GREAT APE TALES

Readers' Stories

One day when Asha was in the service area between the exhibits, I climbed to the top of a ladder. I was on the level of the upper den where Asha's mother was. Her mother came over to the mesh at the front of the den where I was sitting. She was very curious about Asha. She looked very intently at her. Then she looked at me. Then she did something quite surprising. She stuck one of her fingers through the mesh and touched the lock that held the den door closed. She pushed the lock up sideways so that I could see the keyhole. Then with her other hand she stuck her finger through the mesh and tapped the keyhole with her fingernail.

It was clear that Asha's mother was asking me to open the door so she could touch her baby, because she knows how locks and keys work. I carefully explained that I could not open it and that I had no keys anyway. I felt terrible that I couldn't open the door to let her touch Asha. She must have been very disappointed.

One day when I was returning from lunch, I noticed that one of the young orang-utans in the next enclosure was holding a wrench. I knew that before lunch the keepers had been working in that empty exhibit, hanging new ropes for the orang-utans. I realized one of the tools must have fallen into the hay, and the keepers did not know it was missing when they left.

Talukan is a half Sumatran and half Bornean 'hybrid'. He has to be the ultimate personality among ape species, including humans. As I went over to the viewing area in front of his enclosure, I watched him not only using this tool appropriately, but using the proper end - one end was a wrench and the other a socket wrench - to remove a nut from a clasp holding a rope to the ceiling. He was hanging from this rope.

When the supervisor came in minutes later, I told him of Talukan's efforts to remove the nut, clamp, and rope. The supervisor entered the service area and asked Talukan to give him the tool. Talukan responded by going over to the supervisor at the food-port and teasing him, offering the tool and then pulling it back before he could grasp it.

The supervisor brought half an apple to trade Talukan for the tool. On seeing this, the two female orang-utans, mother Sandra and daughter Sumagu, with whom he shared the exhibit realized that the supervisor had something they wanted. The two females then not only tried to get there before him, but tried to take his bartering tool away to use for their own bartering purposes.

Needless to say, the tool was given back and Talukan got the apple half, as well as a wrestling match with his fellow orangs.

For a period of time, Lash, the silverback, was being held in a separate exhibit from the two adult females, Roxie and Juju, with whom he had lived for some years. This was done in order to prepare him to be moved to Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida. At this same time, another silverback, Barney, who had just been brought in from the Bronx Zoo, was living in the exhibit next to Lash's. Although Barney had not yet been introduced to Roxie and Juju, he did occupy the same exhibit space when the two female gorillas were not present.

A keeper friend told me that one day a shift door was inadvertently left open. This allowed Roxie and Juju access to Lash's exhibit. For a time these three gorillas had been denied even visual contact, and now suddenly they were together again. What was unexpected was that the three gorillas all hugged each other, as a group, while standing and walking bipedally all over the enclosure, with their arms around each other. It was apparent to the keeper that the three gorillas were genuinely happy to see and be with each other.