The #1 source for news about monkeys and apes

[Carrie McLaren <temporary181 AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

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."