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.
Last year, I got involved in Inktober, a month-long, non-competitive art event open to anyone. During Inktober, people use ink to create a sketch from a verbal prompt consisting of a single word. Each day in October we get a new prompt, and we have to complete a sketch that day. My favorite drawing that came out of Inktober 2018 is a portrait of baby Bow.
Unfortunately, I got sick that year and was not able to complete Inktober. This year I was finally able to do one drawing each day in October, and many of my drawings have been of Bow.
While I drew on my own, I also encouraged Bow to draw, too. He didn't always want to, and when he did he would not tell me what he was drawing. By looking at older art from other family members, including myself as a child and Sword in her preschool years, I have noticed a distinct difference between the sorts of art that Bow makes and the art of children I have known. Human children do not strive for realism early on, but they do make representational art that is largely symbolic. Body parts are given symbolic representation and part/whole relations are very important. When Bow draws, he may be representing things, but not so much by symbolism, and quite possibly by a direct attempt at realism.The video linked below demonstrates more fully what I mean.
Here is a picture of the etching that we discovered on the floor of the inner pen in 2008. It had not been there before.
Do you see a head of an ape when you look at it? Do you think this is an artwork by Bow?
You may have noticed that I have been writing in my blog here less and posting more and more videos on YouTube. There's a very simple reason for that: YouTube pays. This blog does not. But there are some things that you can say in a blog post that are harder to say in a video. I am primarily a writer, not a performer. So I will continue to blog, albeit not as often.
After I came home from my brief illness, I kept posting more and more videos on my main YouTube channel, and within a month, as I recovered my strength and stamina, I also regained my YouTube income. Here is the video I posted at the time I learned that monetization had been restored.
In February of 2018, with the advent of the new YouTube rules, I lost my monetization, because I did not have a thousand subscribers. I had many more than the required views and minutes watched, but I had not asked people to subscribe. I had no interest in my viewers, was not counting how many there were, and I was perfectly happy with the extra pocket money I was earning to pay for Bow's bananas. But when they took all that away, I was really put out. I did not understand why I needed subscribers, when subscribers did not pay a subscription fee, and people can see exactly the same videos when they do not subscribe. But if that is what YouTube wanted, I figured I could probably get most of the people who were already watching to subscribe, if I asked them nicely. They would be doing it as a favor to me, because it's not as if they would be cut off from the videos if they didn't subscribe. This is why it felt like a slightly non-commercial transaction between me and my viewers. They were doing me a favor when they subscribed, because this was information they were handing over to Google, when they could just as easily watch incognito. For all I know, some of my most ardent viewers may still be unsubscribed.
After nine months of asking people to subscribe, I gained the required one thousand subscribers and got my monetization back. Now my channel is bringing in about fifteen times what it had brought in before. And right now, as I write this blog post, I have 4,582 subscribers. I got 3,126 of them in the last 28 days. Most of these subscribers like to watch "grooming videos". Most of them will never read a novel by me, much less a scientific article about ape language studies. For them, it is all just stimulus and response, grooming and ASMR. But luckily for me, I believe in the free market, and I feel no compunction about exploiting their interests, so that I can be free to pursue mine.
Thanks to my new subscribers, I was able to get Bow a new hammock and a new sleeping bag for Christmas, not to speak of a number of other items for Leo, Summer and the cockatiels.
Things are looking up. Julia Hanna and I have expanded our interview show to include important researchers, scientists and academics. We had a whole series with Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh.
Last night, we interviewed a linguist and author in Iran.
I feel very lucky to have as much freedom as I do to live as I want, despite the fact that many liberties have already disappeared from the American way of life. Though I do not understand YouTube or the reasons for its rules, I am happy right now with the deal they have offered me. In the coming year, I plan to continue working with Bow, while posting more and more interviews with leading thinkers, writers, scientists and academics.
As for Bow, he is always happy as long as there is someone there to read him a story.
Bow is an avid reader of the Missouri Conservationist.
He enjoys leafing through the entire magazine, but this time, he indicated clearly that his favorite part was a photo of a little girl who looked a little like Ping in Ping & the Snirkelly People and of a Monarch butterfly right in front of her face.
In the little yellow rectangle, an entire conservation strategy is outlined to help preserve the Monarch butterfly.
Why such an "aggressive goal"? And what do Monarchs have to do with pollination?
A Monarch caterpillar on my transplanted common milkweed
My own experience with the Monarch caterpillars this season have been a little disappointing. I did see several different caterpillars in different stages of their growth. But what I never got to see is any of those caterpillars turning into a chrysalis. And having missed that stage, I never saw a Monarch butterfly emerge.
As the caterpillars proceeded with their work and the purple milkweed flowers died and the leaves were left full of holes, I began to wonder about the great effort to reestablish milkweed so as to help the Monarch butterfly, and the total disregard for the wellbeing of the milkweed plant itself.
Purple milkweed does not seem to produce very many seed pods. Last year mine produced no seed pods at all because somebody -- I don't know who -- ate all the flowers long before anything interesting could happen. This year, a single flower survived long enough to start growing one tiny seed pod.
But the seed pod did not arrive at maturity, because ants attacked it.
Both my milkweed and my Monarchs seem to be productive in the early stages of the procreative process -- flowers, caterpillars -- but not so productive in the later stages -- seed pod, chrysalis. Is this what is happening worldwide? Maybe not.
I have been following the blog of Anurag Agrawal, and he recently a posted an article of his about the decline of the Monarch population that came out in Science. You can look at the article here:
What Agrawal has found is that there is a mismatch between these two ways of counting total butterflies. Sometimes there is a resurgence of Monarchs in Canada and the United States, but by the time they get down to their over-wintering site in Mexico, the population is greatly reduced.
Loss of habitat for a migratory butterfly can happen anywhere along its migration. But Agrawal has stated that it is the migration, not the butterfly, that is currently endangered. Planting more milkweed in the United States and Canada is not going to help, if the forests in Mexico are being cut down. On the other hand, there are Monarchs in warm places like parts of California that have a more local migration, and they are fine. And there are Monarchs in Mexico that seem to be active all year round, without overwintering anywhere. Does the Monarch butterfly need our intervention on its behalf? And if so, why?
Tussock Moth Milkweed Caterpillar
It's not because they are pollinators. They're not. It is not for the sake of fruit orchards. It is not because of any unique contribution that the Monarch makes to our ecology that some other butterfly does not. It's because, for some reason, the Monarch has great PR, and there are people lobbying on its behalf.
Would anybody care about milkweed if not for Monarchs? There are other caterpillars that depend on milkweed, like the tussock moth
caterpillar, but nobody seems to care much about them. So why the Monarch and why are state and Federal governments intervening on its behalf at taxpayer expense?
Ever since I first read Agrawal's book, Monarchs andMilkweed, I have been noticing some of the less popular milkweed eating insects.
Red Milkweed Beetle (Tetraopes Tetropthalmus)
The red milkweed beetle feeding on a defunct purple milkweed seed pod is so cute. Why doesn't it have a lobbyist in Washington?
Or how about the seed eating milkweed bugs? Why aren't there entire conservation movements built around them?
Milkweed Bug on Butterfly Milkweed
If we look at all this from the point of view of the milkweed plants, their survival strategy seems to be something like this:
Make yourself inedible by emitting a poison and a nasty latex.
Some bright insects will breach your defenses and make you their sole source of food in order to thwart predators.
When farmers start to eradicate you, because you are not good for cattle to feed on, get one of the insects that has managed to breach your defenses and can eat only you to be the poster child for pollinators, even though it's actually not a pollinator.
Get civic organizations to plant you profusely and governments to assure you acres and acres of protected growth.
If the poster child butterfly is still being decimated by its cross country migration, just use this to get even more protection for the propagation of yourself.
If, as a result of being artificially boosted, you lose the ability to propagate naturally through the spread of seeds from seed pods, keep yourself procreating artificially as a domesticated plant.
Two identical butterflies on butterfly milkweed
The truth is that in this age of huge human populations, only those beings protected by us get to thrive. Domestication has a bad name, but if you insist that one plant -- rather than another-- has the right to exist, and that one species, rather than another, will be protected in a given environment, then you are in fact domesticating those species that you protect. Once natural selection ceases to be the main factor in their future adaptations, you will have to act as a cultivator to keep them alive. And when you do that, you are not advocating natural balance. You will tend to create, instead, a sharp drop in diversity. Monocultures are what humans are famous for.
I love the many species of milkweed that I find growing wild on my land, and the many and varied butterflies that feed on their nectar delight me. But I would hate to think that these are not wildflowers at all, but part of a widespread plot to keep some species alive at taxpayer expense, while others die out.
Why does this matter to me? Because current efforts are afoot to end all breeding of chimpanzees in the United States. This is being done in the name of conservation. It's being done, because conservationists want to maintain only wild chimpanzees, and to eradicate all chimpanzees which have been domesticated.
But wild chimpanzees in Africa will not remain wild if they are protected. Once their natural predators are eliminated and their existence assured, they will change their ways of being. And domesticated chimpanzees here in the US, which are privately owned, will never have a chance to live free, outside of zoos and sanctuaries. Generations of Americans will grow up without the opportunity to meet a chimpanzee in a safe and mutually respectful environment.
Yesterday was a red letter day. I finally saw a monarch caterpillar with my very own eyes. My iPhone summarized the day in a short video.
For the majority of my YouTube following, it is the cozy moments with Bow that matter the most. Grooming together out in the sun is certainly a pleasant experience.
But because that is an everyday occurrence for me, I suppose I underplay it, whereas it is those rare glimpses of a butterfly or a moth that have me all a-flutter. For instance, on June 2nd, I spotted what seemed like a leaf, but it was moving in a way that made it seem alive
.
I drew closer, and it turned out to be a very damaged polyphemus moth.
It was so fragile, so damaged and yet so beautiful!
So I posted the video on YouTube, because I thought it was exciting and poignant and rare, and I got eight views. Eight views! But my last grooming video got over a thousand views. And for a moment I kind of felt as if my viewers were shallow. But then I realized: I'm lucky to have a personal relationship with Bow, and so I take it for granted. And there are so many people out there who are starving for contact with nonhuman apes. So it makes sense that for them Bow grooming me is the rare and wonderful thing. And I do value the contact with Bow, too. It's just that I am also amazed by the wildlife all around me. That's another gift that Project Bow has given me. I never saw so many butterflies until I was trapped here, with no hope of escape, just the way Bow is. It's when you can't go anywhere else that the true story all around you starts to unfold.
And then there is the saga of the milkweed plants and the monarch butterflies. Last year I watched one milkweed plant as it went from closed buds to full bloom, and the next day it was gone. It took so very long to bloom, but I never saw a butterfly on it. Not once! And it was probably a deer that ate it.
This year, everything has happened much faster. The first floret opened on June 2nd, and I almost did not notice it, because it was hidden under a leaf.
That evening there was a violent rainstorm. I went out the next morning to look at the purple milkweed, not knowing what I would find. And there it was!
They're supposed to be eating the leaves, not the flowers. But I would recognize it anywhere, even though I had never seen one in person before. It was a monarch caterpillar! A creature out of mythic past -- from a book I had read in first grade, when my reading ability exceeded my grasp of English!
Bow wasn't very interested, but that's okay, because when I first read that book, I wasn't very interested, either. I wanted to grow up to be a giant gorilla, and I didn't care much about invertebrates. The story of how I learned English by total immersion in first grade is fictionalized in my children's book,Ping and the Snirkelly People. It is coming out at the end of the month on Audible, read by Evelyn Adams.
Anyway, I was so excited yesterday to see my first monarch caterpillar that I took many photos of it.
But by the time I got back to the purple milkweed patch that afternoon, the caterpillar was long gone. I did see a beautiful eastern tailed-blue on the half open blossoms of another of the purple milkweed plants.
I incorporated both the butterfly and the caterpillar in a video that featured plenty of grooming, because you have to give the people what they want.
It's not that I don't enjoy being groomed, mind you. It always feels nice.
It's just that there are also other pleasures in life. And I enjoy sharing those as well.
Yesterday was Valentine's Day, and we celebrated accordingly. Some people think that this holiday is only for romantic couples, but we have always celebrated it at my house, in whichever way that suited us. Even though she is away in college, and currently has a boyfriend, my daughter did not forget me on Valentine's Day.
Likewise, I did not forget to celebrate with Bow.
In my house, our favorite flavor of ice cream is coffee. I prepared a treat for two consisting of coffee ice cream, topped with whipped cream and a Dove chocolate piece shaped like a heart.
I went in with both treats, and I told Bow that one of them was for me.
Bow took his treat and ate the chocolate heart on top, and then, seeing that I had left mine on the floor as I went to lock the door, he helped himself to my share, too. I scolded him and took his ice cream for myself, but by then Bow had already managed to eat both chocolate hearts.
Bow is gentle and well mannered, but he is not good at understanding the difference between "mine" and "yours". We often see this as a problem with "sharing" if a human toddler behaves in that way, but the issue is not sharing at all. It is about realizing that once something is given to another person, it's not yours to take. It's a lesson in property rights, not asset allocation.
Once he was finished with his ice cream, Bow handed me back the empty glass goblet.
Later in the afternoon, I had another surprise for Bow: a Valentine's Day Balloon.
We have been snow bound for several days now. I have gone for a walk each day, but Bow has not wanted to go out.
At first there was not much snow on the ground, but it was nice to take a walk down the path in the snow flurries.
On the second day, there was much more snow on the ground, though by afternoon when I took my walk, it was not snowing any longer.
On the third day, I saw deer bounding over the path. On the fourth day, it was so cold out that I cut my walk very short, and we concentrated on grooming.
And today, on the fifth day, Bow asked to go outside. I did not know whether to take the request seriously. Sometimes when he is bored, but it is too cold out, he will drag me all the way to the outer door, but never actually go out. But this afternoon he jumped out without hesitation. Naturally, his feet never touched the snow. He landed on the bench.
Bow shook his head at the cold, but did not ask to go back in. Instead, he lay on the rim of the bench's backrest and sunbathed for a good long time, before asking to go back inside.
Bow received an envelope in the mail today. It was addressed to "Mr. Bow Katz", and there were beautiful stamps on the front.
"Look, Bow. Here is something for you. It came in the mail. Do you want to open it?" He examined the envelope and set about opening it. Then he fished something out of the card inside it. It was a red Christmas hat shaped ornament, with a bent paper clip for a hanger and a little bell at the end. This fascinated Bow so much that he almost did not notice the card.
The card said "Wishing you a furry Christmas" on the outside and inside there was a dog that barked the tune to "We wish you a Merry Christmas." In handwriting it said:: "Merry Christmas, Bow. Your friend Charla."
Bow listened to the barking dog sing a little and then jiggled it. But the red hat ornament was what he really wanted for his own. He handed me back the card after a while, held on to the ornament, and asked to go outside.
Bow went walking around outside, human style, stomping his feet and carrying the ornament in his hand. This really impressed Leo.
Bow was very happy with this early Christmas present. It was the perfect gift!
Bow and I are getting ready for Christmas. As we put up our tree, many of the ornaments, which are just pictures of Sword and Bow in their younger days, make us reminisce about the past.
Then we look at old photo albums and old books, like my own When Sword Met Bow.
You cannot go back in time, but our memories are fairly vivid, and we can see old scenes replay in our mind's eye, even with our eyes closed.
But back in the present, there are also wonderful things taking place. From the perspective of research, publication, or just plain living, good things are happening, and we have much to be grateful for. Sometimes I try to share our happy little moments with others on social media, but every person has a different point of view, and each one sees something different.
We have different audiences on Facebook and on YouTube. On Facebook, the video of Bow jingling the bells is really taking off. Everyone on Facebook agrees that Bow is cute. And, of course, that's true. No denying it. But there are other aspects to Bow's personality, and the focus of YouTube viewers is a little different.
On YouTube, it's the grooming videos that everyone wants to see. My top performing video at the moment is the one below.
Sometimes viewers will ask me questions that reveal their own bias. "Why do you have so many grooming videos?" One person asked. "Is Bow your pet chimpanzee?"
I do not have "so many grooming videos." Out of 1903 videos, only a handful are of Bow grooming someone. But just at the moment, those are the ones that are trending. They are not even my top ten videos of all time.
Besides the Leslie Fish music videos, which have always done well, there is the Diorama of an Amazon rain forest that Sword made when she was in grade school. I always suspected that it got so many views, because there were so many other children and parents scrambling to assemble one of those, since it was assigned to them in school.
But besides class assignments, which are often mandated by the government, and besides Leslie Fish songs, which are very rebellious and cool --and I enjoy them, too, or I would not have them here -- the vast majority of the public has ignored the vast majority of my content.
There are the very serious playlists of videos explaining Project Bow and its scientific findings.
There are the songs from my musical with composer Daniel Carter, The Debt Collector.
And there is a playlist of the trailers for my books.
Not one of the videos in these playlists is anywhere near the top ten for my channel. This is not a reflection on me. It is an indication of what YouTube viewers like to watch.
The vast majority of my videos include nature scenes, like the one below of a Monarch butterfly. Hardly anyone watches them, though.
I was so excited to get this close to a Monarch butterfly this year! I was really proud of this video, but most viewers did not notice it at all. That is perfectly fine, though, because each of us has different interests, and one of the great things about YouTube is that we can watch whatever we like. As a libertarian, I am all for that.
But it's amusing when a viewer complains about there being too many grooming videos on my channel. If all you see on my channel are grooming videos, then that is because that is all you are looking for. It reflects on you, not on me! Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and so are the videos that rank high with each viewer.
There's something in there for everyone. But if all you see are books on a particular topic, then that might be because that is the topic that appeals to you. We each create our own universe from our point of view.
Our Tree -- How many of my interests can you spot in this picture?
Meanwhile, enjoy the holidays, and if you find one of my books appealing, give it a read!
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