The Great Apes by Chris Herzfeld

Author:Chris Herzfeld [Herzfeld, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2017-03-18T04:00:00+00:00

Rajah the orangutan learned to ride a tricycle in three lessons.

(From William T. Hornaday, The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals, 1922)

Another orangutan, Dohong, developed faculties of invention and a surprising mechanical genius. Notably, he discovered the principle of leverage and applied it to different situations. In the heart of Paris, at the Ménagerie of the Jardin des Plantes, the female orangutan Nénette planned for several days how to unscrew the bolts of her cage. Her son Tubo cleaned the windows of his cage with a damp rag. At the Atlanta Zoo, the gorilla Billie B. adored certain television programs. He especially liked Luciano Pavarotti, the Italian tenor. Although he loved to be outside, he refused to go out if his favorite singer was on TV. At the Antwerp Zoo, the gorilla Victoria drew crisscrossing curves and lines on the window of her enclosure with bird excrement.

Captive primates are thus able to find for themselves in their surroundings the necessary materials to develop certain personal activities: tying knots, drawing, handiwork, making things. Within zoos great apes are also led to adopt certain of our social codes, as, for example, the female bonobo Hermien when she was living in the Planckendael Zoo in Belgium. Hermien developed the habit of “smiling” to greet the researchers when they appeared in the observation window of the laboratory. Showing teeth, however, is normally a sign of aggression among primates. Hermien nevertheless succeeded in transmitting this form of civility to her group. Isabelle, the daughter of Victoria, made as if to speak, moving her lips as she saw her visitors do, when she was in front of an audience.

Barter and Gastronomy Among Apes

In another register, the orangutans in the Ménagerie of the Jardin des Plantes perfected a particular tactic, based on bartering, to obtain sweets. Always in search of an interesting occupation, they regularly unscrewed the nuts and bolts of their cage, which worried the keepers, who feared these objects might be used inappropriately. The keepers got into the habit of getting the bolts back in exchange for biscuits. The primates, who never needed much coaxing, perfectly understood this process. Moreover, they made sure to give the bolts back one by one, keeping the others carefully hidden, in order to get even more treats. They thus learned the barter system.

At the zoo and aquarium of the Casa de Campo in Madrid, the chimpanzees learned to “prepare” meals. Linda, a female chimpanzee who arrived in 1992, had had her teeth taken out by a former owner. She developed the habit of scraping her food against the rough wall of the interior of her enclosure, then licking the pulp and juice obtained by this method. The process took from ten seconds to fifteen minutes for each fruit. The other chimpanzees began little by little to imitate this technique of making purée or juice from the fruit. In 1996, 450 hours of observation showed that apples, carrots, oranges, mandarins, tomatoes, cooked potatoes, and lemons were prepared using this method by different members of the group.

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