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Coco: 50 years young

10/18/02

LAURA OPPENHEIMER

Coco ripped into presents and chomped treats straight from the container Thursday at her birthday party, demonstrating the decorum warranted at a toddler's bash.

But the Oregon Zoo's matriarch chimpanzee was turning 50. The zoo's oldest animal, Coco celebrated with dozens of onlookers who ate cupcakes, decorated chimp masks and belted out "Happy Birthday."

Coco and three cohorts scampered across their outdoor living area to find brightly wrapped boxes of fruit, nuts and cereals that keepers had hidden. Though she has lived longer than most chimps -- the average lifespan in captivity is 40 to 50 years -- Coco isn't showing her age. The chimp recently received a clean bill of health.

Coco is the last remaining chimp from a group of females who became important study subjects in the late 1970s and early 1980s. By working with Coco and other Oregon Zoo chimps, researchers learned that babies need to be left with their mothers much longer than anybody had realized.

Work with the mother of 17 chimps ultimately helped to create rules used nationally in the raising of primates -- and helped Coco become a better mother.

She was born in the wild but raised as a pet somewhere in the United States. In 1961, her owners donated her to the zoo, where keepers picked an estimated date to celebrate her birthday.

"At that time, it was pretty easy to get a chimp as a pet," said Nancy King Hunt, a researcher who studied Oregon Zoo chimps for more than a decade. "People thought they were adorable and cute and wonderful. Then they would discover, 'Oh my, this thing we thought was cute is now ripping the chandelier out of the ceiling and can't be potty-trained."

As a psychology major at Portland State University, Hunt began scrutinizing Coco and several other Oregon Zoo chimps in 1977. She returned to the zoo after finishing graduate school to broaden her study.

Working with longtime chimp keeper David Thomas, Hunt found that chimps removed from their parents too soon weren't having babies. Chimps separated from their mother before their first birthdays reproduced just 44 percent of the time. Of those who stayed longer, almost 93 percent became parents.

Zoos had often assumed that a full-sized chimp didn't need its parents anymore. Some were taken away as infants and raised in nurseries, where they wore diapers and interacted mostly with humans. Hunt suspected that during those years chimps missed important opportunities to mimic parents' behavior and develop sexually.

In recognition of their research, Hunt and Thomas wrote part of the chimpanzee Species Survival Plan, a breeding and rearing manual that must be followed by members of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association. Now, zoos are asked to keep chimps with their mothers for at least three to five years, and preferably until the mother gives birth again.

Coco probably spent her first few years with her parents, Thomas said, but she became a less-than-attentive mother. Keepers watched her set babies on the ground and ignore them.

Trying to reverse the pattern, zoo workers started removing Coco from public viewing each time she had a baby.

"It's just common sense," Thomas said. "If somebody came in and took a baby, after a while every time you had a baby you'd be agitated when you saw somebody walking into a room."

Over time, Coco became a stellar mother, Thomas and Hunt said. She kept a watchful eye on her babies, comforted them when they got hurt and even spoiled them by allowing them to nurse too long.

They said Coco can be nervous about change and a little aloof, and she doesn't crave human interaction the way some of her peers do. But she earned the respect of all her fellow chimps and coped well when her closest friend, Debbie, died three years ago.

Two of Coco's daughters still live at the zoo, and they were part of the festivities Thursday. Coco looked on as the others inhaled some of the birthday treats.

"You couldn't ask for a more loving mother," Thomas said. "That's what she really added to our group: Her maternal instincts were so amazing to me."

Copyright 2002 Oregon Live. All Rights Reserved.

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