9

War

2004

Loxahatchee, Florida

Higgy faced toward a strong wind as he sat at the edge of the water. He stayed very still, watching and waiting. Across the water was the object he was studying: a zookeeper’s rowboat being rocked back and forth by the wind. Though a small corner of it remained on land, most of the boat was floating in the water. Each time a large gust of wind would blow by, the boat would slide a little bit more off the land. Strong waves on the water lifted the corner of the boat up off the land and back down again.

In the distance, on top of their shelter, stood Hank surrounded by his alliance of Nana, Prime, Kathy, Chuckie, Cashew, and Kipper. The seven of them, like Higgy, silently watched the boat.

When the boat finally detached itself from the last fragment of land it was holding onto, none of the chimps vocalized. The wind and waves began carrying the boat toward Higgy. In preparation, Higgy stood up. Cindy, Gin, Elgin, and Little Mama gathered around him. Steadily, the boat made its way over to the five chimpanzees on the edge of the island. When the boat was in reach, Higgy stretched out his hand and grabbed the edge of the boat. He held the boat still as Cindy, Gin, Little Mama, and Elgin all calmly stepped in. Just as Higgy was about to step into the boat, a zookeeper appeared at the door of the indoor holding facility. The zookeeper began vocalizing a distress call to another zookeeper, who was still inside.

The other zookeeper appeared, holding a bottle of soda to his mouth. When he looked at Higgy, the other chimps, and the boat, the bottle of soda fell to the ground. Immediately he began yelling at Higgy and gesturing wildly to him. When Higgy saw this, he placed one leg inside the boat and pushed the boat out into the canal with his other leg. Once completely in the boat, Higgy reached down and picked up the gondola pole.

Hank vocalized from the top of the shelter. Higgy turned and called back to him. The rest of the chimps in the boat were relaxed. In front of Higgy, to his right, was Elgin. He was seated, facing forward, with his right arm resting on the side of the boat. To Higgy’s left was Little Mama. She was clutching her burlap sack in front of her. Like Elgin, she too faced directly ahead. In front of Elgin and Little Mama, seated in the center of the boat, was Cindy. Gin was in front of everyone, climbing up on the bow of the boat. When Higgy first attempted to propel the boat with the gondola pole, he only managed to rotate the boat in the water. Gin was now facing the island and Higgy’s back was now to the zookeepers. Elgin, Little Mama, and Cindy didn’t move or change their expressions.

The zookeeper jumped into the water and began swimming toward the boat. At this point, Higgy succeeded in pointing the boat back toward the shore. Using the pole, he propelled the boat forward. The boat was now quickly headed toward the shore. The zookeeper intercepted the boat before it could reach the land and held onto it. He looked up to see that Gin was right above him. She screamed at him and began searching around the boat. Finally, she found a long-handled brush, picked it up, and began hitting the zookeeper on the head with it. The zookeeper sank into the water. When he came up for air, she swung the brush at him again. This time, he was able to duck out of the way.

Swimming away from the boat, he noticed that the end of the safety rope (the one normally used to pull the boat back from the crank in case of emergency) was floating near him. The other end was still attached to the boat. He picked up the rope and swam back toward his coworker. He shouted something at her which made her run inside and grab a fire extinguisher. She threw the fire extinguisher to the zookeeper, who caught it in the water. Slowly, holding the fire extinguisher above his head, he made his way back to the boat.

He arrived at the boat on the opposite side of Gin. Holding the fire extinguisher in one hand and turning the boat with the other, he was able to point the boat back toward the island. He shoved the boat as hard as he could. When it hit the edge of the island, he sprayed the fire extinguisher into the air. The chimps, fearing the fire extinguisher, jumped off the boat and landed back on the island. The zookeeper shouted loudly to his coworker. She pulled the boat. The boat retreated from the island. The zookeeper grabbed it and rode it all the way back to the shore. Higgy stood at the edge of the water and shouted. Gin jumped up and down. Hank began displaying from the top of the shelter. The zookeeper crawled up onto land, looked over at the chimps on the island, and collapsed.

*   *   *

As I lay there, I looked up at the sky and pondered what had just occurred. Higgy had conceded his group to Hank. He was leaving with what was left of his alliance. They were going to a different location, away from Hank, Nana, Prime, Kathy, Chuckie, Cashew, and Kipper. What had truly stunned me was the fact that everything had been accomplished in silence. Yet, somehow all of the chimps knew exactly what they were going to do. Little Mama, Cindy, Gin, and Elgin all knew to join Higgy at the water and to silently climb into the boat. Hank and the rest of his alliance knew not to get in the boat with them. The entire thing had seemingly been planned. I sat up and looked over at the group. Higgy and his alliance had retreated to one side of the island. Hank and his group were still on top of the shelter. This war had just begun.

There were noticeable changes in Higgy now that he was being challenged. For one thing, he had lost much of the swagger in his walk that was so distinctive. His displays had also changed. They were less controlled, more unpredictable than before. This was the first time he had ever been challenged and it was appearing to cause him a great deal of stress.

A few weeks after the boat incident, I arrived at the park one morning and began my rounds. This entailed me looking at every chimpanzee to make sure that none of them had been injured overnight and that everyone was acting healthy and normal. When I arrived at Higgy’s island, the first thing I noticed was that Gin had blood dripping down her chin. She was grooming Higgy and chewing on something. I looked for any sort of cut on her face. Instead of finding any sort of gash, I found that the blood was coming from her mouth. Each time she chewed, more blood would dribble out of her lips. I tried to see what she was chewing on, but her mouth was closed tightly. I called to her but she didn’t turn around. I threw a banana over to her to see if she would open her mouth so I could see inside. She didn’t pick it up. Little Mama grabbed it instead.119 Gin continued to groom Higgy with her mouth closed.

I looked around at the other chimps in the group. That’s when I noticed Hank. He had a strange expression on his face. He was walking around with just one corner of his mouth open extremely wide. His walk was fairly unstable. I, again, looked through the binoculars, this time to get a closer look at Hank’s mouth. Hank wasn’t opening one side of his mouth. What I was actually seeing was that Hank’s right cheek was missing. His teeth and gums on that side were completely exposed. There was blood all over his right ear and shoulder. I looked back over to Gin. She now had her mouth open and was spitting something into her hand. She looked at it for a few seconds then put it back in her mouth and resumed chewing. I could only assume that it was Hank’s missing cheek.

Hank wobbled over to Nana. She pulled his head close to her and started grooming his cheek. For the next few weeks, Hank and his alliance were quiet. There were no fights or big displays. For the time being, it appeared that Higgy, thanks to Gin, had regained control of his group.

Hank’s cheek healed surprisingly quickly. Within a month, it was hard to tell that anything major had happened to him. During this time, he became increasingly more contentious. Frequently he could be seen perching himself on the roof of a shelter and stamping his foot very powerfully against it. Then he would add loud vocalizations. This would climax with him throwing a large object (usually a rock or a bucket) off the top of the shelter and screaming. Higgy would watch the displays from a distance. His only reactions would be quiet grunts.

Higgy began countering Hank’s displays with his own shows of strength. These were louder and more powerful than Hank’s, and they usually concluded with Higgy charging at whatever chimp happened to be closest to him (usually Elgin).120 Showing his power, he would hit the chimp with his open hand as he screamed. Like Higgy, Hank would watch from a distance. As the weeks went on, the displays grew more intense.

Despite the displays, everything else seemed to be back to normal. Higgy was spending more time with Hank’s alliance. At one point, Higgy, Nana, and Cashew were grooming each other in the shelter. Higgy began acting like an undisputed alpha male again. It was, perhaps, this sense of false calm that led Higgy to let his guard down, a mistake that Hank’s alliance would seize as an opportunity.

I had just set up an empty island for Higgy’s group. New branches and fresh hay covered the ground. Fruits, vegetables, and popcorn were scattered around. The island was ready and I was prepared to open the bridge. I threw the rope to my coworker and poled the boat over to the crank. The group waited patiently, as they always did. Nana and Prime were in front of the rest of the group. Sitting calmly behind them was Cindy. Hank was a few chimpanzees behind her. Higgy was sitting outside of the line, surveying the group. When the bridge opened, Nana and Prime jumped on and ran to the other island. Once there, they immediately started to eat. The rest of the group followed. Higgy, as usual, stayed where he was and watched everyone pass. Elgin was surprisingly quick going over the bridge and was in front of Little Mama, who was holding the burlap under her arm as she sauntered over the bridge. Once everyone was safely on the other island, Higgy began to cross the bridge.

I looked over at the chimps on the island. I noticed that Elgin, Little Mama, and Cindy were all sitting where most of the food was. I found this strange because, normally, Nana and Hank would occupy those areas. I wondered why Elgin, Little Mama, and Cindy were being allowed to eat whatever they wanted. I looked around the island. I realized that I didn’t see Hank or Nana.

I turned back to Higgy, who was now in the middle of the bridge. Just as he reached the exact center, Nana ran onto the bridge. The hair on Higgy’s back and shoulders stood straight up. Nana was now face-to-face with him in the middle of the bridge. I looked over to see Hank and Prime at the edge of the bridge, staring at Higgy. Vocalizing, Higgy began trying to walk past Nana to get to Hank. Nana reached between Higgy’s legs, grabbed his testicles, and yanked down as hard as she could. Higgy made a horrible sound. The howls were long and distorted and didn’t seem like anything I had ever heard from a chimp.121 He continued howling as he lay down on his back in the middle of the bridge, holding his scrotum. Nana ran off the bridge and grunted to Hank. With Prime following, they walked from the bridge to the feeder platform and began eating the newly set-out food. Higgy remained at the center of the bridge, wailing.

I found it strange that none of the chimps had come to Higgy’s defense. He remained on his back, crying, for several minutes. Yet no one, not even his alliance, came to his aid. Finally he got up. He looked over at me for a bit, turned around, and walked back to the old and now empty island. No one followed him. He had the entire island to himself. He climbed up one of the shelters and refused to cross over the bridge. Higgy spent the night alone.122

The next morning, Higgy appeared ready to join his group. He was pensively waiting by the bridge. I examined Higgy’s group. All of them appeared to be acting normally. Nana and Hank were down by the water. Gin was with Tonic and Tonic’s baby, Bamboo. On the ground, Little Mama was grooming Elgin. She seemed especially interested in Elgin’s left foot. I looked through the binoculars to find that it was completely covered in blood. From what I could see, there was a large hole that pierced his foot. Elgin noticed me looking at him and made a move to get up. He wasn’t putting any weight on his right leg at all. After a few hobbling steps, he fell over. Little Mama ran over to him and started grooming his foot again. Elgin, left without Higgy, had clearly been attacked in the night. I now understood why Higgy was so eager to rejoin his group.

I now had a dilemma. Once Higgy rejoined the group, he was, no doubt, going to take immediate vengeance for Elgin’s foot. The other chimps in Higgy’s group began to assemble across from Higgy. Gin screamed and reached out toward Higgy, then reached out toward me. I began to fear that someone might try to jump across the canal to Higgy. There was nothing I could do. I had to open the bridge. I looked over at Elgin. He and Little Mama were sitting at the far end of the island. Hopefully, I thought to myself, they would remain there and stay out of the impending conflict.123

I put the boat in the water, grabbed the gondola pole, and got in. Making my way over to the bridge, I feared the tense situation in front of me. Higgy was standing perfectly still and perfectly silent, looking directly ahead at the group across from him. The group, meanwhile, was lined up, side by side, on the other end of the bridge. Nana was rocking back and forth. Gin was screeching. Hank was swaying from side to side. Cindy was calmly sitting behind Nana.

Finally, I arrived at the crank. I looked over at Higgy.

“Please be calm,” I whispered, and opened the bridge.

Higgy leapt into the air and rocketed toward his group. Nana lunged forward to meet him halfway across the bridge. Yet, something stopped Nana. I looked over to see that Cindy was holding onto one of her feet. Nana screamed and tried to hit and bite Cindy. Calmly, Cindy stood up without letting go of Nana’s foot and flung her through the air away from Higgy. Nana landed and got up. Higgy was already across the island and was coming straight for her. Nana covered her head with her hands. Higgy’s blow landed across her back. The sound of the hit echoed across the water. Higgy then turned to Cashew. He charged toward her, and slapped her as hard as he had slapped Nana. Hank then charged at Higgy. Higgy turned and charged back at Hank. The two met in midair and tackled each other to the ground. The fight continued and they rolled into the water. Once they hit the canal, both stood up on two legs, waist deep in the water. I could see that Higgy had a massive cut on his arm. Hank had a gash across his face.

Little Mama and Elgin had now gone to the center of the island, from where they watched. They were soon joined by Gin and Cindy. Next, Nana came and sat beside them. Prime showed up behind Nana. Pretty soon, all of the chimps were sitting around Little Mama and Elgin watching Hank and Higgy fight. For a brief moment, they appeared unified. I remained at the crank, also watching. Finally, Higgy and Hank separated. Once they separated, the group split in two. Hank’s alliance retreated over to Hank on one side of the island, while Higgy’s alliance gathered on the other side.

Every day, the fighting continued. Every morning I would find a new injury on another chimp. It was beginning to seem obvious that this war was going to continue for quite some time and it wasn’t going to end well.

One night, I had returned to the animal park very late after taking one of the chimps, Peter, to the dentist.124 That late, the park was completely silent and dark. Luckily, that evening, there was a full moon so I had a nice view of the chimp section. I set Peter up in the chimp house and closed it up. I decided to check on Higgy’s group. I drove my truck over to their island. Just as I had imagined, the two camps were sleeping separately. Just then I noticed that Higgy was away and sitting on top of the feeder platform. The moon shone down on him, like a spotlight. He was rocking back and forth and looking down below him. Just then, I noticed what he was looking at: Hank was sitting down beside the feeder platform gesturing up to Higgy. What was this late-night meeting about? Why was it occurring in silence? How did it begin? Neither Higgy nor Hank paid any attention to the fact that I was in front of the island. They were deeply entrenched in whatever it was that they were communicating between them. I stood and watched them for a while before I got back in the truck and left.

The next day I was cleaning and setting up an island for White Ass’s group. From out of the corner of my eye, I could see something occurring on Higgy’s island. Something was being repeatedly thrown high into the air. I couldn’t tell what it was. It could have been a blanket or a stuffed animal. Still, I couldn’t be sure. I dropped what I was doing and climbed into my boat to investigate.

I made my way over to Higgy’s island. I still couldn’t make out what was being thrown into the air. When I got in front of the island, it became clear. Bamboo was sitting by himself in front of a shelter. From behind the shelter, Prime came running. He ran up to his infant brother, picked him up by one leg, and flung him far into the sky. He watched as Bamboo sailed way up high and then crashed back down into the island. Bamboo, who was remarkably durable, got up looking disoriented. As soon as he was up, Prime would circle around again and repeat the action.

Tonic, apparently, wasn’t aware of what was occurring. She was sitting with Gin and not paying any attention to Prime and Bamboo.125 I grabbed the fire extinguisher and sprayed it into the air. I yelled at Prime. Tonic sat up immediately and looked around for Bamboo. She saw him sitting alone and ran over to him, vocalizing the entire time. Higgy also looked over and saw. He went charging at Prime. Prime attempted to retreat to his mother. However, Tonic moved away leaving him exposed to Higgy. Nana jumped in front of Prime. Higgy switched the object of his aggression to Nana. When he reached her, Nana jumped up and bit him in the face. This brought Gin down to the scene. She tore into Nana, biting her on the side. Within moments, the entire group was involved in another large fight.

The incident with Bamboo underscored the major problems that the group would suffer if Higgy ever lost his alpha male status. The chimps that he had done so well protecting would no longer receive his guardianship. The challenges to his status had tremendous ramifications for the entire group. Higgy had shown that he was an incredibly confident leader. This leadership protected a large and diverse group that contained a complex female-dominance hierarchy. The group also contained three adult males. With the grand exception of the current war, this complicated group had run extremely smoothly. Higgy was also in charge of chimps with ages ranging from one-year-old Bamboo to sixty-eight-year-old Little Mama. Both Bamboo and Little Mama were protected from any less-than-gentle chimpanzees in the group. Add to this mix Elgin, who was completely reliant on Higgy for survival.

It was not believed that Hank would be able to govern as well as Higgy. He had not shown himself to protect the weaker individuals. There was no evidence of Hank caring for chimpanzees like Bamboo, Little Mama, or Elgin. If Hank became alpha male, these chimps would, almost certainly, be negatively affected and might not even survive.126

It was clear that Higgy and his alliance were not winning the war. Yet there were no signs of Higgy abdicating his status to Hank. All signs pointed to Higgy fighting on endlessly. The war could continue for years. Chimps could be severely injured or killed. For this reason, it was decided that the animal park would step in and end the war. This would be accomplished by rounding up Hank and his alliance and sending them away to another zoo. One zoo, at the time, was in need of a chimpanzee group to fill its new exhibit: the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.

The Lincoln Park Zoo had just completed work on a multimillion-dollar chimpanzee exhibit. The exhibit was very different from the islands of the animal park. It featured both an indoor and outdoor portion. While in the indoor portion, the public could be up close to the chimps, separated by a thick window. The highly interactive exhibit had such features as caves (where human children and apes could both enter and be separated by glass), touch screens where guests could learn about the chimps, and a naturalistic-looking environment. The outdoor portion of the exhibit contained large trees, streams, and climbing structures. It was determined that this would be a perfect place to send Hank and his alliance. The Lincoln Park Zoo readied their exhibit for the entrance of Hank, Nana, Prime, Kathy, Chuckie, Cashew, and Kipper.

Meanwhile, the war carried on. It was obvious that the sooner Hank left the island, the better it would be for everyone. Little Mama, in particular, was having a terrible time during the war. Her role as the babysitter of the group had diminished. Prime, who at one point was with Little Mama quite a bit, no longer had anything to do with her. Chuckie and Kipper were no longer seen with her at all. Nana, who used to play with Little Mama, never acknowledged her. Occasionally, she would be seen holding Bamboo, but since the throwing incident, Tonic didn’t let him out of her sight for long and would take him back from Little Mama after only a few brief moments. Little Mama spent most of her day sleeping alone in the shelter. Occasionally, Cindy would sleep next to her, but for the most part, Little Mama was alone.

On a summer morning in 2004, Higgy’s group was brought into the chimp house. Hank’s alliance was transferred into a separate room. When the sliding door closed, Higgy saw Hank for the last time. With the rest of his group, but without Hank’s alliance, Higgy left the house and returned outside to their island. Just like that, the war was over. Higgy climbed to the top of a shelter. He looked down at his group. He looked around to the other chimpanzee groups. He tilted his head to the sky and gave an amazingly loud vocalization. At the climax of the vocalization, the rest of his group joined in.

Hank’s group had been moved into individual travel carriers. Hank, Nana, and Prime each got their own carrier. Kathy shared one with Chuckie. Cashew shared one with Kipper. They were loaded into the back of a van, and the next day they were all on a cargo plane bound for Chicago. They would enter into a completely different world. They would go from the hot and humid environment of south Florida to the cold and windy climate of Chicago. Instead of being surrounded by the Florida Everglades, they would now be surrounded by the traffic of Lakeshore Drive. They would now have exponentially more human interaction than what they had at the animal park. The public would be much closer to them, being face-to-face with them rather than inside a car. The keepers would work one-on-one with them on a daily basis. Nothing would be the same for these seven chimpanzees ever again.

That evening, I remained at the animal park. I sat in front of Higgy’s island, monitoring the group. There was no evident sense of loss being exhibited in their behavior. They had just lost seven members of their group and it didn’t seem to affect them at all. Still, I noticed a few changes. Higgy had his old walk back. He was patrolling the boundary of the island with Elgin following dutifully behind him. I also noticed that Little Mama had been holding Bamboo for over an hour. When she had taken Bamboo, she had walked right up in front of Tonic and picked up the baby as if it was all planned. Tonic didn’t resist and Little Mama carried Bamboo over to the other shelter. This caused me to once again obsess about how these chimps were communicating. Did Tonic somehow communicate to Little Mama that it was now all right for her to hold Bamboo for an extended period of time?

The evening lost all traces of sunlight while I sat on the muddy ground. I thought back to a few years prior when Koko’s Internet chat had so profoundly disappointed me. I reflected on how much more amazing everything was that I had experienced with the chimpanzees in front of me than any “talking ape.” Even if, during that Internet chat, Koko had spoken eloquently and in fluent human language, it would have paled in comparison to watching these chimps naturally communicate with each other on their own terms. It would have never fascinated me as much as watching a group of chimpanzees scheme and fight through their social system, culminating in a war. It seemed to me that every moment we spend trying to turn chimpanzees (and other apes) into lesser versions of humans are moments we miss watching how amazing these animals are on their own terms.

I began to think of the research I had been studying in the classroom. I thought of the chimpanzees in the Mahale Mountains who were using their own set of vocalizations and the implications, therein, for vocal learning. I thought of the research that had occurred, almost a decade ago, at the animal park which showed the same thing, but with the chimps in front of me. I began to wonder if they were using these learned vocalizations to communicate the complex processes involved with Hank’s uprising and rebellion. I wondered if these vocalizations were responsible for Higgy’s planned boat escape from the island with his alliance. I thought, again, about the vocalizing between Higgy and Hank while Higgy was in the boat. What was being communicated? I began to wonder if Hank would carry the vocalizations that he learned from his old group into his new group. Would he begin to add his own vocalizations? I knew that, in humans, groups that become isolated begin to form their own dialects. I knew that different environments, different periods of stress, and a different social hierarchy cause dialects to evolve on different paths. Hank’s group was going to experience a completely different environment. They were also going to go through the stressful experiences of being split from their group and placed in an unknown situation. On top of this, without the rest of the group, the social hierarchy would change. If chimpanzee vocalizations were truly a chimpanzee language, then all of these factors should cause Hank’s group to begin to form their own dialect.

I began to plan out a project which would look at everything I had been wondering about. If chimpanzees learned their own vocalizations, like human language, then it stands to reason that these vocalizations would evolve (like human languages do). The evolution would begin as a slightly different dialect then, eventually, become its own system of vocalizations—a separate chimpanzee language. I could record the calls from both Higgy’s and Hank’s groups and compare them. I could see if they were growing apart. If Hank’s vocalizations were beginning to diverge from Higgy’s, a new dialect would be forming within Hank’s group. Hank’s dialect would continue to evolve until, eventually, the calls of Hank’s group would be unintelligible to the chimps in Higgy’s group.

I would begin by recording every vocalization that I heard from Higgy’s group and identifying it with a corresponding behavior. I would arrive at a number of individual vocal phrases (chimp “words,” if you will) used by Higgy’s group. I would then go to Hank’s group in Chicago and identify the same chimp words. After a couple of years, I could compare the two groups to see if the individual words were changing (or completely disappearing) in Hank’s group.

Over the next few months I would formulate, in great detail, the specifics of my project. It would take years, but I was determined to both record the entire lexicon of Higgy’s group and see if, in years, that lexicon was changing in Hank’s group.

This project would be one more step in my quest and mission to understand the apes on my own terms. As with my previous experiences with the chimpanzees, I could see the hidden mechanisms of nature at work. I could watch the unseen hand of creation mold, form, and operate something as critical as communication. Like lifting the face off of a mechanical watch, I could view, if not understand, what makes a group of chimpanzees function together. By watching how these invisible instruments control and operate chimpanzee communication, I could better understand how they affect other aspects of nature, including the human species.

That first evening without Hank, with the new project spinning through my head, I got up off the mud to head home. I looked back at the island to see Cindy sitting alone. She blew a raspberry to me and clapped. I reached into my truck, grabbed a banana, and threw it to her. I wondered if she felt betrayed or alone. After eating the banana she retreated to a shelter where Little Mama was laying in a nest. She gave soft grunts to Little Mama, who sat up. Cindy began making a nest next to her.

We had seen God in his splendors, heard the text that nature renders. We had reached the naked soul of man.

—ERNEST SHACKLETON