do with society. People
who visited him over the years, and those who say they loved him, had
a personal connection that's difficult to explain. Ziegler thinks it
involved eye contact, which Bill pursued, often locking his gaze on
individual visitors. And a lot could be read into his stare, because
his eyes were remarkably human-like.
"They seemed so perceptive," said Ziegler. "They didn't miss anything
at all. Even in his last hour -- they didn't miss anything."
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