Suddenly Landing on the Planet of the Apes

The Old Guy is white-bearded and wise, the Obi-Wan Kenobi to three babies on most days. But the morning is hot, and, in a rooftop play area at the Los Angeles Zoo, the air hangs heavy with smoke. Helicopters zoom to a nearby brush fire. Toto, who is missing a few teeth, grimaces and stomps his feet at the intrusions. The 47-year-old chimpanzee screams, Hoo-Hoo-Hoo-Hoo. Waa! Waa! He hurls a plastic blue barrel at the wall, with all the force of his 140-pound muscular frame. Thwack .

The baby chimps freeze. On the floor, they cuddle in choo-choo-train formation. Jean, who’s smart and bratty, is in back; Jake, a bundle of macho energy, is in the middle; Zoe, the bravest of the three, is in front. The 2-year-olds, who grew up without mothers, cling to each other when they’re scared or stressed. Wide-eyed, they scoot as one, 30 pounds each of jiggly baby fat, dragging a yellow blanket. Somewhere. Anywhere. Away from the Old Guy.

Toto’s tirade is nothing, really, a bit of territorial marking by a former alpha male in the zoo’s adult group. The three baby chimps will join the adults soon, if all goes well in a lengthy transition process marked by the unexpected. Two years ago, the babies were taken from their mothers and raised in the zoo nursery by humans who bottle-fed them and tucked them into cribs every night. This summer, Jean, Jake and Zoe are getting to know the other adult chimps for the first time, starting with the group’s two respected elders, Toto and 45-year-old Bonnie.

“What a couple of nice folks to meet if you’re going to figure out you’re a chimp, and figure out this is where you belong,” says lead chimp keeper Vicki Bingaman, in the early stages of the babies’ transition. “Right now, all we want to do is get them to a point where they’re playing and happy and comfortable with Bonnie and Toto. That should ease their fears about going in, and they’ll know a little more about how to behave when they meet others in the group.”

In early 1999, media reports worldwide had framed the 13-member adult group in soap opera-ish terms of sex, power and murder. A series of dramatic events began with the surprise birth of a baby chimp and peaked with the infant’s death at the hands of two of the juveniles. In the aftermath, officials at the city-owned zoo decided to hand-rear Jean and Jake, along with Zoe, who arrived later from another zoo. Even then, the plan was to eventually move the babies to the adult group, which includes Jean’s and Jake’s mothers. (During this transition, the babies are not on public display.)

On this morning, Bingaman despairs as the babies escape Toto’s rage in their aimless conga line shuffle, with no protector in sight. In her 40s, Bingaman is the mother of two adult sons and has overseen the adult chimps for 13 years. “See how they sort of cling together? Hold on to each other? Oh, they need to toughen up, you know what I mean? They need to be able to handle themselves in the group. They’re going to need to be tough.”

In the adults’ old exhibit, where the chimps had huge fights, Toto was the biggest instigator of them all.

Before director Manuel A. Mollinedo took over in 1995, the adult chimps had lived in cramped, run-down quarters with a concrete play area. In August 1998, Mollinedo opened their $5-million new home, “Chimpanzees of Mahale Mountains,” which includes a waterfall and grassy hills. The exhibit marked a turning point for the troubled zoo. Under fire for everything from its exhibits to its management, the zoo was in danger of losing its accreditation. The chimps’ expanse was the zoo’s first new exhibit in nine years.

A few months after the opening, an unfolding drama prompted the biggest media onslaught that Mollinedo has faced in his 61/2-year tenure. In January 1999, keepers, who did not know any of the chimps were pregnant, arrived for work one morning and found a female cradling a newborn, later dubbed Toshi. Zoo officials later discovered that two other female chimps were pregnant, even though none of the males were likely breeding partners. All of the male chimps had undergone vasectomies or were considered too young to breed, except for Toto, the Old Guy, who has never shown interest in sex. (DNA tests later exposed 11-year-old Shaun as the one who was able to mate with the three females after a failed vasectomy.)

Jean was born next, in May 1999, and then, 11 days later, the story turned ugly. Two juvenile chimps grabbed Toshi away from her mother, and in rough play, accidentally killed the 4-month-old infant. Zoo officials attributed Toshi’s death to a power struggle among young male chimps who were trying to establish dominance.

The tense situation prompted Mollinedo’s difficult decision to take Jean from her mother. Zoo officials decided that Jake, who was born two weeks later, would also be raised in the nursery. In September 1999, the two babies were joined by 10-week-old Zoe from Lion Country Safari in Florida, where her mother, a former laboratory chimp, had shown no interest in her.

Critics had argued that the babies should be kept with their mothers. But “the decision was made to save those babies’ lives,” Mollinedo says. Now, the babies’ transition is critical in “really establishing and ensuring our credibility in our community,” he says.

More than two years after Toshi’s death, tensions among the adult chimps have eased. All the adult females are on birth control pills, except for Bonnie, and another chimp, who had a tubal litigation. The power struggle is over. Jerrard, 11, has emerged as the alpha male in the fluid social hierarchy, which could change again soon. “When we introduce those babies, that’s going to create some new dynamics in that group, and we’re going to have to monitor it very closely,” Mollinedo says. “We’re talking about changing the social structure of that troop. We’re all going to learn a lot.”

Zookeepers do not exaggerate when they describe chimps as having personality traits as distinct as humans, says USC’s Craig B. Stanford, chairman of the anthropology department and co-director of the Jane Goodall Research Center. (Chimp and human genes are more than 98% alike, making them our closest relatives).

“In the old days, there was a reluctance to acknowledge it, but today there’s an acknowledgment that [chimps] do share the same basic human emotions,” says Stanford, author of “Significant Others: The Ape-Human Continuum and the Quest for Human Nature” (Basic Books).

“As far as the whole question, ‘Are we reading too much into it?’ I think, for most of history, we’ve read too little into it.” But chimps in captivity still are wild animals, capable of brutality, Stanford warns.

In zoos, adult chimps typically don’t attack babies, says Randy Fulk, who tracks chimpanzees for the American Zoo and Aquarium Assn. Baby chimps get hurt or die only when they get caught in the middle of a melee, says Fulk, curator of research at the North Carolina Zoo.

Adults usually are tolerant of babies who join them after being raised by humans, though it’s possible for the group to reject the little ones. “The only real problem that comes up,” Fulk says, “is an animal that doesn’t pick up the social skills properly and gets stuck on the bottom of the hierarchy.” In the last few years, several U.S. zoos have moved baby chimps from nurseries into adult groups without major problems, Fulk says. Chimp keepers compare notes on such moves, but take their lead from the dynamics and personalities of the animals in their care.

In February 1999, the St. Louis Zoo, for instance, took on two baby chimps that were rejected by their mothers at other zoos. During the next several months, the keepers eased the two female babies into the adult group. Ingrid Porton, curator of primates, was unprepared for the reaction of the young male chimps. “Imagine,” she says, “teenage boys--they’re proving their manhood and are kind of testosterone-driven--but they’ve just been excellent with the kids!” The juveniles sometimes carry the two young ones on their backs, she says, the way mothers do.

The babies “seem pretty happy and very interactive,” Porton says, but “they show some of the insecurities of being hand-raised. If they get nervous, they [grab] a blanket or pile of hay or cling to each other. When you hand-raise, unfortunately, you never can duplicate what a mother can provide.”

In the wild and in captivity, baby chimps hold on to their mothers almost all day for their first two years or so, and stay by their sides until they are 5 or older. They learn how to behave--the difference between play biting and retaliation biting, for instance--by watching their mothers.

In the nursery, Jean, Jake and Zoe were zoo stars. Crowds pressed against the windows, tickled at the way Jean pursed her lips and made raspberry noises with her keepers and the way the three babies pulled each other’s diapers off.

By late 1999, over a period of several months, the babies began making short and then extended visits to the adults’ behind-the-scenes living quarters, while the grown-ups were out of sight on public exhibit. In their nursery keepers’ arms, the babies headed outside to check out the exhibit, watching the adults from a distance, and then in close range. “I honestly believe,” Bingaman says, “that when they first came up here, they hadn’t a clue that they were chimps. Really. They would look at Toto and Bonnie and the chimps and go, ‘Whoaaa. What ... ?”’

That November, the babies moved from the nursery to their own room in the adults’ building. (At night, the adults come off exhibit to sleep in adjoining rooms, and the babies peer at them through a window covered with mesh.) Jake’s mother checked the babies out but didn’t seem to single out any one. Jake had only spent two days with his mother, who woke from anesthesia to find him gone.

But Jean’s mother, Gracie, lingered at the babies’ door. Gracie couldn’t take her eyes off Jean, who had spent three weeks with her and tried to reach for her. Gracie hasn’t stopped trying, but Jean does not appear to remember her mother, Bingaman says.

As the babies settled in, Bingaman chose Toto and Bonnie for key mentoring roles.

Bonnie, who was recovering from a fall and a possible stroke, was too weak to do much nurturing. That left most of the parenting to Toto, though male chimps do more playing with babies than protecting and nurturing.

Toto, who was born in the wild, is a former circus chimp. He loves to play and loves to fight. In his heyday as alpha male, keepers say, he once got mad at another chimp and chased her around a moat. His hair stood straight up on end. Toto pulled his face back so his ears turned pointy, the way dominant males do when they want to appear larger and meaner. He looked like the devil and acted the part, throwing a log at the offending chimp and spitting an arc of water at her.

Toto’s behavior wasn’t out of line for a dominant male. The babies, in fact, should be prepared for worse from the adults, who typically slap, bite and scream at one another. Group members also kiss, hug and groom one another as part of a series of social rituals that reinforce relationships. Chimps build relationships through play, and the babies needed someone to show them how.

In March, Bingaman moved Toto and Bonnie next to the babies’ room, instead of sending the two older chimps out into the exhibit. She pulled up the cover on a small window between the adjoining rooms, leaving just enough space for the babies to crawl through.

The Old Guy wagged his arm under the window, eager for play, but the babies stuck to their in-line huddle. In the next few days, there was little action in the hour or two of playtime. Once, Zoe worked up the nerve to touch Toto’s hand and snuggle against it until Jean, the cautious one, pulled her back. A week later, Bingaman lifted the window cover all the way up.

Toto backed away so the babies wouldn’t be scared and walked up steps to a landing. He sat down, munched on a carrot and watched the babies duck into the room and look around. “They didn’t play with him or anything,” Bingaman remembered. “Then he came down, and it was back to, ‘Oh, my Lord!”’ Then the babies ran back to their room.

In the next few weeks, Toto and Bonnie each worked to put the babies at ease. One day, Bonnie, a loving mother of two, sat next to Jean and built a hay hill between them. Then she eased her hand over and patted Jean on the head. “Jean still freaked out,” Bingaman says, “but [Bonnie] tried. Gently, gently.” If the babies acted up, Bonnie used a ball or toy to tap them on the head.

Meanwhile, Toto tried to get the babies to play. He tickled their feet. He ran around, trying to stir up a game of chase. He rolled balls toward them. Zoe was the first to break out of the baby huddle and run to Toto’s side, followed by Jake, then Jean.

The play dates were proceeding more slowly than expected, but Bingaman still was happy to see the babies gain confidence. In June, the babies spent the night with Toto and Bonnie for the first time. Bingaman slept on the floor outside the babies’ bedroom in case they needed her, but they didn’t.

Every two hours, Toto woke up. He checked on the babies and on Bingaman, who would open her eyes and find Toto peering down at her. Zoe was buried under blankets, so Toto patted the outline of her body to make sure she was OK. Then he went back to bed.

On a recent summer morning the five chimps head outside to the rooftop “penthouse,” a fenced-in play area in back of the adults’ exhibit. Off the main road but in a public area, the penthouse is surrounded by plumbego flowers and furnished with fire hoses for swinging and logs for jumping. But with a brush fire nearby, none of the five chimps are in the mood to play, much to the disappointment of zoo visitors, who observe Toto’s rage and wonder aloud if he’s an “abusive parent.”

Behind the scenes, though, Toto is taking on more than the mentor role that Bingaman had envisioned. One afternoon, for instance, Pandora and her 5-year-old son, Ripley, stay next-door to the babies’ playroom. Jake and Ripley stick their fingers through the mesh-covered window and begin to play. Toto, who sees the way Pandora is stalking around, ushers Jake away from the window when she approaches. At one point, Pandora manages to grab Jake’s finger and bite it.

“If she was really hateful and horrible,” Bingaman says, “he wouldn’t have a finger because she had plenty of time to bite it off. She held on, and Toto just was hysterical, trying to pull him away and calling for Bonnie.”

She feels bad that Jake got hurt, Bingaman says, but is cheered by the way Toto stepped in as a protector. Lately, the Old Guy has even been acting like a mother, giving Jean rides on his back. And he is an example for Jake, who is starting to rush to the defense of the other two babies and react like Toto to perceived threats, with foot stomping and bristling hair.

At the end of July, Bingaman brings the five chimps inside from the penthouse, off public display. She wants the babies to get used to the three female chimps who have been moved next-door to their playroom. Better that the babies learn from individual females in the comfortable confines of the 12-by-15-foot day room than make mistakes in the big group on the intimidating 1-acre expanse.

One August afternoon, after a day on her feet, Bingaman plops on the floor in front of the day room, a sunny yellow space that is fronted by a grid of steel bars. Toto sits near the door, and Bonnie naps on the landing.

Zoe is the sleepy one among the babies, the first to turn in at night. She loves naps and her bottle of baby formula but doesn’t fuss when Jean and Jake get their bottles first. The babies are good about not fighting over food, which includes jicama and bananas. Jake is a wild-haired chimp who looks a little rumpled. He likes to play chase with Toto, though his favorite playmate is Jean, whom he has always adored. Lately, Jake has been standing up to Toto. If the Old Guy barks at him in annoyance, he barks right back. On this afternoon, Jake grabs a fire hose that is attached to the ceiling, jumps from the landing and swings one-handed in big swoops, a piece of lettuce in the other hand.

He joins Zoe, who is reaching through the front bars to try to untie Bingaman’s boot laces. Meanwhile, Jean ducks under Toto’s left arm. Hidden by his bulk, Jean sneaks an arm into the pockets of Bingaman’s khaki shorts and tries to steal her Chapstick.

Jean is a charmer, who still blows raspberries at people. She is also the baby chimp who misbehaves the most. A moment after her failed Chapstick bid, Jean swings on a fire hose and swats Bonnie in the head. “Jean, don’t hit her!” Bingaman calls. Jean picks on the ailing Bonnie for no obvious reason, other than the fact that she can get away with it. At bedtime, the previous night, Jean stole Bonnie’s blankets again and again. Bonnie got up, ambled downstairs and retrieved her blankets without striking back.

The other adult chimps, Bingaman says, won’t put up with Jean’s brattiness. “She’s going to get smacked around. She’ll learn. It may not take that long. I wish Toto would be a little more forceful with her. He does put her in her place. The other day, he smacked her right in the head, and she went, ‘Oh! Well, I guess I’ll behave for a little while.”’

Bingaman turns her attention to Zoe, who hangs on the bars for a back scratch. Then Zoe scampers off to join Toto, who sits in the middle of the room. For five minutes or so, the Old Guy and the baby play together. Zoe sprawls on her back while Toto tickles her with one hand. Then both hands. Zoe laughs, a delighted panting sound. He tries to stop, but the 2-year-old grabs his hand and makes him keep at it. He rolls on his side and catches her leg in his mouth. Then he’s tired.

It’s 5:15 p.m. Toto gathers up some hay, walks the steps to the landing, grabs a white sheet and lies down on his side. (Toto isn’t down for the count yet; captive chimps can live into their 60s.) Bingaman hates to see the babies’ day end like this. “They love Toto,” she says, “but Toto is a guy, and Toto does not give them the nurturing that they need. He plays with them, and he’ll discipline them, and he’ll protect them, but he’s not a mother who will cuddle them up at night and hug them when it’s time to go to bed.”

The babies watch her pack up for the day. “Sweet kids,” Bingaman murmurs. “We’re gonna go, OK? Tired? You better go get a blanket.” She turns up a classical music station on the radio and heads out the door. The babies revert to their group cuddle, their usual reaction to Bingaman’s departure and a sign that they have grown up without a family.

“They need the aunties and uncles, and they need to watch the guys grow up, so Jake can learn how to be a guy, and the girls need to know their boundaries and their [social] structure,” Bingaman says. “I know they belong there, and it’s a promise I made those [mother chimps] when we took their babies from them. That they would go back.”

Bingaman has not set a date for their final move. First, she will see whether Jean, Jake and Zoe forge relationships with individual female chimps in the coming weeks, another critical juncture in the transition process. An aunt or mother to break them into the family and hug them until it’s time to go out in public.

“My dream is that they won’t have to walk and go out on their own,” says Bingaman, “that they’re going to be riding on some female’s back and going out with them, and they’re going to have that female to protect them. That’s my dream.”