I am a primatologist who spends twelve hours most days in the company of a thirteen year old chimpanzee named Bow. I am also an editor with Inverted-A Press.
Bow's favorite thing at the Thanksgiving dinner is the sparkling red grape juice.
His second favorite thing is the cranberry sauce.
His third favorite thing this year was the apple pie. He had so many servings of these delicacies that he hardly touched the turkey or the stuffing. But he did like the sweet potatoes, too. We had so much going on, though, that I did not take that many pictures of Bow eating.
A day or two before the guests began to arrive, we had an internet outage, so Bow and I got very engrossed in a book I ordered about Monarchs and Milkweed.
The first of our guests to arrive was my Sword. There was much jubilation!
My mother arrived shortly after. She really admired my old gnarled oak tree, so I took a photo of her in front of it.
That evening, we had the most beautiful sunset.
I love that old oak tree, but it died this year, and people say it must be chopped down. I am hoping to find some other way. But I am glad it was still here this year for my mother to pose with.
Besides all that was going on, Bow and I continued to work on the trailer for the release of Audible Vacuum County.
The trailer was published late on Thanksgiving day. I sent a link to Sword a few days later, and she sent me back this screenshot.
I am glad that videos of Bow grooming me are doing so well, but I would also like people to pay attention to the book trailers. By the way, Bow helps me to edit all my videos. In the one embedded below, you can see how he grooms me, and then he attends to the process of rendering the video.
Bow is involved with everything I do, and he is not as unsophisticated as some people assume. He knows he is being filmed, and he cooperates with the entire process. He is a bit of a ham.
Bow dislikes clothes, but he even agreed to put on the Vacuum County T-shirt this morning, when I told him it was for a good cause. Here's the back side.
No, he doesn't have any pants on, but he did put on the shirt all by himself. By the way, Bow and I wear the same size of shirt. It's a women's medium. But that shirt comes in many other sizes.
Yesterday afternoon, while I was saying goodbye to Sword, who had come home for a visit for Fall Break, Bow rearranged the potties in his enclosure, putting both of them in the center of the room.
"Put them back where they belong!" I told him.
So then he proceeded to push each of them into the opposite corner from the one where it had been before, as if in an act of oppositional defiance.
I wasn't really angry about that, but I acted as if were very upset about it. "No, that's not where they go! You put them right back where they were!" So he did. (He knew exactly where they were supposed to be.)
After that, he tried to apologize to me, and then he decided to groom me very thoroughly. The noises he was making at the very beginning of the grooming session were part of his apology.
It is good to be home, even though we did not get the Libertarian Presidential Nominee that we had hoped for. Bow was well cared for in my absence, and on my return, he took time out from his dinner with Lawrence to greet me warmly, and then later to thoroughly groom me.
Bow getting read to groom me in the outer pen
It rained constantly while I was away, and for the first few days after I got back. This was a big contrast to the constant sunshine and ninety degree plus weather in Florida. But all this rain has paid off for my cherries.
These are small, extremely sour cherries, and most people I know don't like them in their natural form, though they enjoy them as maraschino cherries, which are preserved and sweetened. However, Bow and I like them just as they are -- very tart!
Bow enjoys the cherries so much that he sometimes eats them whole, pit and all. I tried to slow down his eating and asked him to give me the stems and the pits.
Later in the day, the dogs were barking at something on the other side of the fence, and Bow wanted me to go check it out.
Bow concerned about something going on outside
It was a beautiful black rat snake.
The snake was long and fat, but it may have recently eaten, for it was quite calm and perfectly harmless toward me, even when I got close.
On my property, life and death happen naturally. Many beings every day give their lives so that other beings may live. For all animals, including humans, food is a living thing, whether animal or plant. We are all predator and prey in turn. I eat meat, and I plan to continue eating meat, because that is the healthiest and most effective diet for me. But I do not kill unnecessarily, and I know that for me, that black rat snake is more friend than foe. So the snake and I went our separate ways without hurting one another, and I reported to Bow that all was well outdoors. He looked at the picture of the snake briefly, then went back to grooming me.
I wish that my fellow human primates could recognize when someone is not threatening them and avoid killing others unnecessarily. I am not sure I understand completely why it was necessary to kill Harambe at the Cincinnati Zoo. In any event, a zoo is clearly not a safe environment for a great ape, as there are not adequate barriers in place, and any time there is doubt about safety, nobody cares whether a human is trespassing in an ape enclosure or an ape is trespassing on human territory.
I would never send Bow to live in a zoo or in a sanctuary where a breach of protocol by a human could result in Bow's being shot. But I am afraid, very afraid, that with US Fish & Wildlife tightening the noose around the necks of primate owners, my time for idyllic grooming with Bow and quiet time together may be rapidly drawing to a close.
Delegates from Missouri Austin Petersen, Aya Katz, Thomas R. Fiedler, Rebekah Fiedler, Jeremiah Barnett
I went to the Libertarian National Convention in Orlando to help select Austin Petersen as our presidential nominee, because I trusted that as President, he would direct U.S. Fish &Wildlife to stop sending our tax money to Africa and to stop harassing the owners of primates here in the United States. But Austin Petersen was not chosen. Gary Johnson was chosen, and I have no earthly idea where he stands on this. I suppose I will now have to reach out to his campaign to find out.
While there, I met the National Chair of the Libertarian Party and got to interview him for LibertyBuzz.
We Libertarians disagree about many things. We are individuals, and we vote our conscience. No two Libertarians agree on everything. But it was encouraging to see that we all at least agreed on this: Taxation is theft!
If taxation is theft when it comes to redistribution of resources here in the United States, how much more so when taxpayer money is sent to Africa for conservation efforts by an agency that seeks to nationalize all chimpanzees, here in the United States!
Bow is very sweet, All unbidden, he notices the dry skin on my hand, and he volunteers to groom it.
His touch is very gentle, but the grooming he gives me is thorough.
You might think that this kind treatment is in return for something else that I have done for him, but in fact it's not. This is not quid pro quo or one hand washes the other. Bow feels an inner compulsion to groom my hand, and he only does it when he feels like it. It is neither planned nor solicited.
I have been preoccupied by the concept of mutuality, which is why whatever flower is in season that attracts the most pollinators has been topmost on my list of things to photograph. Just before the trip to Bloomington, that flower was the purple milkweed, and I even took risks trying to get close to the butterflies. I got a touch of poison ivy in one elbow capturing those photos.
But there are other beautiful flowers that are blooming now, too, and yet they attract no insects. Take the Tall Phlox.
These flowers are beautiful and fragrant, yet no bees or butterflies visit them.
Maybe it's because the phlox grows back from the root every spring that it does not need to attract pollinators, and not needing to do so, it just naturally doesn't. Where there is no mutual benefit, the unplanned exchange just does not seem to take place. However, I have spotted rabbits within sight of the phlox, placidly grazing on the lawn.
The rabbit will not tell me where the predators are; it just runs off if I get too close. Does the rabbit realize that the culling effect of predators on the rabbit population is responsible for its own good health?
Meanwhile, when I least expect it, the kitten emerges from a field full of wildflowers.
Its every move says; "I am a mighty hunter. I am king of the beasts!" Then it meows to imply that I should feed it. Will it ever catch a mouse to earn its keep, I wonder?
This afternoon I picked another ripe wild plum, and I gave it to Bow.
He took it out of the bowl and stared at it intently.
Then he slipped it unceremoniously into his mouth and ate it.
In the end all that was left was the pit.
Now lots of people would misunderstand. They might think: there's reciprocity for you! He groomed her finger, so she gave him a wild plum. But I would have given him that plum, whether he had groomed my finger or not. And he would have groomed my finger, regardless of whether later in the day I'd discover a wild plum to give him. What we have here is a relationship of mutuality, not reciprocity -- the same kind of relationship that the butterflies have with the mountain mint, or the wild plum tree has with the animals that eat its fruit.
When I look at Bow, I can read his expressions. It is not hard to tell what he is feeling, as his facial expressions often mirror my own.
Looking at this picture of Bow eating an apple, can you tell what he is feeling? Let your face resolve itself into a similar expression. How do you feel? We have mirror neurons that allow us to put ourselves into somebody else's shoes, to let us imagine what it would be like to be doing what they are doing.
Can you almost taste that big, juicy, red delicious apple as Bow bites into it? That isn't just your imagination. Those are your mirror neurons firing.
Bow has mirror neurons, too. When he sees me doing something, he sometimes gets it into his head that he should do that, too. I have long hair, but Bow's is short. Sometimes, when I have a messy task to take care of, I put my hair up into a bun. Bow watches, fascinated as I do that. Sometimes, he gathers as much of his hair as he can, and he tries in vain to put his hair up in a bun, too. Only he can't, because it's too short.
Yesterday, I was brushing my hair, and I thought Bow might like to help me brush my hair, too. He often grooms me, but he does that with his bare hands. I thought that if I handed him the brush, he might want to help me brush my hair.
But Bow was fascinated by the iPhone's small screen filming this, instead. I had to tap him lightly to get his attention before I handed him the brush and asked whether he would like to brush my hair. Bow did not want to help me brush my hair. He took the brush, started to brush his own hair, and then reached for the iPhone, because he wanted to see himself doing it on the screen.
"Would you like to do what I'm doing?" can have two different meanings. It can mean, if I am brushing my hair, "would you like to brush my hair, too?" Or it can mean, instead, "would you like to brush your hair?" People with healthy mirror neurons often take it the second way.
Most days, for nearly twelve hours a day, I am with Bow, inside the pens. But I do occasionally go outside, and when I do, this is what it looks like.
This was my front yard, yesterday morning. Everything is in bloom, and the birds are singing. I brought some redbud blossoms for Bow to try again, as they have fully opened up by now, and even the leaves are starting to come in.
Bow decided he would rather watch me eat the flowers than eat them himself. They taste fine, but it's just like salad: not enough calories to live off. Redbud would make a nice garnish, but not a meal.
The weather has gotten cooler this morning, so much so that I am wearing a jacket. Bow is sleepy, because the sky is cloudy and there is not that much light.
Earlier, I went out to the back yard to mow what grass we have left. I have not been taking care of the grass, and the dogs have worn out big patches. However, what remains needs to be kept fairly low. This gives me an opportunity to interact more with the dogs, but Bow feels left out.
Notice how when Bow rattles the grid, the pea plants shudder? I am not sure what to do about that. In the distance, we could occasionally hear gunshots. Our neighbors must be out hunting.This upset Bow a little, but the dogs did not care.
Brownie really wanted me to throw him a rock, so I complied.
Brownie was very happy that I threw him that rock, but he did not return it to me. He decided it was time to bury it. Leo just wanted to be petted.
I use a hand-pushed reel mower, which is good exercise, but I stop many times to look at things in the yard.
The dogwood is in full bloom now. The dogs look happy under its snowy blossoms.
Bow, on the other hand, was not always so happy while I was out in the yard. This is what he looked like from outside the pen.
This is the way most people view primates in zoos and sanctuaries. Even the people who work there as caretakers often do not get to go in. It is not the best way to really get to know a chimpanzee and develop a long term relationship. But when we go inside, as I did, after I had mowed the grass, the grid disappears, and we see the real chimp.
Bow wanted me to groom him, so I did, but now Leo was jealous. You can't please everyone all at once!
Bow has been in and out today. It is nice enough outside, but this also makes him more playful when he is indoors.
This afternoon, I spotted Bow playing ball with his rolled up blanket. I came in to film that, but before I had locked the door, he tagged me lightly and invited me to a game of chase, with the blanket serving as a ball.
Then the blanket unraveled and Bow had to take some time to turn it back into a ball. He took especial interest in the white tag affixed to the blanket.
After that, Bow affectionately shook my leg a little, stuck out his tongue, then decided to groom my face. After that, he took an interest in the camera, and it was time to stop filming.
He wanted to see the video we had made and watched it with interest several times.
After he had watched the video, Bow also groomed my hand a little.
Here is a very small snippet of a hand grooming session.
All in all, Bow had a good day. He was very patient all day long with any delays or inconveniences he had to put up with, because when you are happy, it's all good.
With the weather becoming more hospitable, Bow has been enjoying several outings per day. Yesterday, he even had his three o'clock snack in the outer pen.
This morning, before lunch, Bow got in a vigorous exercise session with the dogs.
After exercising to his heart's content -- and believe me, this is definitely aerobic exercise -- Bow enjoyed just hanging out.
I didn't get a video of this, but Bow traversed the entire width of the ceiling like this.
When he was done with his outdoor exercise, Bow was much more quiet and subdued. First he groomed my hand.
Then he asked for his blanket. And once he had the blanket, he sat down on it and was very quiet for a long, long time.
When we get enough opportunities to be rowdy and cut loose out-of-doors, we can also have many quiet moments indoors.
Yesterday, before I left to run my usual Wednesday errands, I stuck around to observe how Lawrence and Bow started out their time together. There was the usual display that lasted quite a while, and then after Bow approved, Lawrence went in, and they embraced, and after that Bow started grooming Lawrence's hand.
And then something happened between them, something very brief, which I could not really make out from my vantage point, and then I saw Bow apologize to Lawrence. An apology from Bow is unmistakable, and since he has apologized to me many times, I immediately recognized it. It involves both a facial gesture and a hand gesture. The facial gesture is a grimace and the accompanying hand gesture involves presenting the knuckles to the other party's mouth, as if requesting a kiss. What this gesture usually means is: "I'm sorry I hurt you. Please forgive me."
It turns out, and I only know this because I asked Lawrence, that Bow hurt Lawrence when he attempted to groom a hangnail. Lawrence told him that it hurt and asked him not to do that, and then Bow apologized. After his apology was accepted, Bow went back to grooming the hangnail, but Lawrence switched him to the other hand.
Apologies are not a human invention. The best apologies are those that occur spontaneously and do not involve artifice. One of the unfortunate side effects of human culture and human language is that we are very good at faking apologies. We try to obtain forgiveness when we don't feel any real contrition.
Now, when I write this, I do not mean to imply that chimpanzees are angels or that they never try to deceive. In his telling of falsehoods, Bow is on a par with many a human. But there is something to his body language that does not lie. There are many hard-wired reflexive expressions of genuine emotion, and if you pay attention to those, rather than the things he intentionally says, you will come to a much better understanding of the person that Bow is.
I think that to some extent this is true of humans, too. We talk about forgiveness and what a wonderful thing it is. But many people forget that true forgiveness is a reflex -- that it happens naturally when we are in the presence of true contrition -- which is also a reflex. If we stop trying to fake these feelings, we just might open ourselves up to experience them for what they are: hard-wired emotional responses that help individuals live peacefully within a group.
Every Wednesday Lawrence comes in to sit with Bow so I can run some errands. Bow and Lawrence are very good friends. Bow eagerly waits for Lawrence to arrive. He knows that Lawrence is coming, and he looks forward to that. He even makes eager, impatient sounds of happiness when he sees Lawrence's car arrive in the driveway.
However, you would not know any of this if you saw how Bow behaves when Lawrence first comes in. Bow's hair stands on end. He makes himself look twice as big as he actually is. He makes threatening sounds and throws himself against the glass and the walls of the pens, in some cases even injuring himself through the violence of his own aggression.
Lawrence knows better than to go in while Bow is in the middle of such a display. If he did, he would stand a very good chance of being injured. But all Lawrence has to do is wait until the display peters out. Eventually, Bow settles down, and then he may even gesture to let Lawrence know it is safe to come in. Then, when Lawrence does come in, Bow greets him happily and starts to groom Lawrence.
This pattern repeats every single week, unless Lawrence has been here a day earlier. Bow does not feel the need to display if the two have just seen each other. But if a whole week has gone by, the display must take place. There is no way to get around it. We just have to go through it.
Some people tend to say things like: well, of course, he's a chimpanzee. What did you expect? But I don't think it's just a chimpanzee thing. The more I get to understand Bow's peculiar and inevitable behavior, the more I recognize that I have seen similar things in humans, but at the time, I did not understand what I was seeing.
For instance, when I was in law school, I was surprised during negotiations with another student, that he appeared to get very angry and hit his hand on the table so hard that he broke the wristband to his watch and may also have injured his hand. At the time, I thought this was a sign of the man's stupidity and lack of self-control. But I was woefully unaware of the power of non-verbal signals at the time, and I did not realize that disputes are often settled by non-verbal displays of strength and posturing and that you cannot reason your way out of what is essentially a power struggle.
In my real life experiences as a lawyer, I learned that I could not ignore non-verbal signals. People were communicating important things to each other without words -- and often the words they used belied the real messages they were sending. We ignore non-verbal signals at our peril.
Many repeated patterns of aggression and then submission appear in human relationships all around us. It does not necessarily have to be overtly violent, but it is there nonetheless. Naive do-gooders often try to teach people not to repeat those patterns over and over again, but the people who do really well in life are those who learn to go with the flow. Instead of preaching to others that they should break the pre-programmed pattern, they learn the pattern, and they find ways to come in without getting hurt.
By learning to live with a chimpanzee, and experiencing this first hand with him, I am able to understand a lot of things now about human relationships that I was not able to see before. I have incorporated some of this understanding into my new book, Theodosia and the Pirates, which will be out next year.
Dominance displays and patterns of submission are a part of life. Instead of trying to reform everybody into behaving more like a robot and less like a primate, wouldn't it be better to understand and incorporate that understanding into our lives and our institutions?
When Lawrence came the day after Christmas, he brought with him a couple of belated presents for Bow: a sports shoe and a shirt. Bow was delighted with the gifts. Of course, he knows what we normally do with shoes and with shirts. He even briefly wore the shirt. But afterwards, he went back to enjoying his own natural pattern of behavior with shirts.
Literacy and education are all well and good. We each can benefit from those. But who we are, underneath the education and the clothing, is not going to change. This is one of the many things that I have learned from Bow.
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