Borrowed Bones
Families build you up, tear you down, and sometimes drag you into something truly unhinged. Borrowed Bones unearths the bizarre, toxic, and fascinating stories of family dynamics gone sideways. From the macabre to the just plain strange, we’re digging deep to uncover the skeletons hiding in the closets of history, culture, and beyond.
Borrowed Bones
The Ngogo Chimpanzees
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In the heart of Uganda's Kibale National Park lies a remarkable story of family politics, power struggles, and territorial conflicts that mirror human societies in startling ways. The Ngogo chimpanzee community is the largest known chimpanzee group in the world. It provides a window into the complex social structures that govern great ape societies and, by extension, offers insights into our own evolutionary past
Sources:
Center for Great Apes in Florida
Campuspress.yale.edu, The Ngogo Territorial Conflict, News.yale.edu, Netflix.com, Britannica.com, Greenmatters.com, The Rise of Warrior Apes
E-Mail the show at BorrowedBonesPodcast@proton.me
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Hello everyone.
Speaker 2Hello.
Speaker 1I'm Sarah.
Speaker 2And I'm Cole.
Speaker 1And you're listening to Borrowed Bones, a podcast about fucked up, interesting and toxic families. This one is different.
Speaker 2I don't know For the first time. I don't know anything about what we're talking about. I usually know, like the topic at least, Even if I'm not familiar with it, she tells me hey we're doing it about this. Okay, she deliberately did not tell me anything when she was working on it. I wasn't allowed in the room, so I'm coming in blind.
Speaker 1Right. However, I do know that you know about this topic.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1You just don't know. I'm doing it today.
Speaker 2Okay Now, color me intrigued.
Speaker 1This is not one of the true crimey ones. It's not gnarly or bad, it's more of interesting side yet again.
Speaker 2More in the twining vein, kind of it's a little bit sadder.
Meeting the Nagogo Chimpanzee Community
Speaker 1There's more drama and there's death and everything in this still, but it's not like a true crime. Okay, it's not even people okay we are starting in the summer of 1993. We have scientist researcher david watts entering the ugandan forest. Oh, it's going to be about chimpanzees, isn't it?
Speaker 2Yes, it is, ah okay, our first non-human episode, but still about family.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2All right, tell me about this chimp troop in Uganda.
Speaker 1Yes, let's get into it.
Speaker 2Let's do it.
Speaker 1Starting in the early 1990s, there have been rumors of an advanced society taking control of the forest, a society of chimpanzees okay and researcher scientist david watts. He heard of this advanced community of chimps and he wanted to go see it for himself. He went to the nagogo rainforest that resides within the kabali national park in uganda so isolated protected.
Speaker 1yes, all right. David watts, he didn't know what to expect when going into this and he says he would end up witnessing the most complex and brutal chimpanzee society ever discovered. Nice, yes, now I watched multiple documentaries, the YouTube one. The title is Rise of the Warrior Apes.
Speaker 2Okay, yeah, I have not seen that one.
Speaker 1I didn't think so. I wasn't sure we should watch it.
Speaker 2I'll watch it again, of course, all right, yeah, and then Chimp Empire.
Speaker 1So those are the two main documentaries that I'm going off of, and then Chimp Empire. So those are the two main documentaries that I'm going off of, and then Internet research after that. Yeah, the documentary on YouTube, rise of the Warrior Apes, was filmed over the course of 23 years Long time. There were multiple researchers. David Watts and John Matani were the main ones to start it all off, but other people come in, you know assistants yeah, for 23 years Caretaker.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, like photographers film everything.
Speaker 1Yeah, matani said it took about four to five years to get the chimps used to humans and like seeing them, they would always just run away as soon as they saw them. So Matani and Watts were like well, okay, cool. But they stuck to it. And so august of 1996 a big group of chimps came down near watts and matani kind of rushed down toward them and ran away like they normally do, like oh, we're playing, we see you. Okay, we're gonna run away now. But one individual did not run away this time and his name is Hare H-A-R-E.
Speaker 2Hare.
Speaker 1Okay, hare just went off in his own direction. He didn't really run away. He was walking at a quick pace, but not like running away. He was just being himself. Mitanni followed him and then Hare stopped and just sat and hung out, and that was it. It just showed Mitanni followed him and then Hare stopped and just sat and hung out, and that was it. It just showed Mitanni that Hare wasn't scared of him.
Speaker 2Yeah, he's comfortable around him.
Speaker 1This moved Mitanni to tears, because years of doing this and finally one of them is showing no fear, okay, we're allowed to be around them now. Soon after the domino effect, other chimps were like oh okay, this is fine. So that's how these scientists and researchers are able to be this close to them. They never do interact with these chimps, they don't do anything they just strictly observe strictly observe.
Speaker 1once the chimps allowed the researchers to really get near them and see them, the researchers were like there's a lot of chimps. There's way more than we realized At the time. They're thinking there was probably over 140 chimps in that group In one troop. This is the largest known chimpanzee community anywhere. Most live in about a 40 to 50 member community or troop From day one. Once they were able to see everything, there was a clear alpha male.
Speaker 2Yes, there tends to be.
Speaker 1And his name was Mweya Mweya M-W-E-Y-A.
Speaker 2Gotcha Mweya.
Speaker 1And the way they described him in this documentary was really cool. He would have a swagger and just a general demeanor about him. You just knew that he was in control, and they said that he had an interesting combo of being strong and powerful, but also smart and good at building social bonds.
Speaker 2Yeah, you don't get to be the alpha male without having diplomacy. You can't rule just with brute force, or your reign will not be long.
Speaker 1Yeah, there's a few stories of alphas. We'll go through here and we will see that.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2Always vying to be king of the hill.
Speaker 1Yeah, but the researchers, they were concerned Like how long can one male control this large?
Speaker 2of a group. Yeah, you're going to have dissenters. Yeah.
Speaker 1There's another male, bartok. He is second in line. Okay, he has a very strong bond with Moea, like Moea is kind of recruiting him and setting him up to take over for him when it's done, he's the heir apparent.
Speaker 2Yes, okay, so they have heir apparent. Yes, okay.
Speaker 1So they have an allyship. It's very political the way all this moves. They're very much doing this on purpose. It's not just by happenstance Like this is on purpose.
Speaker 2There's a whole court of intrigue with chimpanzee politics. It's in politicking, yeah, anyway, keep going.
Speaker 1Sorry, yeah, I love how I'm like telling you the story. You're on the edge of your seat. Bartok was a fair amount younger than Moeah, so again, perfect to be sort of groomed for the next in line.
Speaker 2Do we know and you might not know the answer to this Are they father and son, or do they not even know? They probably don't know if they didn't see him. Yeah, I don't know. They probably don't know if they didn't see him.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'm not sure. Okay, However, there was another chimp who had his eye on the prize of being alpha, and his name is Lofty.
Speaker 2Oh, he's got lofty ambitions.
Speaker 1Yes, nice Yep. And Lofty was a bit of a bully. He was more of the aggressor he was in great physical condition. He was a bigger ape, um, so he was able to use that, but he wasn't politically savvy. He didn't really make those social bonds he just wanted the power he worked his way up the hierarchy ladder very quickly. Because of how aggressive he was, everyone was like fuck, fine go fine, whatever.
Speaker 1So that's this setup. We have lofty, who wants to climb up the ladder, as well as bartok and hair. Have it all situated right now it's like the roman republic yep, now the nogogo chimps have a territory at this time of about 28 square kilometers, okay, and chimps are very territorial.
Speaker 2Yes.
Speaker 1And they know their territory well.
Speaker 2They are very warlike and they have borders between their cultures and troops.
Speaker 1Mm-hmm, and they also know what's going on in the territories right next to them, like their neighbors Mm-hmm. In the YouTube documentary they refer to the neighbors as the others, or neighbors Mm-hmm. So when I say neighbors, it's not friendly.
Speaker 2Yeah, and these different troops are whole different cultures, essentially.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2They have their own ways of interacting with each other, their own hierarchies, their own like it's. It's weird. It's just as diverse as different human cultures.
Speaker 1It's yeah Now. Scientist Matani, he saw Hare, mueya, bartok and some other chimps acting strange. He didn't really know what was up with them, but he saw them all move in a single file fashion into the forest.
Speaker 2Single file Okay yeah, that's what they do when they patrol yeah.
Speaker 1They all get into like a formation.
Speaker 2I mean not perfect single file, but it's clear that they're one behind the other. Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, and they fell silent. And then Mitanni figures out that they were looking for the others, the strangers, the neighbors. And Matani doesn't really know what happened. He was like all of a sudden they just went. There was some type of nonverbal communication that he missed, he didn't see.
Speaker 2Yeah, he's not picking up on the cues.
Chimp Politics and Power Struggles
Speaker 1Now, as the chimps reached the edge of their territory, they began kind of gibbering like a little excited.
Speaker 2Yeah, just getting all Yep, yeah, rocking side to side, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1Kind of like anxious, looking, yeah, excited, but like keeping quiet though they weren't hooting and hollering.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And then, as they were lined up, they all turned shoulder to shoulder to face out. So they're on their border, facing out now yeah, facing into enemy territory. And it kind of looks like they're an army front like lined up.
Speaker 1And they're just looking into the other territory and they begin to listen and if they hear a lot of other voices, voices, they're not going to do anything because, oh, we're outnumbered, it's too risky, we can't do anything. But if they're not outnumbered, maybe they'll try to expand their territory, maybe they'll go in, like so they have to kind of assess and figure out what it is. Yeah, at this moment they do turn away because they hear that they're outnumbered they don't even try anything.
Speaker 2Not worth it. It's a reconnaissance mission. Let's gather some data, gather some info.
Speaker 1Yeah, yes, now, all of this. I don't think this was as they were coming back, because there's so many years that span this one documentary, so it cuts to another moment. And still soon, like around this this time, but not too far the other researcher, scientist watts. He saw the chimps go on a hunt and they were hunting little red colobus monkeys okay, yeah, up in the trees yeah yeah it's terrifying to watch yes chimps have an organized hunt, because they'll hunt, yeah, monkeys or bush pigs for meat and yeah
Speaker 1yeah, it's wild to see footage of that yeah, it was awful and there's a lot of it. So if you watch this youtube documentary, just know that they don't cover anything okay um, you see it, you see them killing these little monkeys. You see them? Yeah, you see it.
Speaker 2I'm just gonna show it, they show it, all it's there yeah, it was a little shocking for me honestly.
Speaker 1I was like okay, um, but yes you, you see the chimps chase the monkeys up the trees and they kind of corner them on the branches, like there'll be chimps standing along the ground waiting for any to fall. There'll be chimps on other trees, kind of coordinated attack it's very and you see, chimps like pointing yeah, directing, giving orders, they're not just it's terrifying, blindly rushing in and just you pulling the china shop.
Speaker 2like you might think, it is a coordinated attack.
Speaker 1And that's what these researchers discovered and the way they talked about it in the documentary. They were like shell shocked. They did not like watching it and observing it at all. Once the chimps did get a hold of a monkey, they all took an arm or a leg and just began to pull and they quartered this monkey and then the chimps would hand out the meat to others, including the entire head that was ripped off. Yeah, you see that yeah when they pass out meat.
Speaker 1That's a very political ally bonding moment it's a very hierarchical, hierarchical thank you.
Speaker 2I'm not even trying to say that that's awful, yeah hierarchical yeah, now I don't. I don't know if I can say it again now, because now I've got your version in my head, hierarchical okay, perfect, yeah, um, who gets the the best cuts? Who gets the most? Yeah, it's.
Speaker 1If you get any at all, yeah, yeah all of it's a statement, so they break it apart and they share it with their close friends, allies, anyone who they think might be able to help them socially, politically, and bartok was known to be very selective when sharing meat. For example, bartok gave Hare a large piece of monkey and then later on, hare helped Bartok out with something else, like the scientists, saw this back and forth behavior.
Speaker 1Yeah, and Bartok? He was dominant without using brute force, unlike Lofty. Lofty just couldn't seem to be as politically and socially savvy as Bartok.
Speaker 2Bartok's got charisma More likable, more respected. Yeah, throws weight around.
Speaker 1We're jumping now to early 1999.
Speaker 2All right.
Speaker 1Things began to shift politically. Moeah was still the alpha and Bartok was his number two. Still, yeah. And Lofty wanted to make a bid at it at this point Now.
Speaker 2is he going to try to take down number one, or is he going to try to take down number two?
Speaker 1Right, let's see. The researchers and scientists didn't really see exactly what happened, because most of this tussle happened in, like the thick vegetation. You can kind of hear it, but they didn't really see what was going on. But there was a fight between bartok and lofty. Okay, they were fighting, and when bartok emerged it was clear that his self-confidence was shattered. Oh so lofty went after number two okay, and he won, so he supplanted.
Speaker 2What does, what does my way have to say about this? I mean, he's still the alpha, doesn't he get to well?
Speaker 1bartok was now number three in line and lofty moved up to the number two spot.
Speaker 2Lofty then began to challenge moeah moeah is, if I recall correctly, he's getting up there in age too, because yeah, he's already essentially grooming on his air.
Speaker 1Anyway, I don't know exactly the age I kind of honestly lost track of ages. There's a lot but he's up there over the course of the next several months, lofty just consistently bullies and pokes at moe, just little by little by little, until eventually moe just starts to give in and is just being torn down. And then all of a sudden the researchers noticed moe doing a soft pant, grunt to lofty like a okay, kind of, kind of like a dog, yeah but it's a sign of submissiveness that chimps do oh kind of yeah, like I'm being submissive.
Speaker 2Yeah, you're in charge, you're the boss okay, and that's.
Speaker 1That's when the researchers knew that Mueo was no longer the alpha and that, lofty, the troop has a new leader yeah, I don't know what happened, but I think it was just a slow burn and Lofty was like just ugh, a million paper cuts.
Speaker 2You're old, old man. Yeah, get out. You're old, he's new blood. Get out, you're old, you can't lead the tribe, you're too old.
Speaker 1However.
Speaker 2Lofty was never secure in his position as alpha. It doesn't seem like he would be. I mean, if you take it that way, you're never gonna, if you earn it through force or take it by force rather than earning it the right way.
Speaker 1You're not going to be secure in your reign. He was not. He would run and beat everyone up as he ran by doing his like displays and all that, and he just didn't care. Everyone had to kind of scatter about, but he would do it so much yeah he's a prick yeah, he never could build a network. He could never do anything, not the way that bartok could could have if he had been, but bartok wasn't the leader oh, but bartok was still around
Speaker 1yeah he's sizing up the situation oh, he's still okay, he's like wait a minute. Lofty is kind of being an asshole. No one really seems to like him. No one really likes him. And Bartok and Moe are still in the two and three spots.
Speaker 2They're still up in the hierarchy.
Speaker 1Bartok saw how Lofty won against Moe, made the bid and did it, so Bartok was like I can do that. I can do that to Lofty, but Bartok is number three and Moe is number two. So Bartok has to beat Moe first in order to go for. Lofty. But Bartok easily beat Moe Moe kind of allowed it?
Speaker 2Yeah, because they used to be allies.
Speaker 1Yes, and so Bartok moved into number two, moe is now at number three, and they remain allies.
Speaker 2Okay, so this is just a. This is just a.
Speaker 1Yes, yeah, they're still good, they're tight, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2Their alliance runs deep.
Speaker 1We're going to take this prick down. They're doing it. Yeah, I know, isn't it so like human-like? It's so crazy, it's like the Roman crassus and they're like they're allies.
Speaker 2Until they're not, then they go to war with each other.
Speaker 1Come at the king you best not miss oh yeah, I wish more people knew what that was from oh, people know the wire now oh, that's true. Just coming back, omar yeah, anyway anyway, bartok was making moves. He wasn't the biggest male so he knew he needed some strong people, a strong network, if he was going to get Lofty out of that alpha role.
Speaker 2Bartok would groom other males very selectively which is another social bond, Literally grooming them like picking parasites off their. Yeah, Yep, go through, take parasites, fleas, ticks, everything.
Speaker 1That's a very ritual. Yeah, yeah, Yep, go through, take parasites fleas, ticks, everything.
Speaker 2That's a very ritual.
Speaker 1That's a as you've seen, you know apes and chimps and apes yeah, do all this If you've watched any type of Nat Geo or anything. Grooming is a thing they do, that they have to to stay healthy and alive.
Speaker 2But also who does it. It's very subtle.
Speaker 1Political.
Speaker 2Yeah, subtle political. Yeah, who who picks who's if? If, after you do someone, do they return the favor or do they not? That's a big?
Speaker 1yeah, are you only allowed to groom and you're never the one groomed yourself like that's a big one. Yeah, so this is how they build their bonds. And bartok had mawaya hair and some other male chimps in his alliance, so so the researchers noticed that Bartok would groom and be groomed by like a group of males. They were all like a little group. One day Bartok, Moea and two other males jumped on Lofty and beat him up pretty badly Didn't kill him, yeah, but they let him know.
Speaker 2Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1And Bartok was now the alpha yeah.
Speaker 2Your reign is done, son. You're done, yep.
Speaker 1So Lofty was the alpha for one and a half years.
Speaker 2Okay, yeah, mm-hmm, I don't know. That doesn't seem like that'd be long.
Speaker 1No.
Speaker 2I mean, we know that Moe was there, for I mean at least when we started in 93 until 99.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, if you're good, you can stay there for a while. But he was there for less than two years. Bartok's reign was a long and nice one. The other males liked him there. Once he was in position, he really didn't act like it. He allowed certain roles to be played.
Speaker 2He delegated.
Speaker 1Yeah, he was just laid back and allowed everyone to do what they're what they were doing yeah, and he led them well yeah, not all male chimps were really looking to be alphas yeah, there's not it's not in everyone's personality. Yeah, they don't want such a society.
Speaker 2That, yeah, you can't. They're not solo animals, they're. They're a social one. So you can't have every, every member trying to be in charge.
Hunting Behaviors and Social Bonds
Speaker 1They just yeah, some of them don't care to like. For example, there's one male chimp named ellington. He was very respected. He probably could have been an alpha had he wanted to, but he didn't care to go for it he. The researchers said that he would do the little pant grunt to the alphas in a way that was kind of just quick and like there I did it.
Speaker 2We're good. Okay, like it was like. Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, and it was like okay for him to do that. It was very much like. We all know that.
Speaker 2I'm just on my own lead.
Speaker 1I don't need him to say he's submissive to me, because you just know he's not going to challenge me, but very well respected though. They also noticed that one time there were about 20 chimps all grooming and eating, sitting, relaxing, just having a nice day, and then Ellington gets up and he starts walking in a certain direction, and then all of the chimps get up and they just followed him in like a beeline to the edge of the territory.
Speaker 1Okay, no words no noises, nothing, no words. You know, yeah, honestly, no obvious. These chimps are people to me. Now I say I don't say female, male, I'm saying man, woman, child, like I'm not using the proper, like animal terms anymore because it's it's messing with my head seriously. But ellington played a key role in patrolling and deciding when it was time to get moving. That's what his role was. So if he said it's time to look, we have to look. The researchers gave him a nickname of the commander.
Speaker 2Okay, so like the military head.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, if he's noticing, we should follow him.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, he's reliable. Yeah, all right. So again we kind of skipped time a little bit through these documentaries. There are some things that I just weren't seeing. Or again jumping time, we're going to go up to the first fatal chimpanzee attack. Now, this is not within the same Nagogo community, it's from between, like strangers.
Speaker 2Oh, okay, so it's like a war, like a conflict Kind of yeah, like a conflict, not a war.
Speaker 1Okay, there is a field assistant that helps the researchers and his name is Godfrey. Okay, and he saw this murder.
Speaker 2It's how he calls. He says murder oh yeah, you usually use that word with animal on animal.
Speaker 1Exactly that's how he said it, because it's not a homicide, because hummus is literally a human. Godfrey was very upset by this, honestly, and I cried watching him tell the story. I was like, oh my God. So the story goes that Ellington led a patrol and they went off to the northeast into chimpanzee territory.
Speaker 2Other. Okay, mm-hmm, yeah, okay, so they're intruding a little bit.
Speaker 1Yes, you know expanding, doing what they do.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1That's risky. They find a male chimpanzee, a stranger, and they surround him and there's a brief standoff and then Ellington launched an attack on him and they caught him wow they began biting him, biting the ears, biting off the testicles and killing him, and godfrey's, yeah, okay godfrey's unsure why nothing came of it after that and godfrey saw it and I don't think he's ever seen chimpanzees do that before. I mean it was known by the 90s that they're.
Speaker 1They're awful and can do that yeah but I don't know if he's ever seen that. I don't know the way he told the story was very like yeah, it'd be.
Speaker 2I yeah, it'd be traumatizing yeah plus it'd be loud do all the noises and screaming and yeah, yeah vocalizations they're making yes, so that happened and oh, I also.
Speaker 1Just I forgot to point this out and I didn't really know where to fit it in, but this does become relevant relationships between, like we've been mentioning, chimps can be stronger with others. Hair and ellington were very close. Okay, I forgot to mention that when I, hare and Ellington were very close, I forgot to mention that when I was talking about Ellington, and they're like best friends, always together. It's normal for them to stay away from the group like a day or two at a time, just to hang out.
Speaker 2Do their thing.
Speaker 1Yeah, I just wanted to mention that that does come back.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1Now, another thing researchers noticed within the Nagogo community was that many of the chimps have whites to their eyes, the way humans do.
Speaker 2Okay, it's called the sclera, yeah.
Speaker 1Okay, and we do know that some chimps have that, naturally.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Most of them do not.
Speaker 2Most of them are just like the bigger black.
Speaker 1However, there's a larger percentage of the white-eyed chimps in Nagogo.
Speaker 2Okay, versus, like other places, genetic, yeah, trait.
Speaker 1And the researchers found that interesting. Yeah, nonverbal communication is a lot easier when you have white in your eyes. And it's easier to do things and coordinate without exposing where you are.
Speaker 2So maybe this community got so big because they're able to communicate better with each other. Okay, we don't know, that's completely just talking the theory of how I mean a genetic fluke happens.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2Proves to be beneficial. It gets handed down more and more, and that's how it works. You need to leg up over your competitors and boom.
Speaker 1Yep. Now, throughout these years of researching, the community is still getting larger. It has about 170 chimps at this time. Yes, there's a lot of males. Many of them are competing to be alpha, even though not all of them. But when you have a large group, you're going to have a fair amount that are going for it.
Speaker 1It's now 2002. Okay, and there's a young male chimp named Grappelli-r-a-p-e-l-l-i. Okay, grappelli, he's about 20 years old, I think he's like 20, 21, and he begins making his moves to get up that social ladder. He's behaving aggressively, beating up mothers and kids, other chimps smaller than him, and he was just creating chaos in general. Now pincher is a chimp and so is brownface, another chimp. I didn't make these names no yeah, but yes, we have pincher and brownface chimps.
Speaker 2They are grappelli's friends I like how the names are so diverse. There's like english, traditional african names italian.
Speaker 1I don't know. I think it's just whoever finds it, maybe, I don't know. So yes, pinscher and Brownface are friends with Grappelli, but Grappelli had just moved above Pinscher in the hierarchy, so there was some shifting happening. In October of 2002, one of the researchers was following a group of eight males. They were all grooming each other when they heard a chimp scream. The group had begun attacking one of their own. Grappelli was being attacked okay they were beating him, pounding on him, biting him hair was present at the attack, but he didn't participate.
Speaker 2Okay, he was just there Just watching.
Speaker 1He didn't seem happy.
Speaker 2Okay, he was watching, but he seemed upset. Yeah, he couldn't do anything, though, but yeah, you're outnumbered. Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, they were all piling on Grappelli and they were. You know, they were killing him.
Speaker 2They were going for it More than just teaching him a lesson. They were don't go.
Speaker 1When the attack was done, Grappelli was still alive. He climbed up a tree branch and this made me cry when I watched it. This was really sad. He began making a very sad, like pitiful little call. He was like groaning but like kind of calling. He was bleeding and then hair began to climb up near grippelli. He began swaying the branch that another chimp was on to get him to like leave, because there was another chimp on another branch trying to get to grippelli yeah, and hair started shaking it to like get him off hair was protecting grippelli.
Speaker 1He wanted it to be done and the other chimps went away. Okay, once everyone left grippelli he wanted it to be done and the other chimps went away. Okay, once everyone left, grappelli was able to climb down the tree and he slowly walked off, and hair followed him.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1Ten days later, the researchers found Grappelli's skeleton.
Speaker 2Okay, so he was mortally wounded.
Speaker 1Yep, and at this point though, it had been taken over by ants, and it became an ant colony, which I kind of thought like that's beautiful I don't know, go right back into the earth and help, help. Somehow at least I don't know makes me feel a little bit better after seeing that and like seeing how hair, like made sure that he didn't die alone essentially, and in 10 days, yeah, that wouldn't.
Speaker 2Wouldn't mean in those rainforests, wouldn't take long for a body to get reduced to just bones, especially ants, caught you.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, the humidity like, yeah, you just go back on the jungle floor pretty quick. So, yeah, that was a hard part to watch. In the documentary the researchers speculate that Grappelli was just getting too ambitious and he didn't have enough of that social clout to really have people back him. The researchers, they're like we're pretty sure Pinscher coordinated this, though, because he had just Grappelli had just gotten higher than.
Speaker 1Pinscher in the social ladder hierarchy. So they're almost positive that Pinscher coordinated this attack, this hit. And another thing is they go. Pinscher has white in his eyes.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1And they just noticed in general that those chimps were listened to better than others.
Speaker 2Makes sense yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, they could communicate better, maybe look more intense. I don't know what it is. Maybe you're more intimidating because you can see.
Speaker 2You can convey more emotions Meaning.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2That's interesting about the eyes, maybe just simply easier to understand. Yeah, communicate obviously vocally, but you know someone's got a louder voice, someone's got a voice that you know you enunciate better, whatever reason, you're gonna follow them more than someone who speaks slow and rumbles exactly.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's exactly it I think that makes a lot of sense. Now let's go back to Ellington and Hare.
Speaker 2Yes, the two besties, the reason I threw that out there the two BFFs.
Speaker 1Yep, we're in about 2003-ish now and Ellington went missing.
Speaker 2Oh.
Speaker 1He just goes away and never comes back.
Speaker 2So something happened, not with Hare On his own, on his own, ellington, as we know, liked to do his patrols.
Speaker 1He probably was on the borderland and who knows what happened, right?
Speaker 2We don't know.
Speaker 1There's no surprises here. Ellington's gone, okay, never comes back. Once Hare starts to notice that Ellington isn't coming back, the researchers are really sad for him and you can see hair like, looking around like where is he?
Speaker 2where's my phone?
Speaker 1looking at the other chimps that are grooming each other and instead of hair trying to join someone else, he just walks away alone. He just like looks depressed. I cried during this time, like once I start crying, I just keep going, so like I was already like just rolling into it yeah, like whatever. So I cried at this part too and he just looked really sad. I mean, that's it like he doesn't like die, or anything, just the depth of their emotions they really notice.
Speaker 1Yeah, their emotional lives are as complex and rich as humans in 2004, the researchers followed a large group of males of the Ngogo chimps out west and they heard very large vocalizations. The chimps sounded excited and the researchers were like, okay, what's going on here? They realized the chimps were looking at something. They were looking at a chimp that was barely alive, and it was a chimp named banford.
Fatal Attacks and Border Conflicts
Speaker 1Okay, he's one of their own yeah, all right, what the fuck okay, and the chimps were acting sad, um kind of dramatic as well, like screeching, you know. Dramatic in the sense of like if you lose someone, like oh you know, kind of big cries and screeching, and then they would get somber and then some would do some alarm calls and you could just see all the complexity there. It they know when one of their own are dying. Then a little bit further along was another one of their own chimps and he was dead oh so this is like an earlier patrol that presumably went out, maybe killed by neighboring chimps.
Speaker 1Yeah, the evidence is there.
Speaker 2So the second troop or patrol group finds them.
Speaker 1It's like what the hell? After they saw this, the Nogogo chimps really stepped up their border patrols. Their patrols got larger, they went out more often A direct reaction to this.
Speaker 2So they're smart, they know what's going on?
Speaker 1Okay, we're in danger, something's happening.
Speaker 2We got to figure this out. Problem solvers.
Speaker 1Yes, jumping to 2009. Yeah, the Ngogo chimps began to move up to an area that's northeast of their territory. It was a large group with females and kids. This time they weren't patrolling.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1They were families moving.
Speaker 2Yeah, all right. Yeah yeah, not the explorers, but like we've claimed it, now it's time to settle it.
Speaker 1Yep, so they're expanding their territory. You bring your families along now and like yep, this is our new home. And that's what the researchers noticed. Oh, they're expanding. Okay, so their territory is getting bigger. Now, in the spring of 2014, several prime adult males went missing, which was odd. Yeah, they were in good health. They shouldn't have gone missing, really, but they did. They were presumed dead, never seen again. Among them that disappeared were lofty and pincher.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, lofty lofty the bully alpha disappears in the mist, yeah, and pincher with the wide eyes I don't know, they just they. That's it, they just disappeared in the jungle yeah, and the researchers were tearful about it. I mean it's just sad to see not just the chimps being sad about them leaving, but like the humans that are watching are growing fine, I mean it's 2009 or 14 now.
Speaker 2They've been there since the 90s like early 90s you know, 93.
Speaker 1So that's just. It's sad to see them go away they're 20 years now. And researcher Matani, and I'm going to try and find this photo because he shows it on the YouTube documentary. He has a photo of Lofty holding a dead monkey after one of their hunts and looking up to the sky as if he's thanking the gods, and, of course, matani's like who knows really what he's doing. But Lofty would consistently look up in that way. He would look whenever he had a monkey or whenever it rained.
Speaker 1Like there were certain things that sparked Lofty to look up to the sky and they were consistent. So Mitanni noted that and he was like is this religion? He was like probably not, but like he's looking up for something. Is he thanking the tree for bringing him the monkey? Is he thanking the water for coming down? Like he's there's something in his brain who knows, he might not be thanking anything but the monkey comes from the tree, the water comes from the sky.
Speaker 1Maybe he's just looking up to be like. I got water and food from up there.
Speaker 2Who knows, it's just interesting to see, but the photo that's shown, shown you can imagine your own like human. Yes, project, yeah, but there's I mean. But it is interesting to speculate that there could be some proto spirituality, like how that?
Speaker 1exactly like it blossomed in our species somewhere at some point in time I mean we we started burying our dead with items yeah, that, that implies they think that there's.
Speaker 2whether you think that there's a heaven or an afterlife that they're going to, or just Something, even if it's not thought out rationally, but you believe there's something beyond.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, yeah. So why are we the?
Speaker 2who says humans are the ones to corner the market on that.
Speaker 1Exactly Right, yeah, just interesting again. Now we wants to corner the market on that. Exactly right, yeah, just interesting again now we're jumping ahead to 2016, all right.
Speaker 2The population is now 204 okay, I'm gonna say it's got to be about 200 by now yeah, it was 170 a few years ago and they're still breeding things are becoming more and more aggressive between the males.
Speaker 1They're starting to treat like at this point. They're starting to treat each other like strangers.
Speaker 2It's getting too big.
Speaker 1Yeah, and this is the beginning of the divide.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Because they split Shocker. Or spoiler yeah, bartok is no longer the alpha. He's a bit older and he basically is retired. He's still alive, he still has good ranking in the community, but he's just chill. He sleeps most of the day, spends a lot of the time alone in the forest. He doesn't really join in on the action as much as he used to.
Speaker 2He lets the younger ones do it. He still has twilight years, he just chills out, yeah.
Speaker 1And I don't know who became the alpha after Bartok. Okay, but Mawea is also still doing well.
Speaker 2Oh, he's still alive, okay.
Speaker 1Yeah, he's 34 in 2016. Okay, and oh, I forgot, he only had one hand because it got caught in a snare in 2007.
Speaker 2I do remember in Chimp Empire.
Speaker 1There's another one, but it's a different chimp. Oh, okay, because I thought they were being a one-handed chimp. And yeah, he got around just fine, it's fucking poachers man that's gotta love it, so yeah they're two separate chimps, but they both have one hand. They both survive, though, and thrive within their roots.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, yep, they can still use their stump when they walk around on it yeah yeah, hair is now 23 years old in 2016 and he's typically found, you know, hanging out chilling. He's not too uppity or aggressive. In 2016, he did have two orphans following him around, and the orphans names were peewee and errol. E-r-r-o-l-l like errol flynn yes, and hair was viewed as the nicest person in nagogo. That's what the researchers said about oh okay, you can't when you watch.
Speaker 1I'm sorry, they're people I can't non-human persons yes, non-human persons is the best way to describe them. There's somewhere between animals and humans and I get we're're all. I know, we're all animals, but you know what I mean yeah. Yeah, so the group officially divided in 2017.
Speaker 2The Great Schism Again, like the Roman Empire, East and West.
Speaker 1Yep. The community grew so large that it divided into three subgroups at first, oh okay, mm-hmm, that it divided into three subgroups at first.
Speaker 2Oh, okay, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1And the researchers noticed that, before there was a definite split, the three subgroups that were underneath this umbrella of the one group. The researchers noticed that the chimps, as they matured, would start to hang out in certain areas within their big territory. Some of them would stay a little more central. Yeah, Some of them would go to the east side and some of them would stay a little more central.
Speaker 2Yeah, Some of them would go to the east side and some of them would go to the west side. Yeah, that's what they noticed Little neighborhoods, essentially Same city but different neighborhoods. Yes, yeah, they would still defend the big territory together. Yeah, or still united against true neighbors, true others.
Speaker 1They call this socio-spatial subgroups.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1But I know we're jumping a little bit. In 2015, the relationship between the Western subgroup and the East and the Central were declining sharply. Okay, the Western subgroup was the one that began reacting to the Eastern and the Central groups as if they were strangers. Okay, they started it. Yeah, and they would charge at them and they would do this whole display thing. And even when the Central or Eastern subgroups would be calling out for like help or something, the Westerners wouldn't. They wouldn't go, they wouldn't return the calls, they wouldn't go check it out.
Speaker 2They would ignore them yeah.
Speaker 1They would just be like, well, I don't give a shit, yeah, wouldn't go check it out. They would ignore them. Yeah, they would just be like I don't give a shit, yeah. And then the westerners turned into patrol like behavior, silently stalking the central and eastern subgroups. And that's why, by 2017, it just completely split and the eastern and the central subgroup merged together. Okay, to create just the central group. So it's the central and the Western.
Speaker 2All right.
Speaker 1There were two lethal attacks by chimpanzees of the Western community against males of the central community.
Speaker 2So the central males were attacked by the.
Speaker 1Western. The Westerns are aggressive, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2The Westerns kind of like the Confederacy. I guess they break off and then they start the war.
Speaker 1Sure, yeah, with the old school, that's how it's got to be, yeah.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1There was one attack from the Western community in 2018 and another one in 2019, and we'll talk about it Okay. The first fatal attack in 2018 was against Errol the orphan Errol. That orphan.
Speaker 2Errol.
Speaker 1That Hare was looking after. Yeah, errol, at this point is 15 and a half. Okay, january 24th 2018, the Western chimps were in a fruit tree eating when they suddenly stopped eating, and about half of them males and females because the Western females are attackers too they're all part of it they're rough they rushed partway down the tree and their attention was focused on something below them. It was Errol, and he was on the ground already, having been severely attacked. His left ear was torn off, he had deep cuts on his face and he had a deep wound on his upper, back and thigh. He was really, really beat up and Errol would sit up and make like a weak alarm call, which was really hard to watch and several of the Western males heard.
Speaker 2Oh no.
Speaker 1And the Western males are named Wes Wayne and Richmond. And they climbed down the tree and the Western males are named Wes Wayne and Richmond Okay. And they climbed down the tree and they rushed toward Errol, attacking and killing him. Damn and the scientists.
Speaker 2These were your brothers, just a few years ago Exactly. Civil War.
Speaker 1Yeah, and the scientists didn't see how Errol was initially attacked but, they're pretty sure it was Western chimps before that too, yeah, and the rest just finished the job. Now the second death occurred, and this was the final one that really made the division permanent. This was like all right, we're done. The death of Basie B-A-S-I-E, a 33-year-old male of the Central group 33, man yeah.
Speaker 1It was early morning, june of 2019. The central chimps, along with Basie, are up in the canopy of the tree enjoying fruit when they hear some rustling and it's the west chimps. And the west chimps just are surrounding them and there's like this weird long standoff that the chimps are down below.
Speaker 2Westerns are on the ground and the centrals are up in the air. Yeah, and they're like fuck, what do we?
Speaker 1do, and no one seems to really want to do anything. I mean, this is a 20 minute standoff. Okay, I don't get it. They like really are debating here, I guess. And then the Western males make the first move. One of the Western champs names is Rollins, and he's leading the way.
Speaker 2Henry Rollins yeah.
Speaker 1And then following Rollins is Richmond, Wes and Wayne, Not Wayne. There's two other guys, Buckner and Garrison. Wayne's probably there too, but yeah, the males pass by the females and the babies of the central group that are up there and they just go straight for the males. Yeah, the fight ensues on the canopy and the babies of the central group that are up there and they just go straight for the males. The fight ensues on the canopy and the researchers can't really see much, but they can hear and they realize that most of the central chimps were able to escape the attack. However, five of the western chimps trapped Basie in a small tree. He was surrounded Richmond Buckner and another western chimp, hutch hutcherson wow, hutcherson hutcherson say that again.
Speaker 1They were attacking him as basey was trying to get down. Basey fell down the tree, only to land in the hands of other western chimps waiting at the base. Basie was badly beaten. I actually wrote we don't need to get into that detail because I remember and it's not good, so watch it if you want to see it.
Speaker 2all right, he was left alone to die there. That is Yada, yada, yada.
Speaker 1You didn't make it back. Yeah, Basie did walk alone for a little bit, though he was kind of once the attackers left him. He was trying to get away, but just weakly walking away, and the chimp Brownface. He was the last chimp that was able to swing between both groups without being hurt.
Speaker 2Last go between.
Speaker 1Yeah, so Brownface was able to.
Speaker 2he followed Basy he ended up staying central. He did end up staying central.
Speaker 1Eventually he did because I think this, I think this is what convinced brownface to be like fuck this yeah, basey and brownface they walk together and brownface reaches out his hand and touches basey and then brownface really seems upset and like is observing him, looking at him watching.
Speaker 1They were walking alongside each other. Whenever Basie needed to stop, brown face would stop. Basie eventually would lie down to rest for about 10 minutes with brown face checking on him every couple minutes. Brown face then moved away from Basie and just started walking, leading Basie like hey, come on. And Basie followed him for 34 minutes. They were walking until they reached a small stream. Basie drank from the stream and then they found a dry spot next to the stream and made a chimp nest on the ground and then two other central chimps approached at different times.
The Great Schism: Community Division
Speaker 1Like at certain points Brownface was doing little call outs to get other central chimps to come and I think he was moving Basie to safer territory and eventually a couple other central chimps come over to check it out and they give out little like like yeah, like those little like. They're just kind of sad and like upset, and this was on for about 10 minutes. They realize he's dying. The next morning the researchers saw that Basie moved a little bit. He was still alive but he was sitting slumped with his hair matted from the blood and Brownface was still by his side.
Speaker 1Brownface tried to get Basie to follow him by like swaying a small little sapling branches that were growing out of the ground. This is something that chimps do to get a mate to follow him by swaying a small little sapling branches that were growing out of the ground. This is something that chimps do to get a mate to follow them. But I guess maybe that was Brownface's last effort to get Basie to move. Brownface was kind of doing the little hoots and sad hollers and Basie wasn't coming though. Then Brownface went up to Basie and he swatted the flies that were around. Basie swatted them away. He put his hands over Basie's arms to groom him Like he was like doing like final things.
Speaker 2Yeah, like he realized, asked rights.
Speaker 1He was really sad. I wasn't going to cry and I'm not going to now Go away fucking tears. So then brown face moved off again and he returned back to Basie and he like grimaces, like he's, like he's crying, I think, and he reaches out a hand to Basie, who just doesn't move because he's dead, and brown face begins pacing and like back and forth. He's all worked up. And then Basie did move a little bit. He was able to make another nest and then this is well move a little bit.
Speaker 1Okay, he was able to make another nest and then this is well Brownface kind of helped.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And then Brownface then left. I think they just knew okay, you're in a nest, yeah this is, and then once Brownface left. Basie passed away. So, yeah, that was really sad. I'm going to take a drink of my caffeine, yeah. So those are the two major things that happen to really solidify this divide. Yeah we are not the same anymore yep, so we have the western group and the central group.
Speaker 2They're divided they're still in the same park.
Speaker 1Essentially, preservations yes yeah, so now that brings us to talking about what happens in Chimp Empire documentary on Netflix. That was filmed for a little over a year, beginning January of 2021. Okay, and it was released in 2023.
Speaker 2Oh, all right.
Speaker 1So yeah, as the Chimp Empire documentary starts, the number for the central Nagogo community is now down to 120. Okay, after this division, yeah, but if you watch the documentary, they kind of which is they do a great job. I mean, if you spoiler, if you haven't watched it, but watch it because I'm going to give it all away but they do a good job of storytelling and they don't really let you know that these groups of chimps used to be one big group.
Speaker 1They tell you that, like at the end, like oh, this is so tense because yeah but knowing now going into it, you know, okay, the central group is down to 120 because of that divide. At this point, the alpha male for the nogogo chimps is jackson.
Speaker 2Okay, and he has been for the central or the western for the central. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1So now right, yeah the way the chimp empire documentary says itself. Please make sure I'm being clear, because they refer to the nagogo central group as the nagogo chimps okay, and they refer to the western group as the others okay, and then the others Gotcha. So I'm going to try and keep it as central and Westerners though.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1Because that makes the most sense to me.
Speaker 2So Jackson's replaced Bartok. Yes, I don't know how, I don't know what happened there.
Speaker 1But somehow they know, though, because in the chimp empire they were like he's been the alpha since 2017. Okay, and I tried to look into it and I was like I don't know. Yeah, okay, jackson has been in charge for six years now. He is a bit older for an alpha and he's aware that he's a little bit older, so he tries really hard to not show any signs of weakness at all. Like overcompensates, he gives lofty vibes.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1He does big displays regularly showing the group who's in charge, and he's aggressive and unpredictable and just throwing shit.
Speaker 2He's the type that would throw a parade for himself on his birthday, right yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, the group. Though they respond to him with respect. They're like yeah, you're the alpha, we know, Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 2We get it.
Speaker 1Yeah, we get it, but Jackson can see that some of the chimps are starting to show a little less respect than others. There's a younger male chimp named Abrams.
Speaker 2Abrams.
Speaker 1He's still a little too young to pose like a real threat. But Abrams is smart and confident. Abrams is beginning to do some dominance displays. He's letting others know that he wants to climb this ladder. He wants to go for the alpha role maybe someday. And at this point jackson is ignoring it. He's like I'll address it if I have to eventually. But he's taking note. Jackson also was a little bit. He was a little bit better than Lofty. He was able to make some allies. At least one ally was a large male chimp named Miles.
Speaker 2Miles.
Speaker 1Miles is older, he's like 40 oh yeah damn yep, um, and he's really big.
Speaker 2He's the biggest known chimp in Nagogo oh yeah, so that's a good ally to have big. Yeah, yeah, I know right.
Speaker 1Yeah, you get the hulk of chimps with you yep, jackson and miles. They share a very tight bond and they're always with one another, grooming, lounging, exploring the forest. They're just really bonded. There was another male chimp, but a young one, and his name is gus. He's only 14 and he finally left the sanctity of his mother to find his own way within the group not leaving the group, but yeah he's on his own now. Essentially mom's like I got other kids to raise bye, you're an adult.
Speaker 1Yep and the the hope at this point, because many male chimps leave around this time and the hope is that they will bond with other males, start grooming and getting those allies together and just seeing who you're, who's your friend gonna be, we're gonna hang out with gus is awkward, though like so awkward yeah gus is so cute.
Speaker 1I love gus. He tries so hard. Yeah, now Christine is a female chimp. She's 20, 21, and she has a few-month-old baby girl, and she's not named until she's at least one year older. She survives to one year, nothing bad happens.
Speaker 2They don't name them until they're going to survive, exactly.
Speaker 1As Christine's focus is on her new baby, she's not really paying attention to her older daughter anymore, Nadine.
Speaker 2Nadine.
Speaker 1Nadine is seven years old. So Nadine is kind of like I'm jealous, I want to hang out. You kind of see it in the documentary like that. She's like actively, like I want your attention. Mom, come on, like it's just interesting to see that dynamic happen to mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, look at me. Look at dynamic happen too.
Speaker 1Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, look at me look at me mom like that kind of yeah, yeah, it was just funny and it was also really cute to see how the adult chimps are very tolerant of the little babies that are around too. Like the babies climb on their faces and and claw not claw at them, but the way that, like human babies, kind of slap your face and kind of put their hands on you, the chimps do it too.
Speaker 2Yeah, pull on their fur and just.
Speaker 1The adults are pretty good with it. Some of the bigger males can pose a threat, like Jackson blundering through doing his displays. Yeah, that's not good, but for the most part the adults are pretty good. I just, I don't know. I like to see that side of the chips, yeah. Getting back to Gus, he is socially awkward, but he's not stupid, he's pretty smart. He's just awkward and he sees that Abrams is someone that's a possible up and comer. He's like, hey, this guy's going to make some moves, so I'm going to try to groom Abrams. Now Abrams is like, fuck, yeah, ok, groom, and Gus gets to groom Abrams.
Speaker 1Abrams allows it yeah, okay, groom and he, gus, gets to groom abrams. Abrams allows it, doesn't reciprocate, though. No, yeah, abrams does not groom gus back, and I don't know if I'm just projecting, because I would feel bad. But gus, don't you remember? He like looked sad when abrams walked away yeah, so gus is not an equal to abrams, and that's how that is solidified there. Abrams went off to find another grooming partner. He had plans of his own Because Miles and Jackson are so close.
Speaker 2Abrams is trying to work his way in and drive a wedge between them.
Speaker 1So Abrams goes up to groom Miles and Miles allows it. Yeah, and do you remember?
Speaker 2He reciprocates, yeah, oh.
Speaker 1So that's a big sign too, because Abrams has already shown the group hey, I want to make this move. Yeah, miles saw it, jackson saw it, gus saw it yeah. And now Miles is like I see you. Yeah, okay, I don't know, this is interesting. They all know what they're doing. They all know what they're doing. This is not by chance.
Speaker 2Nothing's accidental with chimps.
Speaker 1No.
Speaker 2Not even when they tear your face off because they shouldn't be pets. No, no, they do that because they're chimps.
Speaker 1They're killing you on purpose. They don't do it Anyway. And they're killing you on purpose. They don't do it Anyway. Sorry, yeah, don't own wild animals. Now, one way that Jackson can keep everyone together and unified under him is by having a common enemy. So the others, or the neighbors, and I'm pretty sure for the most part of this chimp empire, the others that they refer to are the Western group I mean they're surrounded by other chimps too, other things, but I'm pretty sure the main ones are the Westerners.
Speaker 2The main rivals are the ones that used to be your fellow countrymen.
Speaker 1Yes, yeah, don't we know it. So Jackson is aware that regular patrols are necessary for their safety and to keep the territory that they have and possibly maybe expanding their territory. That's always the goal with chimps is expansion. So everyone helps in these patrols, even awkward little Gus has to come and have all the males.
Speaker 2You just got to do it. It's like you're drafted, you're conscripted.
Speaker 1There's another chimp named Pork Pie.
Speaker 2Pork Pie. Remember him, I remember the name.
Speaker 1Pork Pie wasn't really brave. He wasn't tough like he just was like I don't want to go.
Speaker 2You can tell like in the in the he's a mama's boy, kind of just like no, he didn't want to do it in the documentary.
Speaker 1He's like actively nervous looking around like fuck, what are we doing, ah. So it's interesting again to see the personalities right, yeah, yeah as the chimps head to the northern border to patrol.
Speaker 1They approach the borderlands and everyone gets a bit anxious. Even the big chimps seem nervous, like the older ones are kind of like all right, here we are, and Pork Pie is in the back of the line and he's reluctant to keep moving forward. Abrams though, he's loving it, he's in the middle of all of it. As the group pushes forward, they enter someone else's territory.
Speaker 1They're trespassing now they're quiet. They're moving slowly and they listen again, trying to size up the competition to see how many are around. Are they outnumbered? Who's larger? Pork pie's anxiety gets the better of him.
Speaker 2He just freaks out.
Speaker 1He goes back. Oh goes, he goes back he starts to head back home. They are in, they're in enemy territory, but they're not that far into it. They're still near the border. So he's like, ah, I'm gonna go. So he goes back to his territory fuck this shit. I'm out for real gus, who is also anxious, looks around like, okay, what do I? What do I do now? But he decides to stay with the group because he's scared of leaving the group, right?
Speaker 2There's two different types of scared.
Speaker 1So yeah, gus stays, pork pie goes. Now we have Jackson and Miles on the patrol and they make the decision to attack.
Speaker 2Oh.
Speaker 1They charge forward and the other chimpanzees I'm assuming the Westerners they flee. There was no real fight that occurred that was it. Yep. The central group had a successful patrol. The border's secure and they get to return to the center of their territory to relax as they're on their way home they see some movement up in the trees Small little monkeys.
Speaker 1Food food, the group decides to go hunting. Now I just want to do a side tangent here with their hunting, because even in the 90s and the early aughts, when they were doing all the hunting and everything too this, these chimps brought these little monkeys in this area. Like they cut the population by like 90%, oh, or 70. It was like over 50%.
Speaker 2It was a lot, oh I didn't realize that Because of how much they hunted the researchers are, so they were overhunting.
Speaker 1They don't need to eat this many monkeys they're not doing it for survival.
Speaker 2They're not Like their biggest thing is fruit.
Speaker 1I mean this for sport, yeah, and for political gain to share meat. It's very human. Like qualities is all I'm saying. Eat to the point of destroying it, never having it again. Yeah, like they brought those monkeys in that area close to extinction. Sorry, I just it's crazy.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah we great apes anyway.
Jackson's Leadership and Western Group Threats
Speaker 1So they see the monkeys and they go hunting and they have a successful hunt and Jackson begins dividing up the meat. He gives meat to the allies, miles of course being one of them, and he leaves others out. Abrams was excluded. It was a good day overall for the central group. You could say yeah. And later on, though, maybe a day or so after this patrol, after this successful great day, the chimps were hanging out eating fig from a nice big fig tree. When Gus begins to hoot softly, he's like oh, oh oh look at that, what is that?
Speaker 1And he sees a dead chimp. Other chimps from the group go to investigate and they poke the chimp, they sniff them. They look at them. When they realize who it is, they look sad, confused, concerned. It's pork pie. They begin to shriek and call out they. They seem like they're crying, but they're also very concerned and because he got killed within their territory.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1The strangers came in, yeah, killed him. So you can see that some of the chimps are like sad, but others are like what the fuck? You can see their eyes? Yeah, like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We're going to go back to two days before Pork Pie's death.
Speaker 2All right.
Speaker 1To talk about the Western group. The Western group is smaller than the Central group and you would think this might be a disadvantage, but it kind of helps them, it strengthens their bonds. Everyone's necessary. There's no inner fighting really, because we need everyone. The female chimps also help with patrols and hunting. Everyone is utilized, everyone has a role.
Speaker 2There's purpose. Yeah, doing their part. No one's extraneous.
Speaker 1Right. Hutcherson is a part of the Western group and he is the alpha male for the Westerners right now. He doesn't dominate the way that Jackson does with the central group. He distributes responsibility and roles equally Kind of like Bartok. Yeah, I'm getting you know that kind of idea from him, Like I, equally kind of like Bartok.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1I'm getting you know that kind of idea from him. Like I said, all of the adults have important roles. They're all very much needed. What was interesting is Hutcherson's mom. Her name is Garbo. She's 65 years old, yeah, and she still plays a vital role in the community. She brings wisdom and knowledge and shows certain things to them. So garbo also has another son, richmond, who is 34 years old at this time.
Speaker 2We've already talked about them a little bit, yep and richmond takes care of his mom.
Speaker 1Okay, you can see that he helps her out with certain things. She can still move around and everything, but like he might give her extra fruit or something, hey I got a fruit for you. Um, richmond only has one hand. As a young chimp, he lost it in a poacher snare yeah richmond was once the alpha, though, and he was replaced by his own brother yeah they're like the royal family I feel like you know, they just kind of stay within their little group and they get.
Speaker 1You know, I don't know she's surviving so well because she's the mother of two alpha males, so she's 65, and then the other alpha male has one arm, but his brother's the alpha, so it's like we're taken care of. Yeah, we're good, yeah, I like it. There were also two orphans within the western group um, one named burgle, and he's young, he's only about 10. And then there's joya, who is a female, and she's also 10. They're not siblings, they're just both independent orphans. Burgle is old enough right now to show signs of dominance and begin displaying, but he's not really old enough yet for anyone to view him as like a threat.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, but he's right on the cusp so he's got to be careful.
Speaker 2Maybe someone could.
Speaker 1Well, I do think he gets into a little bit of trouble, but nothing too, like no one kills him, but like he's kind of knocked around a bit, type of thing. Like hey, you're getting close to that age, I'll knock you in your butt right now.
Speaker 2But two, two years from now, you're gonna die like you know what I mean. He's on the juvenile. Yeah, yeah, yeah becomes a life offense in your next birthday basically yeah, right now you go to juvie, next time you go to prison yeah there was a young adult male chimp named buckner that noticed burgle and didn't like what he saw.
Speaker 1And so, like I said, some of the other males were tussling Burgle around and they just, yeah, they hurt him. He didn't die, but he got hurt. So Joya is growing up and becoming a woman, but her motherly instincts aren't. They're coming in, but she's awkward, she doesn't know what to do with them.
Speaker 2She's an orphan yeah no-transcript.
Speaker 1Carson, who is a 27 year old female. Joya has begun to look up to her for help. So that's nice. Carson allows this because she's like I've got two kids and I'm pregnant with my third. I'll take any help, awkward or not I need the help yep, now we're introduced to garrison, who's a male chimp.
Speaker 1he's in his 40s and he knows how to move through the forest really, really well. He has basically a map of it in his head. If If there's food to be found, he's going to find it. Fruit is the biggest part of the diet for chimpanzees Eating fruit fruit trees. We know they eat monkeys, we know they eat other things, but fruit is the main thing.
Speaker 1However, most of the fruit trees are on the edge of the central territory, near the western territory, and as they go to find the fruit trees, they go on a patrol because they want to expand their territory to get more trees. All the chimps of the western group go on patrol, including the females. Rollins is age 35 at this point and his little brother, damien, is in his teens, and they lead the patrol. As the Western group gets closer to the borderlands to try and get the trees, garrison keeps a watchful eye. They're in Central Territory now and Rollins finds a huge fig tree and it's just what the Western group was looking for. And as most of the chimps are up in the tree eating the fruit, damien the teenager is at the bottom watching, patrolling, making sure everything's good.
Speaker 1Rollins and Damien. They start looking around, physically moving, like they're looking for chimps now, because they're like all right, we're ready to take this part of the territory, we're ready for it to be ours. So they're looking for a fight. The other chimps start to follow them and they're moving deeper into the central territory, and this is where this group of Westerners found pork pie.
Speaker 1Okay, so this is leading up to that day.
Speaker 2Oh gotcha.
Speaker 1The Western group surrounds pork pie and they attack him, killing pork pie At least enough to where he what pork pie? Eventually wandered off to another tree. And then, yeah, we, we know the story. The western group then enjoyed hunting and killing the monkeys as well. So again, a lot of monkey killing.
Speaker 1Now, during the meat exchange, garbo the 65 year old gets some food, carson the mom, um, also gets some food. But burgle, that little orphan boy. He doesn't get any because he was showing a little too much and they're kind of putting him in his place and he's actually no longer getting groomed by anyone either in the group Like they're really not happy with him.
Speaker 1Burgle's face then becomes infected due to the parasites and the lack of grooming. Do you remember this in the documentary? I don't remember that I was so upset during this point because I wasn't sure what was going to happen. Because burgle becomes very weak, he's lying down. Most of the group haven't even noticed that he's gone like they don't like this the orphan yeah, they just don't give a shit about him. But garrison noticed okay and g again is in his 40s so he's less aggressive.
Speaker 1Yeah, he goes over to Burgle and he lies down next to him. Garrison knows in his heart and in his wisdom that this group needs every chimp.
Speaker 2We need everyone. No one's expendable yeah.
Speaker 1So Garrison ends up grooming Burgle and Garrison becomes his caretaker. Yeah, so Garrison ends up grooming Burgle and Garrison becomes his caretaker. Yeah, so it was nice to see that happen.
Speaker 2Okay, so he survives the infection and rebounds.
Speaker 1Yep, yep, because Garrison comes into play. Yeah, but they do in the documentary make it seem like Burgle's like about to die.
Speaker 2No.
Speaker 1And he didn't. He's fine, okay. Okay, back in central territory we have jackson, who's trying to keep his alpha status secure, displaying and acting aggressive. They also go on a hunt and eat monkeys again, because jackson's like look at how great I am, look at all these things like the monkeys seem to be a way to show like wealth, power, whatever it is yeah and now remember we have abramams, who was trying to get that alpha from the central group. He wants to be the alpha from Jackson.
Speaker 2Yeah, didn't he try? Yeah, he's like he's becoming an ally with Miles.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, but Abrams has his set, his goals set. Now, because Abrams was able to connect with Miles, he's now beginning to connect with another male, wilson, creating a bigger ally ship, just getting more people. Abrams and wilson start a patrol along the western territory. Jackson doesn't go on the patrol. He's actually scared of the western group because he remembers them oh, yeah, yeah, I do remember this, yeah, jack. Jackson has scars from the Western group. I don't know exactly what happened, but his ear is bitten.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1He's got like a scar on his face.
Speaker 2He's got his ass kicked. Yeah, in a previous dust up.
Speaker 1Yes, he's scared of the Western group. And the Western group target Jackson.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1They look for him and he knows it, so he's like I'll I don't have to go. I won't go. That was just a check in with a central group to see how things were developing there.
Speaker 2Okay, you always seem surprised by your own script. Oh so that was that yeah.
Speaker 1I know, you wrote it, that's it. Sometimes I am surprised by my own script. It happens a lot. I write them like multiple ways and then whatever ends up happening ends up happening. I don't know, I'm only on a ride as well. So the western group now they still are just dead set on expanding that territory again. They're aggressive still. They're not aggressive like with each other. It seems like the central group is a little more aggressive within, like more hierarchy, more testosterone, more of that, whereas the western group seems to be more of a family and starts.
Speaker 1They're at a stake, that they're a player on the stage yeah, so the western group goes out on a patrol and as they're out on this patrol, it's clear that they want to expand. They're not just patrolling, they go into the central territory. As they go into the central territory, the westerners see a mom her name is bertoli and her son, herzog herzog herzog is only six years old, so he's a little guy and it's just the two of them, like they're not in with a bigger group of chimps or anything why are these chimps always going off solo like they're?
Speaker 1in their own territory. Bertoli's in her own territory. She's fine, she's just your baby apparently not well, she's got a young one, so she's alone a lot. She doesn't want the young one being hurt by jackson or abrams or whoever, so she's just doing what she can. The westernersers see her and Herzog and are chased up to the canopy.
Speaker 1So the mom and Herzog are like ah, and they go up to the canopy, they're separated for a little bit. And Herzog they don't seem to notice Herzog because they just see her the mom. But Herzog, being six, was like my mom, ah, and starts to try and climb over to her and then everyone notices the little baby chimp and the mom and all that. But none of the Westerners really make a move and they kind of assess the situation and they just leave. Okay, Because they're looking to expand. They're not looking to kill a mom and a baby.
Speaker 1That does nothing for their expansion, so they move on, which was lucky for them. It was a tense little bit in that documentary. There, as they go deeper, there were some chimps in the Western group that began to hesitate and started to fall back and go home, Mainly the females the younger males, females.
Speaker 2Yeah, how far? Okay, when's enough enough.
Speaker 1Exactly, and I guess that's pretty typical. I read in one of the articles you gotta stop at some point.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's pretty normal for like especially females or younger males to, once the fight becomes real, to go away and to leave it to the big males. But you still move as a group, though Carson and Joya they go back. Burgle probably should go back, but his confidence is pretty high and he wants to see the action, so he stays. As the Western group nears, the Central group is ready. They're not surprised by the attack. The women and children all flee. The men are screeching, hooting, hollering, running, jumping it's all happening and the Westerners start to push the central group back out of their territory. But jackson hasn't really joined in on the fight yet. However, at this point he's like oh, I gotta do it yeah, gotta go.
Speaker 1So he jumps in, and then the westerners are pushed out. Oh, the central group wins this battle good for jack Jackson, but Jackson's hurt. He gets injured from this pretty badly.
Speaker 2Well.
Speaker 1Yeah, a few days go by.
Speaker 2Hero sacrifice.
Speaker 1Yeah, he doesn't kill him, but they're not. His injuries aren't really healing, though, either. It's been a few days Jackson's spending a little more time alone because he doesn't want the group seeing that he's weak. Yeah, jackson's spending a little more time alone because he doesn't want the group seeing that he's weak. One of his closest allies is Wilson at this point, and he's grown more distant from him these past few days. Abrams and Wilson are now realizing this is the time to make their move.
Speaker 2They begin displaying and acting aggressive toward Jackson forcing him to run away.
Speaker 1This was also in front of the whole group. We're seeing unrest, confusion within the group. It's not really great Abrams, though. When he tussled with Jackson and fought and displayed Abrams got hurt pretty bad by Jackson. So now we have Jackson and Abrams that are both hurt, that both want to be alphas. So what they did was they groomed each other and they said we're good, we good because abrams is younger and the thought is that he was like I'll just wait yeah, I'll wait time I got time.
Speaker 1And I think jackson was like you got, yep, you got time, let's just be cool. So yeah, they groomed each other and let bygones be bygones. Temporarily, peace was restored within the central group. The westerners though they, hearders though they heard the commotion. They heard the dust up, they heard the screams and they're like there's confusion over there right now.
Speaker 2They're not stable.
Speaker 1And then soon after that was a loud rainstorm. It's hard to hear things in the rain.
Speaker 2They used to discover.
Speaker 1Yes, the Westerners decided to attack the central group again in their territory under cover of rainfall. Yeah, yes, how devious I know, damn, they're like, we'll go back again, we'll try again. Like it's like clear that they were like oh oh, something happened, so let's go back, yeah. So yes, this time it's a true surprise attack. The Western group was able to surround Jackson because the central chimps all scurried away Once the attack started. They were just like ah, because chimps also, when it's a heavy rainfall, tend to hunker down.
Speaker 1They were sleeping, they were just waiting for the rain to pass.
Speaker 1Yeah, but that this is perfect why the Westerners did this. But this is perfect why the Westerners did this. So they surround Jackson, and all the central chimps ran away, leaving Jackson alone with them. As they surrounded Jackson, he began hooting and hollering, calling for help, sounding the alarm, and then the central chimps were like, oh fuck, he didn't get away. We need to go back and help. So when they went back, the other Western chimps did scurry away. However, richmond had Jackson pinned to the ground when the central group came back, when they all scattered, though, there was so much chaos that Jackson was also nowhere to be seen. He ran away somewhere too. Jackson was able to retreat into the forest alone, very badly injured. Now this is like his third attack.
Speaker 1Not that long, not that long, yeah, the central group never seeing Jackson leave. They didn't really know what was going on. So for the next few days life went on as normal for the central group. They didn't see Jackson, but again they were just like well, moving on, jackson's injuries are not healing, he's staying alone. He's just not really around the group right now and there's a male Peterson that finds him and stays with him until Jackson passes away. And Jackson was 32 when he died.
Speaker 2He was assassinated.
Speaker 1Yeah, I guess. I mean he was definitely targeted. For sure. A new alpha will rise after Jackson's death. They know that the new alpha will not have a fear of the Westerners the same way that Jackson did.
Speaker 2Yeah, because they'll just be another outside group.
Speaker 1Yes, they won't have the memory that Jackson does yeah. So those chimps that remember the full group are dying away. They're getting too old or whatever. They're dying. And the new generation is coming in and it's strictly two separate groups.
Speaker 2Yeah, the memory of them never being one culture is fading away.
Speaker 1My guess is that maybe Abrams is the alpha. That'd be my guess, yeah, but yeah, so little roundups here. Abrams maybe is the alpha. Joya, 10 year old little orphan girl. She's now 11 at the end of the documentary and ready to leave her group and find another one to join. That's how they don't have like inbreeding.
Speaker 2Inbreeding is the girls are the ones that go as for gus, the one who was socially awkward. It was a tough year I do remember he had something good happen.
Speaker 1He just started having friends. It finally worked. He just kept being persistent Some big ape reciprocated.
Speaker 2Finally in the grooming process. I remember that in the documentary.
Speaker 1Just like all of them. Basically, they all just started grooming them. It was a big deal in the documentary. Finally one turned around. So he found his niche. And big deal in the documentary, yeah, finally one turned around. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2So he found his niche and his place in the community.
Speaker 1Yeah, so he did it. Then the Western group overall just had a great year.
Speaker 2right, they expanded their territory Massive expansion, they got more fruit trees. Yeah, they got food.
Speaker 1Yep. So we'll see how it all plays out I guess yeah, yeah, but um, that's it awesome. Yeah, I enjoyed this thoroughly.
Speaker 2I hope so yeah, did you learn anything? Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1I I mean don't well, I mean, I don't know what. Yeah, tell me now. Yeah, but no, I was on the edge of my seat.
Speaker 2There are things that you didn't know, that I talked, that's fun I mean, I definitely didn't know um about the uh sclera, um the whiteness that this specific group had yeah, like more of it than others.
Speaker 1Yeah, any chimp can be born that way, but this was such a high concentration.
Speaker 2Yeah, and that could be influencing their.
Speaker 1I mean logically it would be influencing how they're living. Yeah, I think that's very interesting and chimps are yeah, they're yeah, they're living, yeah, I think that's very interesting.
Speaker 2Chimps are there. Yeah, they're interesting. I went to, you know, a few years ago. I went down to I foster a orangutan at a great ape sanctuary in Florida.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2And me and my aunt and uncle went and visited for an open house. It's not open to the public generally, just if you're a member. If you're a member, if you're a sponsor, you get to visit once a year.
Speaker 2So, we're walking through this paddock and there's there's shoots everywhere for the chimps and the orangutans to traverse and there was a lot of people there in this. One chimp was just standing over this grading and just rocking side to side and just given this like hooting call and it was, it was. I mean, it was just intimidating, just to hear it.
Speaker 1So it was a chimp doing the calling but you have an orangutan, yeah.
Speaker 2They're both chimps and orangutans at this facility. They're separate from each other.
Speaker 1Is it only those two types of apes at this facility? Yeah, there's no gorillas or bonobos. Oh, okay.
Speaker 2I asked why there's not gorillas and they said because all of their chimps and orangutans are retired from the entertainment industry or from private ownership. It's a sanctuary.
Speaker 1Gorillas were never really used as much yeah as chimps and orangutans were like yeah yeah, so they're like there was not really a demand for one of michael jackson's chimps. Yeah, bubbles.
Speaker 2He's there, yep bubbles is there and the and we mentioned earlier this non-human personhood, but the orangutan Sandra in Argentina a few years ago made headlines because a judge declared her legally a non-human person and she couldn't be kept in this awful zoo alone and arrangements were made and she was the judge ordered she had to be transferred to a sanctuary, a non-profit, and she was transferred to the Center for Great Apes in Florida and she's still there today thriving.
Speaker 1Maybe I should be a sponsor of a chimp and then we can both go.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1You can just pick randomly, right, I don't want to choose one.
Speaker 2I want them to pick for me.
Speaker 1I don't want to pick like. I just feel bad choosing. They all need help.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean obviously, it all goes to the general pot.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, that's true. I don't know, I just always feel.
Speaker 2Well, no one sponsored Sandra this year, so you don.
Speaker 1It's on your quote unquote your chimp or orangutan, it's the center for great apes. Center for great apes. I'll link that in our show notes and I'll put it on our Instagram too as well, okay, well, yeah, I hope you guys like this.
Speaker 1I just wanted to chimps because when I was watching these documentaries they felt like humans and I just wanted to give a non-human personhood perspective to these animals that I think, think, I don't know, I don't know, man, I think we can learn a lot about us by watching them we can understand our evolution yeah watching our closest genetic relatives wild yeah anyway, you can follow us on Instagram at Borrowed Bones Podcast.
Speaker 2Oh, do you want?
Speaker 1to send us off with the sound of the chim.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, hold on. So again, this is a few years ago when I visited Center for Great Apes, and this is, Let me get it right here.
Speaker 1He's very excited to see everybody. Oh yeah, Very excited to see everybody, aww very excited to see everybody, little southern drawl very excited, oh okay, yeah, we'll have the links in the show notes and yeah, again, follow us on instagram check things out. I hope you liked it thanks for listening bye.
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