The #1 source for news about monkeys and apes

[Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/la-000070911sep02.story

Los Angeles Times

September 2, 2001

Raised by humans, three baby chimps at the L.A. Zoo face the daunting 
task of learning the ups and down of living among their own.

BYLINE: RENEE TAWA, TIMES STAFF WRITER

BODY:
The Old Guy is white-bearded and wise, the Obi-Wan Kenobi to three 
babies on most days. But the morning is hot, and, in a rooftop play 
area at the Los Angeles Zoo, the air hangs heavy with smoke. 
Helicopters zoom to a nearby brush fire. Toto, who is missing a few 
teeth, grimaces and stomps his feet at the intrusions. The 
47-year-old chimpanzee screams, o7 Hoo-Hoo-Hoo-Hoo. Waa! Waa! f7 He 
hurls a plastic blue barrel at the wall, with all the force of his 
140-pound muscular frame. o7 Thwack f7 .

The baby chimps freeze. On the floor, they cuddle in choo-choo-train 
formation. Jean, who's smart and bratty, is in back; Jake, a bundle 
of macho energy, is in the middle; Zoe, the bravest of the three, is 
in front. The 2-year-olds, who grew up without mothers, cling to each 
other when they're scared or stressed. Wide-eyed, they scoot as one, 
30 pounds each of jiggly baby fat, dragging a yellow blanket. 
Somewhere. Anywhere. Away from the Old Guy. Toto's tirade is nothing, 
really, a bit of territorial marking by a former alpha male in the 
zoo's adult group. The three baby chimps will join the adults soon, 
if all goes well in a lengthy transition process marked by the 
unexpected. Two years ago, the babies were taken from their mothers 
and raised in the zoo nursery by humans who bottle-fed them and 
tucked them into cribs every night. This summer, Jean, Jake and Zoe 
are getting to know the other adult chimps for the first time, 
starting with the group's two respected elders, Toto and 45-year-old 
Bonnie.

"What a couple of nice folks to meet if you're going to figure out 
you're a chimp, and figure out this is where you belong," says lead 
chimp keeper Vicki Bingaman, in the early stages of the babies' 
transition. "Right now, all we want to do is get them to a point 
where they're playing and happy and comfortable with Bonnie and Toto. 
That should ease their fears about going in, and they'll know a 
little more about how to behave when they meet others in the group."
In early 1999, media reports worldwide had framed the 13-member adult 
group in soap opera-ish terms of sex, power and murder. A series of 
dramatic events began with the surprise birth of a baby chimp and 
peaked with the infant's death at the hands of two of the juveniles. 
In the aftermath, officials at the city-owned zoo decided to 
hand-rear Jean and Jake, along with Zoe, who arrived later from 
another zoo. Even then, the plan was to eventually move the babies to 
the adult group, which includes Jean's and Jake's mothers. (During 
this transition, the babies are not on public display.)

On this morning, Bingaman despairs as the babies escape Toto's rage 
in their aimless conga line shuffle, with no protector in sight. In 
her 40s, Bingaman is the mother of two adult sons and has overseen 
the adult chimps for 13 years. "See how they sort of cling together? 
Hold on to each other? Oh, they need to toughen up, you know what I 
mean? They need to be able to handle themselves in the group. They're 
going to need to be tough."

In the adults' old exhibit, where the chimps had huge fights, Toto 
was the biggest instigator of them all.

Before director Manuel A. Mollinedo took over in 1995, the adult 
chimps had lived in cramped, run-down quarters with a concrete play 
area. In August 1998, Mollinedo opened their $5-million new home, 
"Chimpanzees of Mahale Mountains," which includes a waterfall and 
grassy hills. The exhibit marked a turning point for the troubled 
zoo. Under fire for everything from its exhibits to its management, 
the zoo was in danger of losing its accreditation. The chimps' 
expanse was the zoo's first new exhibit in nine years.

A few months after the opening, an unfolding drama prompted the 
biggest media onslaught that Mollinedo has faced in his 61/2-year 
tenure. In January 1999, keepers, who did not know any of the chimps 
were pregnant, arrived for work one morning and found a female 
cradling a newborn, later dubbed Toshi. Zoo officials later 
discovered that two other female chimps were pregnant, even though 
none of the males were likely breeding partners. All of the male 
chimps had undergone vasectomies or were considered too young to 
breed, except for Toto, the Old Guy, who has never shown interest in 
sex. (DNA tests later exposed 11-year-old Shaun as the one who was 
able to mate with the three females after a failed vasectomy.)

Jean was born next, in May 1999, and then, 11 days later, the story 
turned ugly. Two juvenile chimps grabbed Toshi away from her mother, 
and in rough play, accidentally killed the 4-month-old infant. Zoo 
officials attributed Toshi's death to a power struggle among young 
male chimps who were trying to establish dominance.

The tense situation prompted Mollinedo's difficult decision to take 
Jean from her mother. Zoo officials decided that Jake, who was born 
two weeks later, would also be raised in the nursery. In September 
1999, the two babies were joined by 10-week-old Zoe from Lion Country 
Safari in Florida, where her mother, a former laboratory chimp, had 
shown no interest in her.
Critics had argued that the babies should be kept with their mothers. 
But "the decision was made to save those babies' lives," Mollinedo 
says. Now, the babies' transition is critical in "really establishing 
and ensuring our credibility in our community," he says.

More than two years after Toshi's death, tensions among the adult 
chimps have eased. All the adult females are on birth control pills, 
except for Bonnie, and another chimp, who had a tubal litigation. The 
power struggle is over. Jerrard, 11, has emerged as the alpha male in 
the fluid social hierarchy, which could change again soon. "When we 
introduce those babies, that's going to create some new dynamics in 
that group, and we're going to have to monitor it very closely," 
Mollinedo says. "We're talking about changing the social structure of 
that troop. We're all going to learn a lot."

Zookeepers do not exaggerate when they describe chimps as having 
personality traits as distinct as humans, says USC's Craig B. 
Stanford, chairman of the anthropology department and co-director of 
the Jane Goodall Research Center. (Chimp and human genes are more 
than 98% alike, making them our closest relatives).

"In the old days, there was a reluctance to acknowledge it, but today 
there's an acknowledgment that [chimps] do share the same basic human 
emotions," says Stanford, author of "Significant Others: The 
Ape-Human Continuum and the Quest for Human Nature" (Basic Books).

"As far as the whole question, 'Are we reading too much into it?' I 
think, for most of history, we've read too little into it." But 
chimps in captivity still are wild animals, capable of brutality, 
Stanford warns.

In zoos, adult chimps typically don't attack babies, says Randy Fulk, 
who tracks chimpanzees for the American Zoo and Aquarium Assn. Baby 
chimps get hurt or die only when they get caught in the middle of a 
melee, says Fulk, curator of research at the North Carolina Zoo.

Adults usually are tolerant of babies who join them after being 
raised by humans, though it's possible for the group to reject the 
little ones. "The only real problem that comes up," Fulk says, "is an 
animal that doesn't pick up the social skills properly and gets stuck 
on the bottom of the hierarchy." In the last few years, several U.S. 
zoos have moved baby chimps from nurseries into adult groups without 
major problems, Fulk says. Chimp keepers compare notes on such moves, 
but take their lead from the dynamics and personalities of the 
animals in their care.

In February 1999, the St. Louis Zoo, for instance, took on two baby 
chimps that were rejected by their mothers at other zoos. During the 
next several months, the keepers eased the two female babies into the 
adult group. Ingrid Porton, curator of primates, was unprepared for 
the reaction of the young male chimps. "Imagine," she says, "teenage 
boys--they're proving their manhood and are kind of 
testosterone-driven--but they've just been excellent with the kids!" 
The juveniles sometimes carry the two young ones on their backs, she 
says, the way mothers do.
The babies "seem pretty happy and very interactive," Porton says, but 
"they show some of the insecurities of being hand-raised. If they get 
nervous, they [grab] a blanket or pile of hay or cling to each other. 
When you hand-raise, unfortunately, you never can duplicate what a 
mother can provide."

In the wild and in captivity, baby chimps hold on to their mothers 
almost all day for their first two years or so, and stay by their 
sides until they are 5 or older. They learn how to behave--the 
difference between play biting and retaliation biting, for 
instance--by watching their mothers.
In the nursery, Jean, Jake and Zoe were zoo stars. Crowds pressed 
against the windows, tickled at the way Jean pursed her lips and made 
raspberry noises with her keepers and the way the three babies pulled 
each other's diapers off.

By late 1999, over a period of several months, the babies began 
making short and then extended visits to the adults' 
behind-the-scenes living quarters, while the grown-ups were out of 
sight on public exhibit. In their nursery keepers' arms, the babies 
headed outside to check out the exhibit, watching the adults from a 
distance, and then in close range. "I honestly believe," Bingaman 
says, "that when they first came up here, they hadn't a clue that 
they were chimps. Really. They would look at Toto and Bonnie and the 
chimps and go, 'Whoaaa. What ... ?"'
That November, the babies moved from the nursery to their own room in 
the adults' building. (At night, the adults come off exhibit to sleep 
in adjoining rooms, and the babies peer at them through a window 
covered with mesh.) Jake's mother checked the babies out but didn't 
seem to single out any one. Jake had only spent two days with his 
mother, who woke from anesthesia to find him gone.

But Jean's mother, Gracie, lingered at the babies' door. Gracie 
couldn't take her eyes off Jean, who had spent three weeks with her 
and tried to reach for her. Gracie hasn't stopped trying, but Jean 
does not appear to remember her mother, Bingaman says.

As the babies settled in, Bingaman chose Toto and Bonnie for key 
mentoring roles.
Bonnie, who was recovering from a fall and a possible stroke, was too 
weak to do much nurturing. That left most of the parenting to Toto, 
though male chimps do more playing with babies than protecting and 
nurturing.

Toto, who was born in the wild, is a former circus chimp. He loves to 
play and loves to fight. In his heyday as alpha male, keepers say, he 
once got mad at another chimp and chased her around a moat. His hair 
stood straight up on end. Toto pulled his face back so his ears 
turned pointy, the way dominant males do when they want to appear 
larger and meaner. He looked like the devil and acted the part, 
throwing a log at the offending chimp and spitting an arc of water at 
her.

Toto's behavior wasn't out of line for a dominant male. The babies, 
in fact, should be prepared for worse from the adults, who typically 
slap, bite and scream at one another. Group members also kiss, hug 
and groom one another as part of a series of social rituals that 
reinforce relationships. Chimps build relationships through play, and 
the babies needed someone to show them how.

In March, Bingaman moved Toto and Bonnie next to the babies' room, 
instead of sending the two older chimps out into the exhibit. She 
pulled up the cover on a small window between the adjoining rooms, 
leaving just enough space for the babies to crawl through.

The Old Guy wagged his arm under the window, eager for play, but the 
babies stuck to their in-line huddle. In the next few days, there was 
little action in the hour or two of playtime. Once, Zoe worked up the 
nerve to touch Toto's hand and snuggle against it until Jean, the 
cautious one, pulled her back. A week later, Bingaman lifted the 
window cover all the way up.
Toto backed away so the babies wouldn't be scared and walked up steps 
to a landing. He sat down, munched on a carrot and watched the babies 
duck into the room and look around. "They didn't play with him or 
anything," Bingaman remembered. "Then he came down, and it was back 
to, 'Oh, my Lord!"' Then the babies ran back to their room.

In the next few weeks, Toto and Bonnie each worked to put the babies 
at ease. One day, Bonnie, a loving mother of two, sat next to Jean 
and built a hay hill between them. Then she eased her hand over and 
patted Jean on the head. "Jean still freaked out," Bingaman says, 
"but [Bonnie] tried. Gently, gently." If the babies acted up, Bonnie 
used a ball or toy to tap them on the head.

Meanwhile, Toto tried to get the babies to play. He tickled their 
feet. He ran around, trying to stir up a game of chase. He rolled 
balls toward them. Zoe was the first to break out of the baby huddle 
and run to Toto's side, followed by Jake, then Jean.

The play dates were proceeding more slowly than expected, but 
Bingaman still was happy to see the babies gain confidence. In June, 
the babies spent the night with Toto and Bonnie for the first time. 
Bingaman slept on the floor outside the babies' bedroom in case they 
needed her, but they didn't.

Every two hours, Toto woke up. He checked on the babies and on 
Bingaman, who would open her eyes and find Toto peering down at her. 
Zoe was buried under blankets, so Toto patted the outline of her body 
to make sure she was OK. Then he went back to bed.

On a recent summer morning the five chimps head outside to the 
rooftop "penthouse," a fenced-in play area in back of the adults' 
exhibit. Off the main road but in a public area, the penthouse is 
surrounded by plumbego flowers and furnished with fire hoses for 
swinging and logs for jumping. But with a brush fire nearby, none of 
the five chimps are in the mood to play, much to the disappointment 
of zoo visitors, who observe Toto's rage and wonder aloud if he's an 
"abusive parent."

Behind the scenes, though, Toto is taking on more than the mentor 
role that Bingaman had envisioned. One afternoon, for instance, 
Pandora and her 5-year-old son, Ripley, stay next-door to the babies' 
playroom. Jake and Ripley stick their fingers through the 
mesh-covered window and begin to play. Toto, who sees the way Pandora 
is stalking around, ushers Jake away from the window when she 
approaches. At one point, Pandora manages to grab Jake's finger and 
bite it.

"If she was really hateful and horrible," Bingaman says, "he wouldn't 
have a finger because she had plenty of time to bite it off. She held 
on, and Toto just was hysterical, trying to pull him away and calling 
for Bonnie."

She feels bad that Jake got hurt, Bingaman says, but is cheered by 
the way Toto stepped in as a protector. Lately, the Old Guy has even 
been acting like a mother, giving Jean rides on his back. And he is 
an example for Jake, who is starting to rush to the defense of the 
other two babies and react like Toto to perceived threats, with foot 
stomping and bristling hair.
At the end of July, Bingaman brings the five chimps inside from the 
penthouse, off public display. She wants the babies to get used to 
the three female chimps who have been moved next-door to their 
playroom. Better that the babies learn from individual females in the 
comfortable confines of the 12-by-15-foot day room than make mistakes 
in the big group on the intimidating 1-acre expanse.

One August afternoon, after a day on her feet, Bingaman plops on the 
floor in front of the day room, a sunny yellow space that is fronted 
by a grid of steel bars. Toto sits near the door, and Bonnie naps on 
the landing.

Zoe is the sleepy one among the babies, the first to turn in at 
night. She loves naps and her bottle of baby formula but doesn't fuss 
when Jean and Jake get their bottles first. The babies are good about 
not fighting over food, which includes jicama and bananas. Jake is a 
wild-haired chimp who looks a little rumpled. He likes to play chase 
with Toto, though his favorite playmate is Jean, whom he has always 
adored. Lately, Jake has been standing up to Toto. If the Old Guy 
barks at him in annoyance, he barks right back. On this afternoon, 
Jake grabs a fire hose that is attached to the ceiling, jumps from 
the landing and swings one-handed in big swoops, a piece of lettuce 
in the other hand.

He joins Zoe, who is reaching through the front bars to try to untie 
Bingaman's boot laces. Meanwhile, Jean ducks under Toto's left arm. 
Hidden by his bulk, Jean sneaks an arm into the pockets of Bingaman's 
khaki shorts and tries to steal her Chapstick.

Jean is a charmer, who still blows raspberries at people. She is also 
the baby chimp who misbehaves the most. A moment after her failed 
Chapstick bid, Jean swings on a fire hose and swats Bonnie in the 
head. "Jean, don't hit her!" Bingaman calls. Jean picks on the ailing 
Bonnie for no obvious reason, other than the fact that she can get 
away with it. At bedtime, the previous night, Jean stole Bonnie's 
blankets again and again. Bonnie got up, ambled downstairs and 
retrieved her blankets without striking back.

The other adult chimps, Bingaman says, won't put up with Jean's 
brattiness. "She's going to get smacked around. She'll learn. It may 
not take that long. I wish Toto would be a little more forceful with 
her. He does put her in her place. The other day, he smacked her 
right in the head, and she went, 'Oh! Well, I guess I'll behave for a 
little while."'

Bingaman turns her attention to Zoe, who hangs on the bars for a back 
scratch. Then Zoe scampers off to join Toto, who sits in the middle 
of the room. For five minutes or so, the Old Guy and the baby play 
together. Zoe sprawls on her back while Toto tickles her with one 
hand. Then both hands. Zoe laughs, a delighted panting sound. He 
tries to stop, but the 2-year-old grabs his hand and makes him keep 
at it. He rolls on his side and catches her leg in his mouth. Then 
he's tired.

It's 5:15 p.m. Toto gathers up some hay, walks the steps to the 
landing, grabs a white sheet and lies down on his side. (Toto isn't 
down for the count yet; captive chimps can live into their 60s.) 
Bingaman hates to see the babies' day end like this. "They love 
Toto," she says, "but Toto is a guy, and Toto does not give them the 
nurturing that they need. He plays with them, and he'll discipline 
them, and he'll protect them, but he's not a mother who will cuddle 
them up at night and hug them when it's time to go to bed."

The babies watch her pack up for the day. "Sweet kids," Bingaman 
murmurs. "We're gonna go, OK? Tired? You better go get a blanket." 
She turns up a classical music station on the radio and heads out the 
door. The babies revert to their group cuddle, their usual reaction 
to Bingaman's departure and a sign that they have grown up without a 
family.
"They need the aunties and uncles, and they need to watch the guys 
grow up, so Jake can learn how to be a guy, and the girls need to 
know their boundaries and their [social] structure," Bingaman says. 
"I know they belong there, and it's a promise I made those [mother 
chimps] when we took their babies from them. That they would go back."

Bingaman has not set a date for their final move. First, she will see 
whether Jean, Jake and Zoe forge relationships with individual female 
chimps in the coming weeks, another critical juncture in the 
transition process. An aunt or mother to break them into the family 
and hug them until it's time to go out in public.

"My dream is that they won't have to walk and go out on their own," 
says Bingaman, "that they're going to be riding on some female's back 
and going out with them, and they're going to have that female to 
protect them. That's my dream."

GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Zoe, left, Jean and Jake are the three 2-year-old 
chimps who were raised without mothers. PHOTOGRAPHER: KEN LUBAS / Los 
Angeles Times PHOTO: Baby Jake, left, looks on as Zoe laughs when 
tickled by Toto, one of the adult chimpanzees that the 2-year-old 
babies are learning how to live with at the apes' compound at the Los 
Angeles Zoo. PHOTOGRAPHER: KEN LUBAS / Los Angeles Times PHOTO: Vicki 
Bingaman, with Zoe, is coordinating the babies' entry into the adult 
world. PHOTOGRAPHER: KEN LUBAS / Los Angeles Times PHOTO: Zoe, left, 
and Toto, who sometimes acts as the protector of the babies, play in 
the chimp penthouse with a water hose. PHOTOGRAPHER: KEN LUBAS / Los 
Angeles Times