Through a Window (38 page)

Relentlessly the desert inches forward, gradually replacing the life-sustaining forests with barren and uncompromising harshness. Plant and animal species vanish, lost to the world before we have learned their value, their place in the great scheme of things. World temperatures soar, the ozone layer is depleted. All around we see destruction and pollution, war and misery, maimed bodies and distorted minds, human and non-human alike. If we allow this desecration to continue we shall, ourselves, be doomed. We cannot meddle so greatly in the master plan and hope to survive.

Thinking of this whole terrible picture, the magnitude of our sin against nature, against our fellow creatures, I was overwhelmed. How could I—or anyone—make a difference in the face of such vast and mindless destruction?

A fig dropped close by, startling me. Fifi climbed from the tree and lay near me with closed eyes, replete. Here, at least, was perfect trust between humans and animals, perfect harmony between creatures and their wild environment. Faustino, tottering a little, moved close to me and, with his wide-eyed stare, reached to touch my hand, then wandered back to Fifi. Trust. And freedom. I thought of the countless chimpanzees who have lost their forest homes, and of the prisoners in zoos and labs around the world. I remembered the story of Old Man and how he had responded to the need of a human friend.

The will to fight, to fight to the bitter end, flared up. The chimpanzees need help now more than ever before, and we can only help if we each do our bit, no matter how small it may seem. If we don't, we are betraying not only the chimpanzees but also our own humanity. And we must never forget that, insurmountable as the environmental problems facing the world may seem, if we all pull together we have a good chance of bringing about change. We must. It is as simple as that!

Evered, Freud and Frodo climbed down and, with Fifi and Faustino, moved away, deep into the peace of the forest. I watched them go, then looked back. And where the sun shone through a window in the dense vegetation, a rainbow had appeared, spanning the spray-cloud at the foot of the waterfall.

AFTERWORD

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Appendix I
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE EXPLOITATION
OF NON-HUMAN ANIMALS

Appendix II
CHIMPANZEE CONSERVATION
AND SANCTUARIES

GOMBE BIBLIOGRAPHY

GOMBE RESEARCH AND SUPPORT

INDEX

ABOUT THE JANE GOODALL INSTITUTE

O
VER THE TWENTY YEARS
following the publication of
Through a Window,
the total number of chimpanzees in Gombe has decreased. In the 1970s there were four communities. In the preceding pages we have seen how the males of the main study community, the Kasekela community, annihilated the Kahama community during the shocking Four Year War. The Kalande community, perhaps fifty strong, then moved northward, pushing the Kasekelan victors back on that front, while the equally strong Mitumba community pressed in from the north. Then, in 1987, there was a terrible epidemic of a flu-like disease that killed many chimpanzees in the Kasekela community and possibly the other two communities as well. By 1988, the Kasekela community had declined from about fifty to as few as thirty-eight.

But the Kasekela community rebounded and gradually increased—t oday it numbers some sixty individuals, including eleven adult males, and has expanded its territory so that it now covers just over half the park. This expansion has been at the expense of the Mitumba and Kalande communities that were weakened not only by disease but by human farming activities, which had deprived the chimpanzees of key habitat outside the park. Also, evidence of some poaching surfaced in the south. Since 1993, Kasekela chimpanzees have not only acquired territory but
also have attacked and mortally wounded at least five chimpanzees from the neighbouring communities.

The Mitumba community was down to twenty-one individuals by 1997. And, for some inexplicable reason, some of the remaining Mitumba males, on two separate occasions, ganged up and killed males of their own community. Nevertheless, despite this seemingly non-adaptive behaviour, the community, which now numbers twenty-five, may survive as there are several young males who will soon come of age and be able to help defend their territory. Indeed, the large Kasekela community has lost at least one of its adult females to attacks from Mitumba males.

We know less about the Kalande community, which we have monitored since 1999 but never fully habituated. We think there were well over thirty chimpanzees even in the late 1990s, but today the maximum number does not exceed sixteen, and there could be fewer. This decrease was a result of habitat loss, disease and intercommunity violence. And there was evidence that one individual was killed by humans.

Family Histories

In the space I have left, I want to give a quick update about the individual chimpanzees I introduced in the preceding pages of this book.

THE G FAMILY: Let me start with Goblin and the rest of Melissa's children and grandchildren. Goblin lost his alpha position to Wilkie in 1989 during a fierce fight over a female, Candy. This left him with bad injuries to his scrotum. He kept well away from the other males during his convalescence (the story is told in the HBO film
Chimps: So Like Us)
but often groomed quietly with his sister, Gremlin. It was in keeping with his courageous, determined character that he made one attempt to regain his lost position—but it failed. He was again attacked, this time by many of the community—and once again he was driven into exile.

When Goblin finally rejoined the others, he played it safe, showing extreme submission to the high-ranking males. But while he never again tried to get to the top, he was very politically astute. When Freud became alpha, Goblin courted favor with him, gaining power from that friendship. When Frodo took over, Goblin transferred his attentions to him. He was even able to mate in their presence, usually after first "asking permission" by quickly glancing at, or briefly grooming or touching, his superior. But although he had much opportunity, it seems he sired no more offspring after his downfall. We think his injury must have left him sterile. Towards the end of his life Goblin looked old, his teeth worn to the gums. In August 2004, just before his fortieth birthday, he became sick. He showed up close to our research offices, possibly seeking help—for after his wounding we had taken him food and medicine. Mike Wilson, field director at Gombe at the time, writes, "We fed him, treated him with antibiotics, and several of us even spent the night in the forest with him, to ensure that he wasn't attacked by leopards or bush pigs." Mike describes how "he lay motionless in the bushes off the trail. It was terribly sad to see Goblin reduced to such a state. Despite our best efforts, he died."

Goblin's young brother Gimble, the survivor of Melissa's twins, was always small. After Melissa died, he spent a lot of time travelling with Goblin. Despite his small size he developed an impressive display, and at one time, during the early days when Frodo became alpha, Gimble was clearly the second-ranking male. After this he gradually lost rank. He was last seen in 2007 when he was only thirty years old.

Goblin's sister, Gremlin, after losing her firstborn, Getty (apparently killed for use in "witchcraft" or traditional medicine), had another son, Galahad, who was equally charismatic. We were devastated when she lost him also, during an epidemic of a flu-like disease in 2000.

After that her luck turned. Bill Wallauer actually filmed the
birth of Gaia. And he filmed, too, the extraordinary and quite unexpected murderous attack on the newborn by Fifi, Gigi, and Fanni. It was then that I realized that the similar attacks by Passion and Pom were not incidences of aberrant behaviour after all. Fortunately, against all odds, Gremlin managed to keep Gaia safe.

Gaia was five years old when, during one of my rare visits to Gombe in 1998 (and during the making of the IMAX film
Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees
), Gremlin came into the feeding area with twin girls, Golden (Goldie) and Glitta. I was the first human to see them. It was an exciting moment—that turned to horror when Fanni, supported by Fifi, tried to seize the babies. Again Bill was able to film the shocking event—and again Gremlin somehow managed to protect her babies.

She was a marvelous mother to the twins, and Gaia was a great help, spending much time playing with, grooming, and carrying one or the other. Gaia preferred Glitta, while the more adventurous tomboy, Goldie, formed a really close bond with Galahad until his tragic death.

The twins have flourished. When Gremlin gave birth to her next child, Gimli, the twins took it in their stride. Perhaps because they were always together—or perhaps because their father was the tough Frodo—they showed early signs of independence. It will be fascinating to see how their relationship develops as they attain maturity. And it will be especially interesting to see what happens on their first consortships. If, as is likely, they continue to cycle in synchrony with each other, will each go off with a different male? Will one male try to take both? Or shall we see our first example of a double date! (There was an occasion when Satan's ancient mother, Sprout, accompanied him on one of this consortships with a young female!)

Gaia had her first baby, Godot, in 2006. To our utter astonishment and dismay, Gremlin "stole" Godot very soon after his birth. He lived for five months but was always weak. Gremlin's son Gimli was tolerant of the sudden intrusion of his infant nephew. He was two years old and possibly got more than his fair share of milk. A year later Gremlin took Gaia's second baby—an autopsy showed it was stillborn and had never drawn breath.

Gaia soon became pregnant again and in 2008, to our delight, gave birth to twins. The gene for multiple births is, indeed, strong in this family! But our excitement turned to dismay when, for a third time, Gremlin intervened, snatching both babies away from her daughter. Neither survived, one dying at five days old and the other at thirteen days. It is hard to explain Gremlin's behaviour. When she stole Godot I thought that perhaps, after looking after her twins for so long, she felt she needed a second infant to keep Gimli company. And Gaia was so used to Gremlin taking one or the other of the twins from her that she accepted the loss of her own baby in the same way.

Recently I was thrilled to receive news of the family from Gombe. "We are extremely happy to report that Gaia has given birth again and her infant is doing well," wrote Anna Mosser, the field director. At 6
P.M.
on June 5, 2009, Gaia and her newborn son joined a big group. At midday on the sixth Gremlin appeared for the first time. She showed some interest in her grandchild, but Gaia kept her distance from her mother and held the infant close. "We continued to follow the G-family (Gremlin, Gaia, and infants Golden, Glitta, and Gimli) for the next five days," Anna wrote. During this time Gremlin continued to maintain possession. Her son is still alive at the time of writing.

Wilkie, as we have seen, took the alpha position from Goblin and reigned for three and a quarter years. He has always been a great groomer, and he has always been not only very highly motivated to mate with females but successful in his endeavours. DNA analysis shows that he has fathered at least six children, including Gaia.

THE F FAMILY: Fifi almost made it through the fifty years—she disappeared in 2004 along with two-year-old Furaha (meaning "Joy" in Kiswahili) and six-year-old daughter Flirt. They had been spending time in the north of their range and, although we shall never know, there is speculation that she was fatally attacked by Mitumba males—for she had shown no signs of ill health. To our delight, little Flirt showed up some weeks later. She often travelled with one or the other of her older brothers, Freud or Frodo.

Fifi was an incredibly successful mother—between 1971 and 2002 she gave birth to nine offspring, seven of whom are alive and well as I write. As she got older and rose in rank to become alpha female, so the intervals between births grew shorter. Her children all had different fathers, except for Fanni and Flossi, who are full sisters, fathered by Goblin. Fifi was a very special chimpanzee. I had known her since she was a tiny infant and there was a strange bond between us. Gombe, for me, can never be quite the same again.

But her sons and daughters and grandchildren are much in evidence: What an amazing family. We have seen how Flo's son Figan, with the help of his brother, rose to become a powerful alpha male. And three of Fifi's sons, Freud, Frodo, and Ferdinand—Flo's grandsons and Figan's nephews—have risen to the coveted alpha position.

Freud took over from Wilkie in 1993 and reigned for almost five years. He was, for the most part, a very laid-back alpha and spent much time grooming with the other males. But he did display, vigorously and repeatedly, at his childhood playmate Frodo, keeping his young brother in a state of terror. I was there once when Frodo, emitting small whimpers of fear, was kept up a palm tree for over an hour while Freud sat calmly grooming himself below.

Freud lost his position when he fell sick during an epidemic of sarcoptic mange. He began avoiding the other males. And
then one day Frodo found him, hiding in thick vegetation. The scene that followed was extraordinary—and Bill Wallauer captured the whole sequence on video. Freud, hearing calls from the group of males that Frodo had just left, at once tried to move away. But Frodo displayed around him and, as Freud screamed in fear, repeatedly shook branches as does a male who is trying to persuade a female to follow on a consortship. Freud, still screaming in terror, repeatedly tried to flee, but his younger brother showed no mercy, relentlessly forcing the sick male to follow him into the group of highly roused males. Bill was steeling himself to witness a fearsome gang attack—but to his amazement Frodo then protected his older brother, throwing rocks at the roused and displaying males.