There is something happening on the chimp island.

There is something happening in the island chimpanzee group.  All of the big males are starting to show up with bite marks and tears, even TKC this 90kg bull of a chimpanzee. The core of the ruling males are TKC (the alpha), Carlos the tallest chimpanzee ever with the human eyes, Mokolo and Damian. There aren’t many males big enough to even try to take a spot higher than they have. Jules is a large male with one eye and a pretty black and reddish coat, but the older ladies still beat the hell out of him any time he gets out of place (including reaching for and grabbing their favorite humans, we are protected by Margaret and Suzie—I can say “we” now, I’ve earned my place with them).

There are two theories going around about what’s going on. 1) The Madames are taking over. The bigger older females who take shit from no one may in fact be tired of living under military rule and are taking over, I guess it happens and when it does it ends up being a much more peaceful ruling with an overall decrease in injuries to the troupe from fighting.  2) The smaller younger guys are banding together. We have two subspecies here, the Pan troglodytes ellioti and Pan troglodytes troglodytes , the elliotis can be much more political about things, in the absence of sufficient leadership, the will bind together to form their own, whereas the troglodytes  tend to rule in the traditional alpha male kind of way. Or this is what I’m told anyway, I’ve never read this, nor can I seem to find it anywhere.

What is clear, is that the boys are losing their power, you can see it in how their acting (there is much pouting, especially in TKC and Carlos), not just the wounds their showing up with.  TKC escaped the week before I got here and he’s been showing weakness ever since. He’s not been as active in the group as he usually is and Carlos will just outright flop on his belly on the floor and just sit there and pout in a really submissive position. Its strange to see something I am so afraid of acting like a baby, its hard to maintain that level of wariness when he keeps waddling over and making sad noises at you, but then I remember he did rip off another chimpanzees face and run around with the body.

Our new job is to watch the social interactions that are going on now and see who seems to be doing better than normal, and if any relationships have changed. I’m interested to see what the outcome of this is, where the power will go. 

(A small post script, since I originally wrote this three days ago. It seems to be some of the smaller males trying to take over. Standing in front of the island chimps while they were still in their satellite this morning we watched the interactions. TKC was still pouting, Carlos hugged him but it did little to brighten him. The biggest standout was Papa. Papa looks like what human 13 year old boys look like when they are going to be tall but aren’t yet.  His hands, feet and testicles/ scrotum are all huge while the rest of him is the size you would expect for a 9ish year old male chimp. He and Carlos were battling this morning, antagonizing each other with avocado pits from different rooms and doing the human equivalent of bumping chests before a fight, lots of posturing and peacocking.  It seems like Carlos is trying to hold this whole thing together but with a hierarchy of 6 chimps that are not consistently doing much in the way of ruling, it’s becoming more difficult to keep everyone in line. More observation will follow, but for now, it seems like there is an overthrow coming led by pubescent teenagers. What will make it more interesting is that Papa is due for surgery next week to fix an inner ear issue and will be in quarantine for some day. We'll see if his supporters hold it together or fall apart then.)

TKC pouting

 

 

 

 

shoulder post coconut carry

On a completely unrelated note, I turned retrieving coconuts into a wod (not that anyone is surprised) but I managed to make myself the sorest I’ve been since I tanked regionals last year. I took 12 in my internal frame hiking bag and walked the kilometer from the volunteer house to the sanctuary, then halfway around it to store them in quarantine, knowing we would have a series of later nights and I wouldn’t get a chance to wod for a couple days I decided to make it harder. I don’t know what 12 coconuts weigh, maybe 20lbs? (The whole thing from the tree, not just the husk you get at the store), so it wasn’t enough to be difficult. So I grab the biggest bag I have, this ridiculously big duffel bag that I can fit in. The only problem is it doesn’t have wearable straps, at least it doesn’t have straps that should be worn. So I pack in roughly 4 dozen coconuts, which ends up being 41kgs when I weighed the bag later (roughly 90lbs). I wore it like a backpack, with the short handles digging into my shoulders, bent 45 degrees at the waist the whole time to keep the bag from flopping backwards. So, dripping sweat in Mtn Rob and Gene fashion I walked the kilometer, all the while passersby calling out “Asha”, which roughly translates to “I’m sorry, that sucks”. The keepers weren’t surprised, everyone else thought I was retarded for doing it that way, which is probably at least a little true. But, in the end, we had 5 dozen coconuts to give the animals, which they loved. Quarantine got them yesterday, chimps today, and the gorillas will get them tomorrow. The bigger guys get the whole thing, its good to make them work for their food sometimes, it passes the time and then they get a reward at the end when they finally get it open. It takes them about an hour to get through everything.  We cut them up and fed the pieces to all of the smaller guys in quarantine.  Nvuru got to the middle, but then gave up, he did have a wonderful time tearing at the husk and splashing it through his water dish. There were indeed seed dispersal breaks.  (Funny story, one of the vets saw a white substance on the bottom of his enclosure and thought he had a tapeworm. There was much anxiety about the whole thing as they are pretty hard to get rid of and can do a nasty number on the body, especially certain types that go into the blood stream and affect the organs including the brain. They made a microscope slide to check the species, just to find out it was ejaculate. This whole thing is the in vet notes, good on them for putting it in, but I can’t say I wouldn’t have let that one go undocumented).  Never a dull moment at the sanctuary.

Leadership

There are many more people in leadership roles than should be leaders. There are those who envy the power, those that need to break people down in order to build themselves up (we have two inspectors here doing that very thing), those that need others to find value in them because they cannot do it themselves and a million other types 

But there are also those who should never do anything else, those that would be taking something from the world if they chose to do something else with their lives. I have had the privilege to learn under some of the most uplifting leaders, those without trying, or training can build you up and make you think that there are no barriers to what you can accomplish. Ainare, the director here, is one of those people.  She, two of my (human) roommates and I went on a drive yesterday after the last surgery at the sanctuary and just stared at the place the field site will be at, or one of the options anyway. It was a distant mountain in the haze of the hot day, but in her presence we could all see it. I took pictures of the drawing she made in the sand, of the truck with the mountain in the backround, of Ainare and the Jens pointing and planning, because I wanted to remember the beginning. In that moment, we could see it all, we could see the mona monkeys, drills, chimps and assorted other monkeys roaming the forest floor, climbing the trees and foraging for themselves.  We could see past the field site (more of a sanctuary in the forest than anything else) and onto years later when some will be able to be released into the wild. We could do that because she believed so fully that her vision blanketed all of us and we could see it too. 

There are few people who can manage that, who can take you in and in a positive way, challenge you to make things better with them. Leadership is not an easy thing, some people were born to do it, others learn, and then there are people like me who are crap at it.  Animals don’t have the issue of bad leadership. 

If someone in the chimp group tries to overtake the alpha male, he better not only be strong, but have the support of the group. He won’t be able to worm his way up some political ladder, he can’t inherit power from his father or pay someone for the position, earning it is the only option. TKC is the alpha male in the island chimpanzee group (leader of 37 of our 50 chimpanzees), and there are no contenders to his position. That being said, there is also Suzie. She is the matriarch of the group, she is one of the few left from when this was a zoo. Her coat is a blondish color from years of malnutrition and pulling her hair out or rubbing it off in her tiny cage. She also walks very slowly and stiffly due to a broken leg that was not treated and healed poorly giving her limited range of motion, and thus mobility. She looks much older than her 26 years, as do most things, people included, which have had a hard life. But woe be to the chimp that crosses her and makes her stamp her foot. The entire group will fly about the island alarm calling and raging, beating the offender until she is satisfied. But she is also largely gentle and calm. She took in Neo when his mother died, she grooms all of us, and usually just hangs out on the ground or one of the lower portions of the climbing structure. Suzie spent the day inside the other day, which is strange for her, but it happens, and I had my first opportunity to get to know her. We groomed each other, she untied my shoes, I poked her belly and tickled her. We had quite the moment.  I’ve read her file, so I know some of the particulars of the life she had, and with my soft spot for anyone on the B-team, I can’t help but want to be friends. She’s not pretty, she’s awkward when she moves but she has a great personality, she’s fun to watch and I was happy to make friends. I wouldn’t trust her to not bit my face off if it came to it, but in as much as we interact with them, especially those that will never be able to be fully released, it was a special moment for me, being accepted by the matriarch.

Fortune Favors

Fortune favors the bold

Fortune favors the prepared mind

Fortuna favet fatuis (Fortune favors fools). 

These are all true, especially the last one, for me anyway. I think most of the things I’ve done that I am proud of happened because I was too stubborn or foolish to realize I shouldn’t have done them. I’m the fat bumble bee that shouldn’t be able to fly, but somehow still manages. 

I am back in Limbe, falling into the familiar patterns of the city and the centre.  My first night here I had a tiny baby guenon on my head and the first full day I had them all over me. With a shortage of keepers I ended up back in the quarantine section for half a day. Cleaning the enclosure with the baby guenons (who are not so much the babies I left) had them using me as another piece on enrichment. For the record, I have a three guenon backside. 

Bakumba is much bigger now, and much more wild. She wants nothing to do with people anymore, including me. I was a little saddened, but ultimately this is a good thing, she will have to go back to the wild someday, and the less she wants to be around people the better for her. I was greated with a smile and traditional hello from Nvuru (the masturbating mandrill). He, it seems, has not changed at all.  Sagat the patas monkey now has a mini me as a friend, her name is Frieda (the species has a thick black line across their faces that makes them look like they have a unibrow).  And the baby chimps have a MUCH bigger satellite enclosure, which was really exciting. The one they had was made for a couple of chimps, not 5, one of which being 7 years old. Now there is room for more if it comes to it. I spent the morning with Mayos and she untied, unlaced and relaced my shoes (well, all the holes were accounted for anyway). It was kind of amazing to watch, she hates double knots and I thought she was going to rip the laces out of my shoes before she got it. 

My human roommate is a friend from my first visit, and the two non-human roommates took some getting used to. Edogue is a month older and much quieter, though quite crazy when left to her own devices, she peed all over Jens bed as a goodnight present. There is also Philip. I think the name suits him, he looks like sad old man. He isn’t much younger than Edogue, but they grow so fast that he looks stages behind. He came in the day before I did, riddled with shrapnel from the bullets that killed his mother, 8 pieces in his tiny body, and a burn mark from the bullet that passed through his mother and across his back. He screamed and cried the entire first two nights he was here, there was no consoling him, and given the trauma, it’s not surprising. He lives attached to a gibbon stuffed animal, and now that his wounds have closed, also attached to Edogue. She is his mother now even though she is only a month older. He clings to her like his life depends on it, and in turn she acts like any big sister and loves him sometimes and beats the hell out of him others.  Jen and I rejoiced last night when he took his first wobbly steps since he’s been with us. His eyes grow brighter and he becomes stronger. They weren’t sure he would make it when he came in, his eyes were clouded and his wounds were deep and swollen, but he’s managing thus far. Jen and I have much hope. 

I can’t be as stressed about the conference while being here, it puts too much into perspective. Animals like Philip make my stress seem a silly thing in the grand scheme. New hopes for release sites and the day to day running of the center seem like much better and worthy things to focus on.  And the director liked the posters I came up with and the project as a whole, so with a little bit of work over the next few days, I think I can make it into something I’m proud to present.