David Braver of Pikesville was visiting the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, spending a pleasant day with his wife and grandkids, 6 and 4. The family walked up to the glass wall of the Chimp Forest to peer inside.
Suddenly, one of the chimpanzees raced straight for them, all 5 feet and 145 pounds of him. He crashed into the sturdy glass just inches away. Whomp!
The humans at the glass jumped back, shrieking, freaked out by this unexpected display of primate speed and muscle. The chimp ambled off, having ably demonstrated his adolescent male bravado.
That scenario happened over and over again Wednesday as Jack and Louie, the newest additions to the zoo's chimpanzee troop, explored the ropes, faux trees and the glass spectators' wall of their spacious new digs in Baltimore.
"They're just showing off, saying, 'I'm big and strong,'" zoo curator Mike McClure explained to a startled Braver, who was visiting with his wife Rhona, and grandkids Alexandra and Ben, of Philadelphia.
The children seemed … well, impressed. Little Alexandra pointed to the rope hammock inside the chimps' day room, and said, "I would like to play with that, but not the monkeys." Ben was speechless.
The chimpanzees — Jack, 14, and Louie, 11 — arrived in Baltimore June 11, part of an effort by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to relocate 14 chimps owned by Greg and Carol Lille. The Lilles are the owners of a 33-year-old Sacramento, Calif., chimp rescue facility that also produced educational shows for zoos. They supported their work by hiring out chimps for work in TV, movies and advertising.
Preparing now to retire, the Lilles asked the AZA to help them find safe, permanent homes for all their chimps. Two males have now been donated to the Oakland Zoo, in California, and 10 more — five males and five females — went to establish a new troop at the Houston Zoo in Texas.
The Maryland Zoo has acquired its chimps over the years through exchanges with other zoos, according to zoo spokeswoman Jane Ballentine. The swaps are typically done to augment the troop, or to replace animals that have died, and keep the troop's genetic mix healthy. Two chimps have been born here in the past five years.
Some TV, movie exposure
Jack and Louie were born in the Lilles' facility and spent a short time doing TV commercials and movies, McClure said. They know each other well, and are comfortable together.
"Louie's a little older, but they're both fairly large, really nice physiques," McClure said. "Jack's a really stout male, a good-looking boy." He's also a bit high-strung, and easy to distinguish because he's more active.
Chimps might be cute and funny when they're small, but McClure said the adults are not to be trifled with.
Although people share 96 percent of their DNA, "a chimp is five times as strong as we are, proportionally," he said. It becomes clear when they undergo medical procedures and need to be handled by people. "They're like concrete, so incredibly solid and dense. It's very sobering to me to see how powerful they really are."
Their strength is part of what makes them difficult, sometimes dangerous pets, said Steve Ross, of Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo, chairman of the AZA's Chimpanzee Species Survival Plan.
"Once they reach 8 years old, they really have no great value as actors anymore," Ross said. Many private owners end up turning them over to primate refuges when they can no longer manage them.
Ross orchestrated the relocation of the Lille chimps, the largest ever done by his group. He said the use of chimps in the entertainment industry "is not a viable business anymore."
There is also pressure on firms like the Lilles' to stop the use of chimpanzees in entertainment, Ross said. While the animals are not harmed on the set, training methods can be "aversive," and some animals return to housing that is "substandard."
"I don't think Greg and Carol Lille were part of that, but that's a known in the business," Ross said. "We were happy to help cut the entertainment industry for chimps in half."
The Lilles "really cared for those chimps and wanted to do the best thing for them," Ross said. The couple declined to be interviewed for this article.
There is another downside to the use of chimps for entertainment or advertising, Ross said. A recent study showed that when chimps are portrayed in tutus, or in other inappropriate ways, "it made people think the chimpanzee is not endangered. And of course chimpanzees are a very threatened species in the wild."
McClure visited the Lilles' facility before Jack and Louie were moved. "I was extremely impressed with how they handled them," he said. He was also relieved to see that Jack and Louie, despite their lifetimes in captivity, were "very chimp-like" in their behavior. They would fit in well, he hoped, with the Baltimore troop.
The Lilles investigated the Maryland Zoo, too, McClure said, to be sure it would be a good home, and its troop a good new family for their chimps. They agreed that it would.
What's ahead for Jack and Louie now, McClure said, is getting to know the zoo's nine other chimpanzees. They include the established male, Kasoje, 13, and the dominant female, Joice, 37. Then there are females Carole, 23; Bunny, 20; Renee,18; Raven, 15; Rozi, 5; Asali, 5; and Jambo, 4.
Getting to know each other
On July 20, after a month in quarantine, Jack and Louie were moved to new quarters behind the Chimp Forest, where they could see and hear the other chimps.
So far, there's been "just visual and audible contact. There is a lot of vocalization going on," McClure said. "Chimps are very loud."
"There hasn't been any touching or smelling," McClure said. But that's coming, too.
Gradually, the two "boys" will be moved closer to the others. And as they grow more familiar and comfortable around each other, the barriers and screens will gradually come down. If all goes well, the newcomers will be integrated with the troop. If not, they will have to be kept separated.
How long will the introductions take? "I would say months, easily," McClure said. "You really have a lot of individuals to introduce." But the humans will get their cues by observing the animals' comfort levels in their new surroundings, and how peacefully they interact as they come into closer contact.
On this day, it was time for Jack and Louie to explore their day room for the first time. The rest of the troop was in an outdoor display, but McClure figures their scents were everywhere in the room.
It's a large indoor space filled with faux tree trunks and branches, ropes and hanging platforms. It looks like an amusement park for chimps, with one long wall of glass where the humans look in.
Jack was the first to amble into the room. On his knuckles and hind feet, he paused to look around, like a shopper taking his bearings after entering a new mall. The black hair on his back bristled with excitement.
Before long, he climbed aloft, and began exploring the branches and ropes, from one end of the room to the other, sometimes moving hand-over-hand, suspended from the wire mesh ceiling.
Louie followed, and together they discovered high windows that look into zoo office space — portals where keepers and chimps can observe each other. Then they found romaine lettuce that had been tossed onto the mesh ceiling. They quickly figured out how to pluck it through the holes and make a snack of it.
"They are problem-solvers," McClure said.
After a while, the chimps settled on high perches, and seemed to relax. Then Jack dropped to the floor and, recognizing McClure at the window, swaggered over to him, his lower lip drooping and upper teeth covered by his upper lip. It's a greeting, and a sign of calm. "It's going well," McClure said.
By now, a new cluster of zoo-goers had gathered at the glass, fascinated with the chimps. "I think people see a little glimpse of themselves in chimps, and associate with them very strongly." McClure said. Maybe they get too comfortable.
Louie — or was it Jack? — grabbed a rope, swung out of a tree in a flash and thumped hard against the glass where the people stood. More shrieks.
"It was awesome, sort of like an adrenalin rush," says Jason Pikowski, 15, who had been standing with his face to the window. He was visiting the zoo from Harrisburg, Pa., with his mother Alison, 32; aunt Carolyn Pikowski, 30; and cousins Dasan, 4 and Aiyana, 2.
Jason grinned and, safe behind the glass, displayed some of his own adolescent male bravado. "I'd like to play with one of them," he said.