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This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:05 | |
This is Chimp Haven, | 0:00:05 | 0:00:06 | |
the American National Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Louisiana. | 0:00:06 | 0:00:08 | |
-Now who's this? -That's Agnes. | 0:00:08 | 0:00:10 | |
Agnes. Well, hello. | 0:00:10 | 0:00:12 | |
Meet extrovert Whitney, | 0:00:12 | 0:00:15 | |
24-year-old shy and retiring Jill, | 0:00:15 | 0:00:18 | |
and playful teenager Tessa. | 0:00:18 | 0:00:20 | |
These girls are no ordinary chimpanzees. | 0:00:21 | 0:00:24 | |
They've spent their entire lives in laboratories | 0:00:26 | 0:00:29 | |
being used for medical research. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:32 | |
It's a hell of an autobiography, isn't it? | 0:00:32 | 0:00:34 | |
-Data and... -Absolutely. -..procedures. | 0:00:34 | 0:00:37 | |
In 2015, the US government ended all testing on chimpanzees. | 0:00:37 | 0:00:42 | |
Now, 550 chimps are leaving the labs forever | 0:00:43 | 0:00:47 | |
and moving to new homes where | 0:00:47 | 0:00:49 | |
they'll have experiences they've never had before. | 0:00:49 | 0:00:52 | |
Tree climbing! | 0:00:52 | 0:00:54 | |
SUE GASPS | 0:00:54 | 0:00:55 | |
That makes me so incredibly happy. | 0:00:55 | 0:00:57 | |
It's time for us to give them a great retirement. | 0:00:57 | 0:01:00 | |
I'm going to have to, I'm afraid, look at some of those costumes. | 0:01:00 | 0:01:03 | |
There are some good ones. We have a big giant banana. | 0:01:03 | 0:01:05 | |
Of course you do. | 0:01:05 | 0:01:06 | |
To follow their rehabilitation... | 0:01:06 | 0:01:08 | |
..as they adjust to their new forever home. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:12 | |
That was to the face. I won't lie. | 0:01:14 | 0:01:16 | |
I do know how you feel when you look at an animal | 0:01:16 | 0:01:19 | |
and they look right back at you. | 0:01:19 | 0:01:21 | |
That I do know, and how brilliant that is. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:24 | |
I'm here to meet Whitney and her gang of girls... | 0:01:24 | 0:01:27 | |
Jill, Martha, Paula! | 0:01:27 | 0:01:31 | |
..as they prepare to meet a group of boys | 0:01:31 | 0:01:34 | |
for the very first time... | 0:01:34 | 0:01:37 | |
..and hopefully form a family troop. | 0:01:37 | 0:01:40 | |
It's like they've been waiting for each other all their lives, | 0:01:40 | 0:01:43 | |
you know, it's like it's completed the group. | 0:01:43 | 0:01:46 | |
I want to find out if there really can be life after the lab. | 0:01:46 | 0:01:50 | |
They had a little kiss. I can't bear it. | 0:01:50 | 0:01:52 | |
So, it was just 18 months ago that the federal government | 0:02:07 | 0:02:10 | |
here in the States finally decided to retire all the chimps | 0:02:10 | 0:02:12 | |
being used for experimentation in medical facilities. | 0:02:12 | 0:02:16 | |
And they're going to come here to a retirement sanctuary | 0:02:16 | 0:02:19 | |
known as Chimp Haven. | 0:02:19 | 0:02:20 | |
And of course I'm excited to get to see the chimps up close. | 0:02:20 | 0:02:23 | |
It's something I've always wanted to see, | 0:02:23 | 0:02:25 | |
but there's a degree of fear within me because in doing so I'm going to | 0:02:25 | 0:02:27 | |
have to actually confront their back stories. | 0:02:27 | 0:02:30 | |
I'm going to have to find out what we did to them, | 0:02:30 | 0:02:33 | |
what sacrifices they made for us, | 0:02:33 | 0:02:35 | |
and ultimately, on balance, | 0:02:35 | 0:02:37 | |
whether or not it was worth it. | 0:02:37 | 0:02:39 | |
Is it possible for a 47-year-old woman to be too excited? | 0:02:45 | 0:02:48 | |
I think it is. | 0:02:48 | 0:02:50 | |
I'm feeling it. | 0:02:50 | 0:02:52 | |
PHONE RINGS | 0:02:52 | 0:02:54 | |
-Chimp Haven, may I help you? -Hey, this is the BBC team. | 0:02:56 | 0:02:59 | |
OK. | 0:02:59 | 0:03:01 | |
Already I feel like I'm going to have to emotionally pace myself | 0:03:01 | 0:03:03 | |
cos I nearly burst into tears just at the signage. | 0:03:03 | 0:03:05 | |
"Chimp Haven - a new beginning." | 0:03:05 | 0:03:07 | |
Let's not throw all the tears into the mix before we start. | 0:03:10 | 0:03:13 | |
Oh, man, I can see chimps. | 0:03:23 | 0:03:25 | |
-Hello! -Hello. | 0:03:27 | 0:03:29 | |
-You must be Sue. -You must be Amy. | 0:03:29 | 0:03:31 | |
-Yes, I am. -It's good to see you. I'm more of a hugger. | 0:03:31 | 0:03:33 | |
I'm meeting Amy Fultz. | 0:03:33 | 0:03:35 | |
co-founder of Chimp Haven and head of behaviour. | 0:03:35 | 0:03:38 | |
Already I'm very drawn... | 0:03:38 | 0:03:40 | |
-Yeah? -I've seen my first chimp. | 0:03:40 | 0:03:43 | |
Is that a good kicking off or a bad kicking off? | 0:03:43 | 0:03:46 | |
-Yes. It's a good kicking off. -OK, good. -Always good. | 0:03:46 | 0:03:50 | |
For almost a century, | 0:03:50 | 0:03:52 | |
humans have subjected our closest animal relatives to medical testing, | 0:03:52 | 0:03:56 | |
in search of cures for diseases like polio, HIV and hepatitis. | 0:03:56 | 0:04:01 | |
Amy, is it wrong that I feel very at home in this outfit? | 0:04:03 | 0:04:07 | |
-You look great. -I'm feeling it. | 0:04:07 | 0:04:08 | |
I'm running a sort of Holby City vibe. This is good. | 0:04:08 | 0:04:11 | |
-So, take me to the operating theatre, I'm ready to go. -All right. | 0:04:11 | 0:04:14 | |
In the '90s, as the UK banned testing on chimpanzees, | 0:04:15 | 0:04:19 | |
US research reached a peak, | 0:04:19 | 0:04:21 | |
with 1,500 chimps living in labs across the States. | 0:04:21 | 0:04:24 | |
Chimps have been retired to Chimp Haven for the last 12 years, | 0:04:27 | 0:04:31 | |
but since testing ended, new arrivals are increasing rapidly. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:35 | |
It's now home to 214 chimpanzees. | 0:04:36 | 0:04:39 | |
-They're saying hello. -Hello. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:43 | |
That's Agnes. | 0:04:48 | 0:04:50 | |
Agnes. Well, hello. What gives? | 0:04:50 | 0:04:52 | |
Good girl, Agnes. | 0:04:52 | 0:04:53 | |
I think that's why I'm so drawn to chimps. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:55 | |
It's like you mirror them, they mirror you, yeah. | 0:04:55 | 0:04:58 | |
Like you would with a child, you know? | 0:04:58 | 0:05:01 | |
I have always been against animal testing | 0:05:01 | 0:05:04 | |
and have deliberately avoided talking to anyone | 0:05:04 | 0:05:06 | |
involved in that world. | 0:05:06 | 0:05:09 | |
However, Amy first started working with chimpanzees | 0:05:09 | 0:05:12 | |
in a laboratory in the early '90s. | 0:05:12 | 0:05:15 | |
I was actually a behavioural person. | 0:05:15 | 0:05:17 | |
I was a research assistant doing behavioural work. | 0:05:17 | 0:05:20 | |
Part of my job was helping the chimpanzees to psychologically | 0:05:20 | 0:05:25 | |
be happy as well as, you know, the veterinarians taking care of the physical care. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:30 | |
You see, damn you, Amy. | 0:05:30 | 0:05:31 | |
You're the first person I've actually met | 0:05:31 | 0:05:34 | |
who's worked with laboratory champs, and in my head you're demonic. | 0:05:34 | 0:05:37 | |
AMY LAUGHS You can't be a decent person | 0:05:37 | 0:05:39 | |
who wants to... Who wants to provide aftercare for these animals. | 0:05:39 | 0:05:44 | |
You're the bad guy. How dare you be so nice and considered? | 0:05:44 | 0:05:47 | |
So, we're going to go meet our six newest girls, Whitney's group. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:56 | |
-Whitney's group? -Whitney's group, yes. | 0:05:56 | 0:05:58 | |
They're getting ready to meet some boys for the first time. | 0:05:58 | 0:06:00 | |
-And when the last time the boys saw girls? -I don't know. | 0:06:00 | 0:06:04 | |
OK. That, that's going to be | 0:06:04 | 0:06:06 | |
a heady surge of testosterone coming at you, then. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:08 | |
Whitney and her girls arrived from a laboratory in New Mexico, | 0:06:10 | 0:06:14 | |
where they lived together for ten years. | 0:06:14 | 0:06:17 | |
Usually when the chimps are introduced to one another | 0:06:17 | 0:06:19 | |
they have to establish who's going to be the boss. | 0:06:19 | 0:06:22 | |
And that may end up being one of the girls in this group. | 0:06:22 | 0:06:25 | |
We have some very strong female personalities... | 0:06:25 | 0:06:28 | |
-Do they? -..in this group. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:29 | |
And we also have a strong male personality in Pierre, | 0:06:29 | 0:06:33 | |
so there might be a little bit of... | 0:06:33 | 0:06:34 | |
-Pierre? -Pierre is one of the boys. | 0:06:34 | 0:06:37 | |
Oh. Do you know what? I am gagging on meeting Pierre. | 0:06:37 | 0:06:41 | |
Pierre has already piqued my interest. | 0:06:41 | 0:06:43 | |
-Are you ready? -I'm absolutely ready. -Great. | 0:06:48 | 0:06:51 | |
New arrivals spend three weeks in quarantine, | 0:06:51 | 0:06:53 | |
where their health is assessed. | 0:06:53 | 0:06:55 | |
The next stage for the girls is to be gradually introduced to the boys. | 0:06:55 | 0:06:59 | |
OK, Lindsay. I want to introduce you to Sue. | 0:06:59 | 0:07:02 | |
Hey, Lindsay, I'm Sue. Good to see you. | 0:07:02 | 0:07:04 | |
-Sue. -Can I see them? | 0:07:04 | 0:07:05 | |
-Sure. -Or can we go straight in? What's the procedure? | 0:07:05 | 0:07:07 | |
Well, we need to get on what we call PPE, | 0:07:07 | 0:07:09 | |
which is personal protective equipment. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:11 | |
One thing that probably Lindsay and I both agree on | 0:07:11 | 0:07:14 | |
when you're meeting these guys, | 0:07:14 | 0:07:16 | |
it's good to sort of make yourself a little bit smaller. | 0:07:16 | 0:07:19 | |
You can nod to the chimps. | 0:07:19 | 0:07:20 | |
So I'm just doing a sort of, crab like...? | 0:07:20 | 0:07:22 | |
THEY LAUGH | 0:07:22 | 0:07:24 | |
Once they kind of get used to you, but you're just making yourself | 0:07:24 | 0:07:27 | |
-kind of small. -Sure. | 0:07:27 | 0:07:29 | |
You can also reach your hand out. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:31 | |
So, firm like that, or more like that? | 0:07:31 | 0:07:33 | |
-Kind of like that. -Like you're being submissive. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:35 | |
I'm just in the shadow of quite a large biohazard sign. | 0:07:35 | 0:07:38 | |
That always very reassuring. | 0:07:38 | 0:07:39 | |
These chimps have been used in hepatitis and HIV studies | 0:07:39 | 0:07:43 | |
in the past. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:44 | |
-So, another reason for all of the... -Sure. | 0:07:44 | 0:07:47 | |
-Let's do it. -All right. Ready? | 0:07:47 | 0:07:49 | |
Oh, man, I'm so excited. | 0:07:51 | 0:07:54 | |
Pierre and his boys have been waiting six years | 0:07:54 | 0:07:57 | |
for the right group of chimps to be introduced to. | 0:07:57 | 0:08:00 | |
I think the girls are on the right, the boys are on the left. | 0:08:00 | 0:08:02 | |
They've been placed in holding pens opposite one another | 0:08:02 | 0:08:05 | |
to get acquainted from a safe distance. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:07 | |
CHIMPS RATTLE CAGES | 0:08:09 | 0:08:11 | |
Already you can see the difference between the girls and the boys. | 0:08:20 | 0:08:23 | |
The girls have taken on their role of, lay low. | 0:08:26 | 0:08:30 | |
I just got a good bit of spit on me, that's good. | 0:08:35 | 0:08:38 | |
AMY LAUGHS | 0:08:38 | 0:08:39 | |
-The spitter was who? -Well, Pierre is usually the spitter. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:44 | |
He's going to tell you that he's the boss. | 0:08:47 | 0:08:49 | |
Yeah, I believe him. I believe him. | 0:08:49 | 0:08:50 | |
He probably will do that a lot of times whenever you're in here. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:53 | |
But for all those people who look at chimpanzees and say, "I want to hug one," | 0:08:53 | 0:08:56 | |
-just the power, the raw power. -Exactly. | 0:08:56 | 0:08:59 | |
You realise how strong they are. You've entered their area. | 0:08:59 | 0:09:02 | |
-For sure, this is their bedroom. -Their bedrooms. | 0:09:02 | 0:09:04 | |
-Exactly. -In terms of looking directly at a chimp, | 0:09:04 | 0:09:07 | |
particularly the male chimps, is that advisable? | 0:09:07 | 0:09:10 | |
I wouldn't look directly in their eyes, | 0:09:10 | 0:09:12 | |
it's a form of, you're challenging them. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:14 | |
-Sure. -So, you kind of just want to look around them, | 0:09:14 | 0:09:16 | |
but you can look at the girls, you know, | 0:09:16 | 0:09:19 | |
it's more for the alpha males and things like that. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:23 | |
Yeah. | 0:09:23 | 0:09:25 | |
-Did you...? -So that's sort of like a greeting, is it? -Exactly. | 0:09:25 | 0:09:28 | |
That's way better than spitting. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:31 | |
Yeah, can I just say, lads, you should be ashamed of yourselves. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:35 | |
-Yeah, he's got a mouthful of water. -Oh, yeah. -You're in trouble. | 0:09:35 | 0:09:38 | |
CAGES RATTLE | 0:09:38 | 0:09:40 | |
Oh! | 0:09:40 | 0:09:42 | |
And I was even shielding you. | 0:09:42 | 0:09:44 | |
THEY LAUGH | 0:09:44 | 0:09:46 | |
-That is Pierre. -Oh, that was Pierre, yeah. | 0:09:50 | 0:09:53 | |
-That is Pierre. -And it's kind of warm, too. | 0:09:53 | 0:09:54 | |
-I think he held it in his mouth for a little while. -Oh, that's good, yeah. | 0:09:54 | 0:09:57 | |
Chimps usually don't spit in the wild. | 0:09:57 | 0:09:59 | |
That's something that is kind of, they do in captivity. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:02 | |
It just, it's to get your attention. | 0:10:02 | 0:10:04 | |
They probably want to say hi in their own way. | 0:10:04 | 0:10:07 | |
I mean, there are different ways. | 0:10:07 | 0:10:08 | |
Look, I mean this technique is much more effective at me saying hello. | 0:10:08 | 0:10:11 | |
-Yeah, it's way better. -Just nodding. | 0:10:11 | 0:10:13 | |
Jill, she's the sweet one. | 0:10:13 | 0:10:15 | |
She lays back really quiet. | 0:10:15 | 0:10:17 | |
She watches out for her group. | 0:10:17 | 0:10:18 | |
She alarm barked whenever the boys were about to spit on you, | 0:10:18 | 0:10:21 | |
so she has your back, too. | 0:10:21 | 0:10:23 | |
Jill. Jill, you are fast becoming my favourite. | 0:10:23 | 0:10:26 | |
You sort of come in first of all with Whitney, whose giving it some, | 0:10:26 | 0:10:29 | |
but it's... You stay for Jill. | 0:10:29 | 0:10:31 | |
I'm no behaviourist, but I'm thinking that Jill's pretty relaxed now. | 0:10:31 | 0:10:34 | |
We've got Jill to a very chilled-out space. | 0:10:34 | 0:10:36 | |
-She's relaxed, yeah. -That I'm happy with. | 0:10:36 | 0:10:39 | |
-Yeah, exactly. -Jill, you've taken my heart. | 0:10:39 | 0:10:42 | |
I can't leave Jill now. I'm overinvested. | 0:10:42 | 0:10:44 | |
CAGE RATTLES | 0:10:44 | 0:10:47 | |
Whoa. | 0:10:47 | 0:10:48 | |
And Pierre once again. | 0:10:51 | 0:10:54 | |
That was to the face. I won't lie. | 0:10:54 | 0:10:55 | |
-That was... -He gets his point across that he would like your attention. | 0:10:55 | 0:10:58 | |
-Well, yeah. -He's like, "Stop turning your back on me." | 0:10:58 | 0:11:00 | |
I'm all yours, pal. | 0:11:00 | 0:11:02 | |
What's next? | 0:11:02 | 0:11:04 | |
Very submissive. Please don't spit on me again. | 0:11:04 | 0:11:06 | |
You go into an environment like that and you've got no idea what | 0:11:10 | 0:11:12 | |
you're going to get, and it was so intense. It was frightening. | 0:11:12 | 0:11:15 | |
Properly frightening. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:17 | |
When those male chimpanzees start throwing things | 0:11:17 | 0:11:19 | |
and start smashing at the bars, | 0:11:19 | 0:11:21 | |
the primal part of your brain just wants to run. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:23 | |
Run, run, run, because they are dangerous animals. | 0:11:23 | 0:11:26 | |
But then just when you're dealing with all that, | 0:11:26 | 0:11:29 | |
I had this extraordinary connection with Jill, | 0:11:29 | 0:11:31 | |
and it's just lovely. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:32 | |
I don't understand anything about genetics, | 0:11:32 | 0:11:34 | |
but I do know how you feel when you look at an animal | 0:11:34 | 0:11:38 | |
or a fellow human and they look right back at you. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:41 | |
That I do know. And how brilliant that is. | 0:11:41 | 0:11:43 | |
If all goes to plan, | 0:11:45 | 0:11:47 | |
the hope is that Jill and Pierre's groups will live together in a | 0:11:47 | 0:11:50 | |
mixed-sex troupe just as they would in the wild. | 0:11:50 | 0:11:53 | |
Eventually, they'll move into one of the three forest enclosures | 0:11:54 | 0:11:58 | |
at the heart of the sanctuary. | 0:11:58 | 0:12:00 | |
-Where is this? -So, we're at one of our forested habitats. | 0:12:00 | 0:12:04 | |
It's approximately four acres. | 0:12:04 | 0:12:06 | |
Part of Chimp Haven's ethos | 0:12:07 | 0:12:10 | |
is that we allow the chimpanzees to be chimpanzees. | 0:12:10 | 0:12:14 | |
All the chimpanzees at the sanctuary | 0:12:15 | 0:12:17 | |
are still reliant on humans for food. | 0:12:17 | 0:12:20 | |
Hey, Mark, we are ready for the Robinson release, please. | 0:12:20 | 0:12:24 | |
They've been waiting in their bedrooms while staff | 0:12:24 | 0:12:27 | |
distribute their dinner. | 0:12:27 | 0:12:28 | |
Oh, there they are, there they are, there they are! | 0:12:33 | 0:12:35 | |
Great. | 0:12:35 | 0:12:37 | |
When we started Chimp Haven we didn't really know | 0:12:39 | 0:12:41 | |
how these habitats would work, | 0:12:41 | 0:12:43 | |
cos the chimps really hadn't had access to a forest. | 0:12:43 | 0:12:47 | |
And we were pleasantly surprised. | 0:12:47 | 0:12:50 | |
The second day that they were in the habitat, this group... | 0:12:50 | 0:12:54 | |
It's a very different make-up now, over the years, | 0:12:54 | 0:12:57 | |
but they were climbing trees, and within a month we had found | 0:12:57 | 0:13:00 | |
the first nest. So, the habitats work. | 0:13:00 | 0:13:04 | |
-Oh. -Tree, tree climbing, tree climbing! | 0:13:05 | 0:13:08 | |
That's a lovely sight. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:12 | |
Look how high she's climbing. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:15 | |
SUE GASPS | 0:13:15 | 0:13:18 | |
Look at that. That makes me so incredibly happy. | 0:13:18 | 0:13:21 | |
It is magical to watch these captive-born chimps climbing trees, | 0:13:21 | 0:13:25 | |
Something they would've never before coming here. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:29 | |
-Isn't that beautiful? -Yes, it is. | 0:13:29 | 0:13:31 | |
And wouldn't it be great if one day Jill and her group | 0:13:32 | 0:13:35 | |
could pick up these skills, too? | 0:13:35 | 0:13:37 | |
Why isn't it possible to take these animals back | 0:13:49 | 0:13:52 | |
to environments in Africa? | 0:13:52 | 0:13:54 | |
Well, first of all, chimpanzees are an endangered species... | 0:13:54 | 0:13:57 | |
-Yeah. -..and part of the reason that they are endangered is because we're | 0:13:57 | 0:14:00 | |
losing habitat. They're also a territorial species, | 0:14:00 | 0:14:03 | |
so they might not be welcomed into a chimpanzee group. | 0:14:03 | 0:14:06 | |
-You can't just plunk them back into... -Right. | 0:14:06 | 0:14:08 | |
But I think more importantly, | 0:14:08 | 0:14:10 | |
most of the chimpanzees here have been raised in captivity, | 0:14:10 | 0:14:13 | |
with people providing their food. | 0:14:13 | 0:14:15 | |
So, trying to kind of take them from this captive environment | 0:14:15 | 0:14:20 | |
into the wild might be a really big challenge. | 0:14:20 | 0:14:24 | |
To prevent the mixed-sex groups breeding, | 0:14:25 | 0:14:28 | |
all male chimps are given vasectomies, | 0:14:28 | 0:14:31 | |
but staff discovered it doesn't always work. | 0:14:31 | 0:14:33 | |
We do have what we call some oops babies in this group. | 0:14:35 | 0:14:38 | |
Three half-sisters, Tracy, Natalie | 0:14:38 | 0:14:43 | |
and Valentina Rose. | 0:14:43 | 0:14:44 | |
And their father was Conan. | 0:14:44 | 0:14:46 | |
And then our youngest is approximately six-month-old, | 0:14:46 | 0:14:49 | |
named Carly. | 0:14:49 | 0:14:52 | |
-There's the baby. -Where, where? -Little hands under the belly. | 0:14:54 | 0:14:57 | |
-Walking. -No way! | 0:14:57 | 0:14:59 | |
Part of the reason that we don't want them to reproduce | 0:15:01 | 0:15:04 | |
is because they live a long time. | 0:15:04 | 0:15:06 | |
They can live up to 60 years. | 0:15:06 | 0:15:08 | |
And every birth of a baby could potentially take the place | 0:15:08 | 0:15:12 | |
of a chimpanzee being retired from research. | 0:15:12 | 0:15:14 | |
I would just be going, "Yeah, billions of babies, | 0:15:16 | 0:15:19 | |
"beautiful chimp babies! | 0:15:19 | 0:15:20 | |
"Let's restock the world!" | 0:15:20 | 0:15:22 | |
Jill and the girls are due to be introduced to Pierre | 0:15:28 | 0:15:30 | |
and his boys and ten days' time. | 0:15:30 | 0:15:34 | |
Amy, I just wanted to, like, | 0:15:34 | 0:15:36 | |
find out a little bit more about introductions. | 0:15:36 | 0:15:38 | |
It might seem as simple as chimp A meet chimp B, | 0:15:38 | 0:15:42 | |
but of course there's a whole network of complexity that surrounds that. | 0:15:42 | 0:15:46 | |
Yeah, the planning actually starts very early. | 0:15:46 | 0:15:50 | |
We have to get to know the chimpanzees and determine | 0:15:50 | 0:15:53 | |
what family is going to be best, sort of, for them. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:55 | |
What was it about Whitney's group that made that the perfect fit? | 0:15:55 | 0:15:58 | |
I think particularly that they are so cohesive with one another. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:02 | |
They are such a group of very strong-willed girls. | 0:16:02 | 0:16:07 | |
With Pierre's group, Pierre's very dominant. | 0:16:07 | 0:16:11 | |
Very dominant! | 0:16:11 | 0:16:13 | |
-You know, Jill is a little more timid. -I know. | 0:16:13 | 0:16:16 | |
And so say Pierre decides that he wants to bully her a bit. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:20 | |
My guess is that then Whitney and Paula... | 0:16:20 | 0:16:23 | |
-Martha... -..and Martha, yes, are all going to come to her aid. | 0:16:23 | 0:16:26 | |
When you introduce the group, | 0:16:26 | 0:16:29 | |
what sort of behaviours will you be looking for? | 0:16:29 | 0:16:33 | |
Chimps, just like people, touch is very important. | 0:16:33 | 0:16:36 | |
Something that happens that's, you know, maybe harder for people | 0:16:36 | 0:16:41 | |
is that chimpanzees sometimes fight. | 0:16:41 | 0:16:43 | |
That's sort of a worst-case scenario situation. | 0:16:43 | 0:16:47 | |
Chimpanzees can be killed. | 0:16:47 | 0:16:49 | |
I don't think I'd adequately taken onboard | 0:16:53 | 0:16:56 | |
how much process there is in taking | 0:16:56 | 0:16:59 | |
a chimp that is only used to a sterile laboratory environment | 0:16:59 | 0:17:02 | |
and then gently weaning it off its relationship to man | 0:17:02 | 0:17:06 | |
so that it can live in social groups in the forest. | 0:17:06 | 0:17:09 | |
Those girls, Whitney and her crew, and lovely, gorgeous, lovely Jill, | 0:17:13 | 0:17:18 | |
are embarking on a new phase of their lives. | 0:17:18 | 0:17:21 | |
It's a humbling thing to see them at the start of retirement, | 0:17:21 | 0:17:24 | |
learning all these new things. | 0:17:24 | 0:17:25 | |
And move from these almost, like, | 0:17:25 | 0:17:28 | |
holding pens where they are now, awaiting introductions, | 0:17:28 | 0:17:31 | |
into one of those extraordinary forested habitats | 0:17:31 | 0:17:34 | |
where they can live the rest of their lives peacefully | 0:17:34 | 0:17:37 | |
in the way they should. | 0:17:37 | 0:17:39 | |
With Jill and Pierre's groups set to be introduced | 0:18:00 | 0:18:03 | |
in eight days' time, | 0:18:03 | 0:18:04 | |
I want to learn more about the unique relationship | 0:18:04 | 0:18:07 | |
the staff have with their chimps. | 0:18:07 | 0:18:09 | |
The sanctuary has a dedicated enrichment team | 0:18:12 | 0:18:15 | |
who provided toys to engage and entertain the chimps. | 0:18:15 | 0:18:19 | |
They also give them special feeding devices | 0:18:19 | 0:18:21 | |
which replicate foraging in the wild. | 0:18:21 | 0:18:24 | |
Hello. Are you Leilani? | 0:18:28 | 0:18:31 | |
-I'm Leilani. -I see. Nice to see you. -Nice to meet you. -How's it going? | 0:18:31 | 0:18:34 | |
-Good, good. -Good. -How are you? | 0:18:34 | 0:18:35 | |
I'm really good. So, this is your special closet? | 0:18:35 | 0:18:37 | |
Yes, this is the closet of fun. | 0:18:37 | 0:18:39 | |
What the hell's it for? | 0:18:39 | 0:18:40 | |
Well, it has all of the puzzle-related feeding devices, | 0:18:40 | 0:18:44 | |
but also some of the non-food related stuff, | 0:18:44 | 0:18:47 | |
so the skirts and the puppets and things they like to look at. | 0:18:47 | 0:18:51 | |
We have bubbles for bubble machines. | 0:18:51 | 0:18:54 | |
Of all the things I expected to be involved in chimp fun... | 0:18:54 | 0:18:58 | |
-Yeah. -This is like a sort of, a sort of waist adornment and you just... | 0:18:58 | 0:19:02 | |
What would you do with that for chimps? | 0:19:02 | 0:19:04 | |
Well, you dance. Like, to a drum. | 0:19:04 | 0:19:07 | |
Does that happen a lot in the wild? LEILANI LAUGHS | 0:19:07 | 0:19:09 | |
You just find that sort of rogue women walk up, | 0:19:09 | 0:19:12 | |
come out of the forest with sort of heavily jewelled pants on | 0:19:12 | 0:19:15 | |
-and just give it some? -No. No. | 0:19:15 | 0:19:18 | |
The reason we do unusual things like that is because in the wild | 0:19:18 | 0:19:21 | |
you would encounter several different scenarios | 0:19:21 | 0:19:25 | |
as you trek through. | 0:19:25 | 0:19:28 | |
In the wild, chimps are stimulated by the search for food | 0:19:28 | 0:19:31 | |
each and every day. Here, the team have to find more creative ways | 0:19:31 | 0:19:35 | |
to engage their curiosity. | 0:19:35 | 0:19:37 | |
What on earth have you got above the foragers? | 0:19:39 | 0:19:42 | |
Those are DVDs. | 0:19:42 | 0:19:43 | |
And we have some other DVDs over here, | 0:19:43 | 0:19:45 | |
which is the Planet Earth and then the Bollywood, | 0:19:45 | 0:19:48 | |
which is Pierre's favourite movie. | 0:19:48 | 0:19:51 | |
-It's Bride And Prejudice. -So, let me just... That was quite a lot to take on board. | 0:19:51 | 0:19:55 | |
Pierre's favourite is the Bollywood classic, Bride And Prejudice? | 0:19:55 | 0:19:58 | |
-Yes. -What does he do when he... When he sees Bride And Prejudice? | 0:19:58 | 0:20:02 | |
Well, any Bollywood, | 0:20:02 | 0:20:04 | |
but Bride And Prejudice in particular, he likes to just watch. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:08 | |
I think that it has something to do with the fun dancing | 0:20:08 | 0:20:11 | |
and the singing. | 0:20:11 | 0:20:13 | |
Garfield. Who likes Garfield? | 0:20:13 | 0:20:15 | |
-Oof. Um... -I mean, obviously... -The babies do. | 0:20:15 | 0:20:17 | |
Obviously everyone loves Miss Congeniality 2. | 0:20:17 | 0:20:19 | |
-LAUGHTER -That one's actually less popular. | 0:20:19 | 0:20:22 | |
Yes, well, that's a hell of a selection. | 0:20:22 | 0:20:23 | |
So, are you working on new outfits? LAUGHTER | 0:20:23 | 0:20:26 | |
-You've got a whole raft... -We actually have, like, we have costumes. -Oh, I knew you would. | 0:20:26 | 0:20:30 | |
-And masks. -I'm going to have to, I'm afraid, look at some of those costumes. | 0:20:30 | 0:20:33 | |
-I know it's a climb, but I... -Oh, there's...there's some good ones. | 0:20:33 | 0:20:36 | |
-We have a big giant banana. -Of course you do. -And... -Up we go. | 0:20:36 | 0:20:39 | |
-Let's go. This is good. -That's the banana. | 0:20:39 | 0:20:41 | |
This is great. This is great. | 0:20:41 | 0:20:42 | |
I don't even know what that is. Oh, I think we have a gorilla outfit | 0:20:42 | 0:20:45 | |
somewhere. Yeah, that one. | 0:20:45 | 0:20:46 | |
Yeah, no, I feel... I personally feel enriched. | 0:20:50 | 0:20:53 | |
I don't know how a chimp would feel, but I feel thoroughly enriched. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:56 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:20:56 | 0:20:58 | |
SHE PLAYS "TIWNKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR" | 0:21:03 | 0:21:05 | |
Bearing in mind, when I arrived, the folks at Chimp Haven said that | 0:21:15 | 0:21:18 | |
their mission was to get chimps turned as much as they possibly | 0:21:18 | 0:21:21 | |
could into their wild state, | 0:21:21 | 0:21:23 | |
it seems deeply ironic that I've spent most of the day dressed as a | 0:21:23 | 0:21:27 | |
banana, playing the steel drum. | 0:21:27 | 0:21:29 | |
-No clapping! -Jill's looking as if she feels suicidal. LAUGHTER | 0:21:30 | 0:21:35 | |
But, to be fair to them, | 0:21:35 | 0:21:36 | |
what they're trying to do at least is replicate the stimulus, | 0:21:36 | 0:21:39 | |
the constant stimuli that these chimps would have, | 0:21:39 | 0:21:42 | |
and, you know, by any means necessary. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:44 | |
So, good for them. It entertains them, it entertains the chimps. | 0:21:44 | 0:21:47 | |
It keeps them quiet, it keeps them engaged. | 0:21:47 | 0:21:49 | |
And to be honest, I've got to go, cos I've got a Zumba class | 0:21:49 | 0:21:51 | |
with Hulk, so adios. | 0:21:51 | 0:21:53 | |
Looking after chimps is expensive. | 0:21:56 | 0:21:59 | |
It costs 18,000 a year to look after one animal, | 0:21:59 | 0:22:03 | |
and they get through two and a half tonnes of food every week. | 0:22:03 | 0:22:07 | |
We have a diet board, which we'll be looking at and we'll be kind of | 0:22:08 | 0:22:11 | |
-going through. -They have a menu! | 0:22:11 | 0:22:13 | |
-Yes, they have a menu. -They eat better than I do! | 0:22:13 | 0:22:15 | |
-Absolutely. -Look at that! -They eat better than a lot of us. | 0:22:15 | 0:22:18 | |
One thing that's always the staple is the banana. They're going to get that banana in every single bucket, | 0:22:18 | 0:22:22 | |
-because that... -That's contractual for chimps. -Yes. | 0:22:22 | 0:22:24 | |
They will not work if there's no bananas on the horizon. | 0:22:24 | 0:22:27 | |
Yes, that is the highest value item we have. Number of chimps | 0:22:27 | 0:22:29 | |
in the bucket. You'll put that number of bananas in the bucket. | 0:22:29 | 0:22:32 | |
-That I can do. -OK? I might sneak a fruit in there, extra for him. | 0:22:32 | 0:22:35 | |
-So everybody loves Pierre? -Yes. -What it is about, I mean obviously the name... | 0:22:35 | 0:22:38 | |
Everybody, when they meet Pierre, are kind of intimidated by him | 0:22:38 | 0:22:41 | |
-because he does a lot of displays and he spits. -He does a lot of spitting. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:44 | |
And he looks very intimidating when he gets all kind of erect and he's all poofy. | 0:22:44 | 0:22:48 | |
But he has the heart of a teddy bear. | 0:22:48 | 0:22:50 | |
Pierre and his friend Murphy were taken from West Africa as infants in | 0:22:52 | 0:22:57 | |
the 1970s, to be used in US labs for hepatitis B and HIV research. | 0:22:57 | 0:23:04 | |
CHATTERING | 0:23:04 | 0:23:07 | |
When the lab closed, | 0:23:07 | 0:23:08 | |
both chimps were moved to an animal orphanage in Texas, | 0:23:08 | 0:23:11 | |
where Michelle used to work. | 0:23:11 | 0:23:14 | |
When the sanctuary went bankrupt six years ago, | 0:23:14 | 0:23:16 | |
they all came to Chimp Haven together. | 0:23:16 | 0:23:19 | |
Now, this, I imagine, is your favourite part of the day. | 0:23:22 | 0:23:24 | |
-Absolutely. -A little bit of Pierre time. | 0:23:24 | 0:23:26 | |
This is what look forward to every day. | 0:23:26 | 0:23:28 | |
-Hello, Pierre! -Hey, Pierre! -THEY MAKE CHIMP NOISES | 0:23:30 | 0:23:33 | |
Hello, my boy. | 0:23:33 | 0:23:34 | |
-You're such a... -Don't you spit at me, Pierre. | 0:23:36 | 0:23:38 | |
Don't spit at me, baby. | 0:23:38 | 0:23:40 | |
Oh, man, now this is... | 0:23:40 | 0:23:42 | |
That's the difference between someone who doesn't know a chimp and | 0:23:42 | 0:23:44 | |
somebody who really is familiar. | 0:23:44 | 0:23:46 | |
Look at that. He's getting tickled with a spoon. | 0:23:46 | 0:23:48 | |
It's quite a specific form of play, but... | 0:23:48 | 0:23:51 | |
Oh, Pierre. Yeah. | 0:23:51 | 0:23:52 | |
Just going to keep my eyes down, | 0:23:54 | 0:23:56 | |
going to defer to the beautiful Gallic boy. | 0:23:56 | 0:24:00 | |
So far, there's no spit, so... | 0:24:00 | 0:24:02 | |
Yeah, you're doing great. | 0:24:02 | 0:24:03 | |
He is extremely chilled with you guys. | 0:24:03 | 0:24:06 | |
-Yes. -The Pierre I saw yesterday was really revved up. | 0:24:06 | 0:24:09 | |
Michelle's sister, Mary, | 0:24:09 | 0:24:12 | |
also works here, and has a long history with Murphy and Pierre, too. | 0:24:12 | 0:24:17 | |
Is it fair to say that this is a landmark moment | 0:24:17 | 0:24:19 | |
coming up for Pierre, because... | 0:24:19 | 0:24:21 | |
Yeah. Very shortly, he's about to meet the ladies. | 0:24:21 | 0:24:24 | |
-Yes, the ladies. -So, in 16 years, | 0:24:24 | 0:24:26 | |
he's never been in the same enclosure as a girl? | 0:24:26 | 0:24:30 | |
Er, yeah. We've... | 0:24:30 | 0:24:32 | |
I'm not sure if actually he's ever been with ladies. | 0:24:32 | 0:24:35 | |
Do you think Michelle's going to be devastated if Pierre's eye falls | 0:24:35 | 0:24:38 | |
upon, say, Whitney or Jill? LAUGHTER | 0:24:38 | 0:24:40 | |
Is that... I worry for her sanity because, if Pierre's eyes... | 0:24:40 | 0:24:43 | |
-I think she'll be OK. -You think she's OK? Cos look, she's... | 0:24:43 | 0:24:45 | |
-Yeah, I think she'll be OK. -I'm not sure. LAUGHTER | 0:24:45 | 0:24:48 | |
-I think it's actually... -A little, I'm sure she'll be a little heartbroken. | 0:24:48 | 0:24:51 | |
I think Michelle might need some after-care. | 0:24:51 | 0:24:53 | |
Yeah, the bond they have is really, really a cool bond. | 0:24:53 | 0:24:55 | |
-He is a beautiful soul. -Yeah. | 0:24:55 | 0:24:57 | |
The chimps here are still captives, and that's important to remember. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:03 | |
You know, they're not free in the sense that they rely on human beings | 0:25:03 | 0:25:06 | |
to deliver their food and a lot of their basic needs. | 0:25:06 | 0:25:09 | |
But, getting to know the care staff... | 0:25:09 | 0:25:11 | |
you come to realise that, if they can't be in the wild, | 0:25:13 | 0:25:16 | |
then surely this is the next best thing. | 0:25:16 | 0:25:18 | |
The amount of love that is given to them. | 0:25:18 | 0:25:21 | |
Come on, Papa. | 0:25:21 | 0:25:24 | |
Mary and Michelle's slavish adoration of spitty Pierre. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:28 | |
This isn't just a job for the people here. It's a vocation. | 0:25:28 | 0:25:32 | |
CHIMPS HOOT | 0:25:32 | 0:25:34 | |
-Hey, Papa. -Yeah, if you just want to kind of toss it in to... | 0:25:48 | 0:25:52 | |
-Oh, Papa! -SUE SNIGGERS | 0:25:52 | 0:25:54 | |
Still, it's a work in progress, my relationship with him. | 0:25:54 | 0:25:57 | |
You know, I gave him half a lettuce and that's what I got for it. | 0:25:57 | 0:26:01 | |
It's a week until Pierre and Jill's groups meet each other for the first | 0:26:03 | 0:26:06 | |
time. Staff are keen to create larger, mixed sex groups, like in | 0:26:06 | 0:26:10 | |
the wild, as it makes the chimps less stressed | 0:26:10 | 0:26:13 | |
and more cooperative with one another. | 0:26:13 | 0:26:15 | |
Henry arrived at the sanctuary in 2009, | 0:26:26 | 0:26:29 | |
and his group have just joined a larger chimp family in a new, | 0:26:29 | 0:26:33 | |
more spacious enclosure. | 0:26:33 | 0:26:35 | |
-Hi, Steve? -Hi. -I'm Sue. It's good to see you. | 0:26:35 | 0:26:39 | |
-Nice to meet you, Sue. -How's it going? -Very well, thank you. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:41 | |
Tell me about this fellow here. | 0:26:41 | 0:26:43 | |
Well, right at the top is Henry and, you know, | 0:26:43 | 0:26:45 | |
it's interesting to see him here, you know, at Chimp Haven, | 0:26:45 | 0:26:47 | |
because he is a little bit different than all the other chimps here. | 0:26:47 | 0:26:50 | |
-He's an ex-pet. -Oh, OK. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:52 | |
So his life was very different. | 0:26:52 | 0:26:54 | |
You know, a lot of people have opinions about what the life of | 0:26:54 | 0:26:57 | |
a laboratory chimp is like. | 0:26:57 | 0:27:00 | |
His existence prior to coming to Chimp Haven was undeniably | 0:27:00 | 0:27:02 | |
terrible. He lived, probably about 15 years, just in someone's garage, | 0:27:02 | 0:27:07 | |
-not with any other chimps, not with the proper conditions... -Oh! | 0:27:07 | 0:27:11 | |
..without the proper diet, that's for sure, we know that. | 0:27:11 | 0:27:13 | |
And, when the authorities found him, he was completely malnourished. | 0:27:13 | 0:27:17 | |
But not only that, he had no idea, probably, that he was a chimp at all. | 0:27:17 | 0:27:21 | |
Tell me about his personality. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:22 | |
I mean, what kind of guy is Henry? | 0:27:22 | 0:27:24 | |
He picks his friends carefully. | 0:27:24 | 0:27:26 | |
He's unsure, you know, as we're introducing him to this new group, | 0:27:26 | 0:27:30 | |
about which of those other chimps might be his friends, | 0:27:30 | 0:27:32 | |
might not be his friends, so he wants to take the time to figure it out, | 0:27:32 | 0:27:35 | |
so you'll often see him separate himself voluntarily from the rest of | 0:27:35 | 0:27:39 | |
the social group while he sort of considers his options. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
So have there been any studies in terms of the detrimental effect that | 0:27:42 | 0:27:46 | |
we have on the chimp population when they're in captivity? | 0:27:46 | 0:27:49 | |
Well, we've known, actually, for a long time that chimps that are taken | 0:27:49 | 0:27:53 | |
away from their mom develop in very different ways, | 0:27:53 | 0:27:56 | |
and very difficult ways. | 0:27:56 | 0:27:58 | |
And when we measured the cortisol levels in chimps that had a lot of | 0:27:58 | 0:28:02 | |
humans in their past lives versus chimps that had always been around | 0:28:02 | 0:28:05 | |
chimps, we found huge differences in stress. | 0:28:05 | 0:28:08 | |
So I can see there that he's reaching for | 0:28:10 | 0:28:13 | |
a blanket. Not a lot of blankets available in West Africa. | 0:28:13 | 0:28:17 | |
He lived so long on his own, he probably has attachment problems. | 0:28:17 | 0:28:21 | |
Maybe that blanket is serving the same way like a little teddy bear. | 0:28:21 | 0:28:24 | |
-It's his security blanket. -It's his security blanket. | 0:28:24 | 0:28:26 | |
-I can't bear it. -That's right. | 0:28:26 | 0:28:28 | |
I'm really mindful of the fact that, throughout our discussion, | 0:28:30 | 0:28:34 | |
he has remained up on the top, staring at you, staring at me. | 0:28:34 | 0:28:39 | |
That has a lot to do with his past and how he was raised, and just not | 0:28:39 | 0:28:43 | |
learning how to be a proper chimp. We have confidence that we're going to put him in certain circumstances | 0:28:43 | 0:28:48 | |
where he eventually will succeed, but it might be a bit slower for a chimp like Henry compared to another | 0:28:48 | 0:28:52 | |
chimp that was raised with others. | 0:28:52 | 0:28:54 | |
Seeing how Henry is struggling in his new group makes me worry about | 0:28:56 | 0:28:59 | |
how quiet and introverted Jill will cope when she's introduced | 0:28:59 | 0:29:02 | |
to the boys. | 0:29:02 | 0:29:04 | |
CHIMPS HOOT | 0:29:05 | 0:29:07 | |
Good morning. | 0:29:18 | 0:29:19 | |
You going to run? It's OK, Mama. | 0:29:21 | 0:29:23 | |
It's OK, Phyllis. | 0:29:24 | 0:29:26 | |
No, you don't feel safe? | 0:29:26 | 0:29:28 | |
I don't blame you. | 0:29:28 | 0:29:30 | |
Today, I'm going to meet the vet tasked with keeping the chimps | 0:29:30 | 0:29:33 | |
healthy, to understand the profound consequences of a life | 0:29:33 | 0:29:37 | |
lived in the lab. | 0:29:37 | 0:29:39 | |
All right, so welcome to the pharmacy. | 0:29:39 | 0:29:42 | |
Look at this! It's all go. I mean, this is well kitted out. LAUGHTER | 0:29:42 | 0:29:46 | |
Some of these tablets look a little familiar, at least to... | 0:29:46 | 0:29:49 | |
-Yes. -So something like doxycycline would be... | 0:29:49 | 0:29:53 | |
Is that a sort of, kind of antibiotic? | 0:29:53 | 0:29:55 | |
It is an antibiotic. | 0:29:55 | 0:29:56 | |
And, if you think about it, it's because we're so genetically | 0:29:56 | 0:29:59 | |
similar, our organ systems function the same way, | 0:29:59 | 0:30:02 | |
so we have some of the same medication options | 0:30:02 | 0:30:05 | |
and treatment of the same diseases. | 0:30:05 | 0:30:07 | |
This genetic similarity to humans is the reason chimpanzees like Jill | 0:30:09 | 0:30:13 | |
were used for medical research for so many years. | 0:30:13 | 0:30:16 | |
-Here's Whitney. -Where's Jill? | 0:30:16 | 0:30:18 | |
There's your girl, right here. | 0:30:18 | 0:30:21 | |
Hey, darling. Hey, darling. | 0:30:21 | 0:30:24 | |
-Hey, Jill. -Did you say hi? | 0:30:24 | 0:30:26 | |
-She's always curious. -Yes, she is. | 0:30:26 | 0:30:28 | |
She's always just silently watching on. | 0:30:28 | 0:30:30 | |
-Yes. -Each lab chimpanzee was assigned an identification number. | 0:30:30 | 0:30:36 | |
Jill was number 1555. | 0:30:36 | 0:30:39 | |
She has medical records spanning over 250 pages. | 0:30:39 | 0:30:43 | |
-Well, we know she was born on the 9th of February... -February of 1993. | 0:30:43 | 0:30:48 | |
..of 1993. By C section. Her genitalia is normal. | 0:30:48 | 0:30:52 | |
-Yes. -Just if you...Don't give me that look. I'm just, you know... LAUGHTER | 0:30:52 | 0:30:55 | |
Two nipples on the right side! | 0:30:55 | 0:30:57 | |
Yeah, so that's one of the identifying characteristics of Jill, | 0:30:57 | 0:31:01 | |
is that she has super...what we call supernumerary nipples on the right side. | 0:31:01 | 0:31:04 | |
So has she got one more than she...? | 0:31:04 | 0:31:06 | |
-She has one more than she's supposed to. -She's the Scaramanga of the... | 0:31:06 | 0:31:09 | |
She's the full James Bond villain. LAUGHTER | 0:31:09 | 0:31:11 | |
See, here, it also says that she was slightly blue at delivery. | 0:31:11 | 0:31:13 | |
They probably took her directly to the nursery. | 0:31:13 | 0:31:15 | |
So she never saw her mother? | 0:31:15 | 0:31:17 | |
Er, she probably saw her mom, but probably not for an extended period | 0:31:17 | 0:31:20 | |
-of time. -So she's born in captivity, born into the laboratory... | 0:31:20 | 0:31:24 | |
-Mm-hm. -At what age would the laboratory technicians | 0:31:24 | 0:31:28 | |
start infecting her? | 0:31:28 | 0:31:30 | |
She was utilised in hepatitis C research. | 0:31:30 | 0:31:33 | |
She was about two years old when she was utilised in those studies. | 0:31:33 | 0:31:36 | |
-It's a hell of an autobiography, isn't it? -It is. You know, it... | 0:31:36 | 0:31:39 | |
-Data and... -Absolutely. -..procedures! -But one thing I can | 0:31:39 | 0:31:42 | |
say is that, having worked with chimps, | 0:31:42 | 0:31:44 | |
they're a very forgiving species. | 0:31:44 | 0:31:47 | |
But that makes it all just worse! | 0:31:47 | 0:31:49 | |
We may never know exactly what this chimpanzee has experienced | 0:31:49 | 0:31:53 | |
throughout its lifespan, but you know what? | 0:31:53 | 0:31:55 | |
This is a resilient species and this is a forgiving species, | 0:31:55 | 0:31:59 | |
and our goal is to make sure that these days are the best days of | 0:31:59 | 0:32:03 | |
-their life, if we can. -Yeah. | 0:32:03 | 0:32:05 | |
In the first ten years of Jill's life, | 0:32:08 | 0:32:10 | |
she was moved between labs around the country seven times. | 0:32:10 | 0:32:14 | |
This is, er... | 0:32:32 | 0:32:33 | |
This is going to be very difficult for me. | 0:32:35 | 0:32:37 | |
I have... I bury my head in the sand when it comes to animal cruelty. | 0:32:37 | 0:32:40 | |
I don't want to see it, I don't want to hear it, I don't want to have anything to do with it. | 0:32:40 | 0:32:44 | |
I know it exists, but I have absolutely no desire to interface with it. | 0:32:44 | 0:32:48 | |
But, of course, in this context, it is extremely important I do, so | 0:32:48 | 0:32:53 | |
we've managed to get footage of a laboratory. | 0:32:53 | 0:32:56 | |
Er... | 0:32:56 | 0:32:58 | |
This was filmed in 1986. | 0:32:58 | 0:32:59 | |
It turns out that it's exactly the same lab that Jill was at, | 0:32:59 | 0:33:03 | |
eight years later, aged one. | 0:33:03 | 0:33:05 | |
You know, I connected with Jill, and now it's time for me to watch what | 0:33:07 | 0:33:10 | |
she went through - or, if she didn't go through it, | 0:33:10 | 0:33:13 | |
what the chimps that arrived just eight years before her went through. | 0:33:13 | 0:33:16 | |
In this room, highly intelligent primates | 0:33:18 | 0:33:21 | |
have gone mad from isolation. | 0:33:21 | 0:33:23 | |
Never able to walk or to touch another living being, | 0:33:23 | 0:33:27 | |
they sit and rock themselves into eternity. | 0:33:27 | 0:33:30 | |
Infected with viral hepatitis, in February 1986, | 0:33:32 | 0:33:36 | |
chimpanzee number 1164, an older male, has gone mad. | 0:33:36 | 0:33:42 | |
Crouched on the metal slats at the bottom of his inner chamber, | 0:33:42 | 0:33:46 | |
number 1164 rocks incessantly and mumbles to himself. | 0:33:46 | 0:33:52 | |
The fact that chimpanzees are our closest living relatives did not | 0:33:52 | 0:33:56 | |
save him from living death. | 0:33:56 | 0:33:58 | |
Most of these toddlers, just two to three years old, | 0:34:01 | 0:34:05 | |
were shipped here from an Air Force Base. | 0:34:05 | 0:34:07 | |
If they do not enter a social group now, | 0:34:07 | 0:34:10 | |
their chances of being normal are practically nil. | 0:34:10 | 0:34:14 | |
Starved for contact, | 0:34:15 | 0:34:17 | |
this three-year-old screams when the isolate door is sealed. | 0:34:17 | 0:34:21 | |
CHIMP SCREAMS | 0:34:21 | 0:34:23 | |
That goes beyond medical testing, | 0:34:31 | 0:34:33 | |
well into the realms of deliberate cruelty. | 0:34:33 | 0:34:36 | |
How can you take a baby animal, | 0:34:36 | 0:34:38 | |
knowing it's going to live almost as long as the human, | 0:34:38 | 0:34:41 | |
and incarcerate it?! | 0:34:41 | 0:34:42 | |
I've flown to Washington, DC to visit | 0:34:52 | 0:34:55 | |
the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, | 0:34:55 | 0:34:59 | |
the government agency who were responsible for the federal research | 0:34:59 | 0:35:02 | |
on chimpanzees. | 0:35:02 | 0:35:03 | |
I feel pretty nervous this morning, because I'm not an academic and I'm | 0:35:05 | 0:35:08 | |
not a scientist. I'm just a member of the public who loves animals and | 0:35:08 | 0:35:13 | |
wants to know the benefit, if any, | 0:35:13 | 0:35:16 | |
of sticking needles into them after | 0:35:16 | 0:35:18 | |
ripping them from their natural environment. | 0:35:18 | 0:35:20 | |
The NIH is the largest funder of medical research in the world, | 0:35:22 | 0:35:26 | |
with an annual budget of over 30 billion. | 0:35:26 | 0:35:29 | |
They started using chimpanzees for medical testing in the 1960s. | 0:35:31 | 0:35:35 | |
Plaque here says that President Franklin D Roosevelt opened this | 0:35:36 | 0:35:40 | |
site in 1940, dedicated to furthering the health of | 0:35:40 | 0:35:43 | |
all mankind. And I guess what I want to know is, | 0:35:43 | 0:35:46 | |
is furthering the health of mankind | 0:35:46 | 0:35:49 | |
and that of animals mutually exclusive? | 0:35:49 | 0:35:53 | |
Dr Anderson became divisional director in 2010, | 0:35:55 | 0:35:59 | |
whilst experimentation on chimpanzees was still ongoing. | 0:35:59 | 0:36:02 | |
-Dr Anderson? -Yes... | 0:36:02 | 0:36:04 | |
He oversaw the NIH decision to end all chimp testing in the US | 0:36:04 | 0:36:07 | |
five years later. | 0:36:07 | 0:36:09 | |
If you were to give a snapshot of the diseases that chimps have, if | 0:36:10 | 0:36:14 | |
not been able to cure, but certainly improve, | 0:36:14 | 0:36:16 | |
what would that list encompass? | 0:36:16 | 0:36:18 | |
They've been particularly | 0:36:18 | 0:36:21 | |
useful in advancing human health in hepatitis A, B and C. | 0:36:21 | 0:36:25 | |
They were instrumental in allowing development of vaccines for A and B. | 0:36:25 | 0:36:30 | |
So chimpanzees have saved huge swathes of the population. | 0:36:30 | 0:36:35 | |
They've provided extraordinary medical benefits. | 0:36:35 | 0:36:37 | |
Chimpanzees have been very helpful in development of therapeutic | 0:36:37 | 0:36:41 | |
monoclonal antibodies, so-called biologics, | 0:36:41 | 0:36:46 | |
so these are now widely used for many types of cancer | 0:36:46 | 0:36:51 | |
and for immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, | 0:36:51 | 0:36:55 | |
inflammatory bowel disease, where there just can be miracle cures. | 0:36:55 | 0:36:59 | |
Despite these medical breakthroughs in the first few decades of | 0:37:00 | 0:37:03 | |
chimpanzee testing, later success was harder to find. | 0:37:03 | 0:37:08 | |
DEMONSTRATORS CHANT | 0:37:08 | 0:37:11 | |
In the early '80s, America was hit by the AIDS epidemic, | 0:37:12 | 0:37:16 | |
and the NIH began a huge chimpanzee breeding programme | 0:37:16 | 0:37:19 | |
to provide test subjects. | 0:37:19 | 0:37:22 | |
Chimps were infected with human HIV, but, by the '90s, | 0:37:23 | 0:37:27 | |
scientists realised the disease doesn't turn into full-blown AIDS | 0:37:27 | 0:37:31 | |
in the animal model. | 0:37:31 | 0:37:33 | |
I can understand there was a rush to test. | 0:37:33 | 0:37:36 | |
How soon did you realise that the animal model wasn't going to provide | 0:37:36 | 0:37:40 | |
a vaccine for the human condition? | 0:37:40 | 0:37:43 | |
Probably about a decade. | 0:37:43 | 0:37:45 | |
The use of chimpanzees for HIV/AIDS research really dropped throughout | 0:37:45 | 0:37:49 | |
-the '90s. -I'm kind of interested to find out why that change happened in | 0:37:49 | 0:37:53 | |
the '90s. Did you precipitate that change, | 0:37:53 | 0:37:55 | |
or did public opinion push you? | 0:37:55 | 0:37:57 | |
I think it was probably a combination, but it's also the | 0:37:57 | 0:38:00 | |
recognition, in order to have a reliable animal model, | 0:38:00 | 0:38:04 | |
the animal has to be happy and be well taken care of, | 0:38:04 | 0:38:07 | |
otherwise you're studying animal stress, | 0:38:07 | 0:38:09 | |
you're not studying a response to a pathogen. | 0:38:09 | 0:38:12 | |
Why couldn't we see the way that they were being housed, | 0:38:12 | 0:38:16 | |
and why in some extreme cases were they being treated so appallingly? | 0:38:16 | 0:38:21 | |
I don't think it's defensible, really, any more, | 0:38:21 | 0:38:23 | |
the way they were originally treated. | 0:38:23 | 0:38:25 | |
By the early '90s, there were a whole set of new regulations | 0:38:25 | 0:38:29 | |
from NIH about housing - | 0:38:29 | 0:38:31 | |
that chimpanzees had to be socially housed, with the | 0:38:31 | 0:38:34 | |
recognition that they were social animals. | 0:38:34 | 0:38:38 | |
In 2015, the US government afforded captive chimpanzees the same | 0:38:38 | 0:38:42 | |
endangered species status as their wild cousins. | 0:38:42 | 0:38:46 | |
Shortly after, the NIH announced they'd no longer support research | 0:38:46 | 0:38:50 | |
involving chimps, ending all medical testing with chimpanzees. | 0:38:50 | 0:38:55 | |
Is there an element of this being based upon a recognition that the | 0:38:55 | 0:38:59 | |
chimps' best interests certainly weren't served, | 0:38:59 | 0:39:02 | |
and now they have the chance to get a decent quality of life, finally? | 0:39:02 | 0:39:07 | |
I'd put it more in the perspective of our whole approach to the use of | 0:39:07 | 0:39:11 | |
chimps has evolved over decades, | 0:39:11 | 0:39:13 | |
-and the recognition that they are very special and they do deserve our respect. -But it was not always thus. | 0:39:13 | 0:39:21 | |
-Regrettably, no. -Where do you draw the line between the benefits to mankind and the | 0:39:21 | 0:39:25 | |
suffering of animals? | 0:39:25 | 0:39:26 | |
Would you do anything to extend and preserve life free of disease? | 0:39:26 | 0:39:30 | |
You have people who say it's not appropriate to do any research on | 0:39:30 | 0:39:34 | |
animals at any time, and I respect that. | 0:39:34 | 0:39:37 | |
They came to that conclusion, and that's their opinion. | 0:39:37 | 0:39:41 | |
And then you'll find a mother who says, | 0:39:41 | 0:39:44 | |
"My child is suffering and dying from cancer. | 0:39:44 | 0:39:47 | |
"What are YOU going to do about that?" | 0:39:47 | 0:39:49 | |
And it's the mission of NIH to improve human health. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:52 | |
I'm amazed that someone speaking on behalf of the American government | 0:39:55 | 0:39:58 | |
about such a sensitive issue was so candid. | 0:39:58 | 0:40:02 | |
What I wasn't expecting was for him to just own it. | 0:40:02 | 0:40:05 | |
For Dr Anderson to turn around and go, "In retrospect, | 0:40:05 | 0:40:09 | |
"although I wasn't personally involved, | 0:40:09 | 0:40:11 | |
"I feel that we treated those animals badly." | 0:40:11 | 0:40:14 | |
But his point was that things have moved on and, you know, | 0:40:14 | 0:40:17 | |
they've learned those lessons, they've changed. | 0:40:17 | 0:40:20 | |
We all have our own views on whether animal testing was worth it. | 0:40:20 | 0:40:24 | |
For me, yes, I appreciate that millions of lives were saved, | 0:40:24 | 0:40:28 | |
but it's obvious that chimps are social animals, | 0:40:28 | 0:40:30 | |
so I still can't comprehend why they were kept in those conditions. | 0:40:30 | 0:40:34 | |
At Chimp Haven, some animals are still paying the price | 0:40:34 | 0:40:37 | |
for their life of medical testing. | 0:40:37 | 0:40:39 | |
40-year-old Cotton was retired in 2006, | 0:40:42 | 0:40:45 | |
after being used for HIV research. | 0:40:45 | 0:40:47 | |
Vet Raven has anaesthetised him | 0:40:49 | 0:40:51 | |
so she can give him a full health check. | 0:40:51 | 0:40:54 | |
You can see he's getting flaky. | 0:40:54 | 0:40:57 | |
We've probably got about 30 to 40-plus that have been exposed | 0:40:57 | 0:41:02 | |
to HIV-1 or 2, which is the human strain. | 0:41:02 | 0:41:04 | |
But Cotton is very special, isn't he? | 0:41:04 | 0:41:06 | |
Yes, Cotton has been exposed to SIVcpz. | 0:41:06 | 0:41:10 | |
Cotton was infected with the chimp form of HIV in an attempt to find a | 0:41:10 | 0:41:14 | |
human cure. | 0:41:14 | 0:41:16 | |
Unlike chimps infected with the human strain of HIV, who show no | 0:41:17 | 0:41:21 | |
symptoms, Cotton developed AIDS. | 0:41:21 | 0:41:24 | |
Ultimately, their concern wasn't the chimpanzee. | 0:41:24 | 0:41:28 | |
The concern was us, as humans, | 0:41:28 | 0:41:30 | |
and what can we do to give our counterparts a | 0:41:30 | 0:41:33 | |
better quality of life? | 0:41:33 | 0:41:35 | |
I have no response to stimuli. | 0:41:47 | 0:41:48 | |
Cotton's condition has been controlled by human anti-retroviral | 0:41:50 | 0:41:53 | |
drugs, and every six months he needs blood tests | 0:41:53 | 0:41:57 | |
to check his progress. | 0:41:57 | 0:41:59 | |
All right, yes, come on. | 0:42:01 | 0:42:03 | |
OK, so this is the blood work now for... | 0:42:19 | 0:42:21 | |
Yes, so this is the blood that is going to determine if he's still | 0:42:21 | 0:42:24 | |
doing well on anti-retroviral therapy. | 0:42:24 | 0:42:27 | |
It would have been very likely, | 0:42:27 | 0:42:29 | |
without medical intervention through the form of anti-retroviral therapy, | 0:42:29 | 0:42:33 | |
that Cotton likely would have had to have been euthanized. | 0:42:33 | 0:42:36 | |
He was not mounting a natural response to the typical day-to-day | 0:42:36 | 0:42:40 | |
pathogens that a chimp is going to run into. | 0:42:40 | 0:42:44 | |
And how far is Cotton into his retroviral therapy? | 0:42:44 | 0:42:48 | |
He's been on now almost two years. | 0:42:48 | 0:42:50 | |
And is there a time where you'd stop administering that, | 0:42:51 | 0:42:54 | |
-or is he on that drug for life? -No, he will be on this drug for life. | 0:42:54 | 0:42:57 | |
Hey, mister. You peeking at me? All right, we've got some blinkage. | 0:42:57 | 0:43:00 | |
He's looking at me, guys. | 0:43:00 | 0:43:02 | |
All right, he's good to go. | 0:43:05 | 0:43:07 | |
-You can now touch him. -I can now touch him? LAUGHTER | 0:43:07 | 0:43:10 | |
-You can now touch him. -Hey, Cotton. | 0:43:10 | 0:43:12 | |
-This is what I want, a hand. Can I hold the hand? -Mm-hm. | 0:43:14 | 0:43:17 | |
Twist. | 0:43:17 | 0:43:18 | |
Sweetheart. | 0:43:20 | 0:43:22 | |
Hey, mister. | 0:43:24 | 0:43:26 | |
I'm going to come round and... | 0:43:26 | 0:43:28 | |
There you go, mister. | 0:43:28 | 0:43:31 | |
-Guess what, you're a superstar! -Well done. -All right. | 0:43:31 | 0:43:35 | |
There you go, buddy. You look good, mister. | 0:43:42 | 0:43:44 | |
Is it easy for him to get access to the drugs he needs, | 0:43:46 | 0:43:49 | |
so the human retrovirals? | 0:43:49 | 0:43:51 | |
If I'm honest, I have great difficulties, | 0:43:51 | 0:43:53 | |
because it had never been used or documented in a chimpanzee, | 0:43:53 | 0:43:56 | |
so it was very hard for me to get the drugs that are ultimately giving | 0:43:56 | 0:44:00 | |
Cotton a better quality of life right now. | 0:44:00 | 0:44:02 | |
But that just makes me furious. | 0:44:02 | 0:44:04 | |
The good thing is that we were able to solicit two pharmaceutical | 0:44:04 | 0:44:07 | |
companies that are willingly giving us the medications | 0:44:07 | 0:44:10 | |
for Cotton, free of cost. | 0:44:10 | 0:44:12 | |
He's done his bit. | 0:44:12 | 0:44:14 | |
He's done his job and he's now in retirement, and guess what? | 0:44:14 | 0:44:18 | |
He's living out a pretty good life. | 0:44:18 | 0:44:20 | |
After spending years being tested on to find a human cure, | 0:44:22 | 0:44:26 | |
Cotton will hopefully be kept alive by human drugs | 0:44:26 | 0:44:29 | |
for the rest of his life. | 0:44:29 | 0:44:31 | |
Having spent time getting to know the staff here, | 0:44:36 | 0:44:39 | |
I've begun to feel conflicted. | 0:44:39 | 0:44:42 | |
Many of them first worked with chimps in laboratories, | 0:44:42 | 0:44:45 | |
like Head of Animal Care, Kathleen. | 0:44:45 | 0:44:48 | |
What was your first engagement with chimps? | 0:44:48 | 0:44:50 | |
Well, I started working with chimpanzees in 1992. | 0:44:50 | 0:44:54 | |
One thing we need to understand, | 0:44:54 | 0:44:55 | |
I was going to work today and I was going to make a difference. | 0:44:55 | 0:44:58 | |
Sure, I understand. | 0:44:58 | 0:45:00 | |
And the same goes for so many people across the laboratory community. | 0:45:00 | 0:45:03 | |
What did your family and friends think of what you did? | 0:45:03 | 0:45:06 | |
My father uses his voice as an advocate, and | 0:45:06 | 0:45:09 | |
he's an animal rights activist, and, um, heck, | 0:45:09 | 0:45:14 | |
he even picketed outside my own lab at times. | 0:45:14 | 0:45:18 | |
However, it led to a very interesting conversation later on, | 0:45:18 | 0:45:22 | |
and we were able to share perspectives on how each of us felt | 0:45:22 | 0:45:26 | |
like we were helping. | 0:45:26 | 0:45:28 | |
Kathleen used to work at an infamous New York state laboratory called | 0:45:31 | 0:45:35 | |
LEMSIP, known for its poor housing conditions for the chimps. | 0:45:35 | 0:45:39 | |
There was extreme suffering at some points, and that's, I think, | 0:45:39 | 0:45:43 | |
hard for people to engage with and to accept. | 0:45:43 | 0:45:48 | |
I definitely can understand that. | 0:45:49 | 0:45:51 | |
However, I myself have received treatment that was tested previously | 0:45:51 | 0:45:56 | |
on animals, and so there's an appreciative aspect to what | 0:45:56 | 0:46:01 | |
research has provided in my life. | 0:46:01 | 0:46:04 | |
I, like you, have received medication | 0:46:04 | 0:46:07 | |
that inevitably was tested. | 0:46:07 | 0:46:08 | |
-Right. -I guess I would have liked to have known that they didn't have to | 0:46:08 | 0:46:12 | |
undergo unnecessary suffering. | 0:46:12 | 0:46:14 | |
-And that's a really great point. -I think that's what's hard. -I completely agree with you. | 0:46:14 | 0:46:18 | |
Do you think there's a sense among people here who've worked in the | 0:46:18 | 0:46:21 | |
laboratory environment as a way of sort of expiating guilt or pain or | 0:46:21 | 0:46:24 | |
difficult feelings about the work that was done previously? | 0:46:24 | 0:46:27 | |
I know I don't hold guilt for what was done in the past, | 0:46:27 | 0:46:32 | |
-because I felt like I was making a difference. -Mmm. | 0:46:32 | 0:46:36 | |
My decision to put myself in that, in a laboratory, | 0:46:36 | 0:46:41 | |
was made specifically because I felt I was helping. | 0:46:41 | 0:46:44 | |
I didn't expect to meet people who'd worked in laboratory environments | 0:46:45 | 0:46:50 | |
and feel such kinship with them, | 0:46:50 | 0:46:54 | |
and to feel that they really do have | 0:46:54 | 0:46:56 | |
the animals' best interests at heart. | 0:46:56 | 0:46:58 | |
How strange that those I'd considered to be the bad guys now | 0:46:59 | 0:47:03 | |
lead the effort to give these chimps a new and better life. | 0:47:03 | 0:47:07 | |
GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC PLAYS | 0:47:07 | 0:47:10 | |
It's the day before the boys are to be introduced to the girls. | 0:47:14 | 0:47:20 | |
When you see chimps like Jill and you connect with her, | 0:47:20 | 0:47:22 | |
you can't for a second understand | 0:47:22 | 0:47:24 | |
what she's been through, | 0:47:24 | 0:47:27 | |
but what gives me some hope is that she's about | 0:47:27 | 0:47:30 | |
to be introduced to what will end up being her family for life, you know, | 0:47:30 | 0:47:34 | |
a group of four male chimps who will interact with her and play with her | 0:47:34 | 0:47:38 | |
and take care of her, who she can take care of. | 0:47:38 | 0:47:41 | |
That makes me happy. | 0:47:41 | 0:47:42 | |
-Let's see who's out. -Who's here? -No-one! | 0:47:48 | 0:47:51 | |
Nobody's there. Classic. LAUGHTER | 0:47:51 | 0:47:55 | |
It would be too stressful for the chimps to have strangers like me | 0:47:55 | 0:47:58 | |
around when they're getting introduced. | 0:47:58 | 0:48:00 | |
Jill! Martha! | 0:48:00 | 0:48:02 | |
Paula! | 0:48:02 | 0:48:04 | |
But, before her big day, | 0:48:04 | 0:48:06 | |
I want to check in with chimpanzee number 1555, | 0:48:06 | 0:48:09 | |
also known as Jill. | 0:48:09 | 0:48:11 | |
Oh, there she is! | 0:48:11 | 0:48:13 | |
Hello, Jill! | 0:48:13 | 0:48:15 | |
She's away from us a bit, and, you know, that's the ideal, in the end, isn't it, | 0:48:15 | 0:48:19 | |
that they have their own community and they're inward-facing, rather than... And these guys. | 0:48:19 | 0:48:23 | |
Exactly. You know, I and they have the opportunity to choose whether they want to... | 0:48:23 | 0:48:26 | |
What we call chimp's chimp. Jill is what we call a chimp's chimp. | 0:48:26 | 0:48:29 | |
But it's nice that she's chosen to come out for a little bit, even. | 0:48:29 | 0:48:32 | |
Here she is. I think you've made a connection. | 0:48:32 | 0:48:35 | |
I think she likes you. | 0:48:35 | 0:48:37 | |
Jill first caught my eye because she alarm-barked just before Pierre spat | 0:48:37 | 0:48:41 | |
at me in the face, | 0:48:41 | 0:48:43 | |
and because I just had a connection with her that maybe supersedes my | 0:48:43 | 0:48:47 | |
linguistic ability to communicate it to you. | 0:48:47 | 0:48:50 | |
And the next thing I know about Jill is that awful, | 0:48:50 | 0:48:53 | |
disturbing footage of the very laboratory that she was in | 0:48:53 | 0:48:56 | |
some eight years later. | 0:48:56 | 0:48:59 | |
I understand a little bit the reasons behind her aloofness, | 0:48:59 | 0:49:01 | |
the reasons why she's not the first to come up to the grille and look at | 0:49:01 | 0:49:05 | |
a human being again, because, for her, | 0:49:05 | 0:49:08 | |
maybe we're not the caregivers. | 0:49:08 | 0:49:10 | |
Maybe, for her, we're the problem. | 0:49:11 | 0:49:13 | |
To get a front-row view of the girls' and boys' first meeting, | 0:49:20 | 0:49:23 | |
we set up cameras to record the seminal moment in the lives | 0:49:23 | 0:49:26 | |
of these ten chimpanzees. | 0:49:26 | 0:49:29 | |
EVOCATIVE MUSIC PLAYS | 0:49:31 | 0:49:34 | |
CHIMPS HOOT | 0:49:37 | 0:49:40 | |
The boys and girls have been moved to enclosures next to one another | 0:49:54 | 0:49:58 | |
before the introduction begins. | 0:49:58 | 0:49:59 | |
Amy is going to decode the chimpanzees' first meeting for me. | 0:50:26 | 0:50:29 | |
This is the girls. | 0:50:31 | 0:50:33 | |
The boys are on the other side. | 0:50:33 | 0:50:35 | |
-There he is. -There's Pierre. | 0:50:35 | 0:50:37 | |
Pierre's getting quite wound up there. | 0:50:40 | 0:50:42 | |
He's displaying, just letting everyone know that he's the tough guy in charge. | 0:50:42 | 0:50:47 | |
PIERRE SCREECHES | 0:50:47 | 0:50:49 | |
That's the door opening. | 0:50:59 | 0:51:01 | |
That's Rero and Whitney, and they just cross and do nothing. | 0:51:02 | 0:51:07 | |
Totally ignored the fact that there was a girl. | 0:51:07 | 0:51:09 | |
This is Hulk, and he's not so sure what he should be doing. | 0:51:12 | 0:51:16 | |
-Paula-Jean... -Paula said hello to him, and now she's fear-grinning. | 0:51:16 | 0:51:21 | |
SCREECHING | 0:51:21 | 0:51:23 | |
Rero starts screaming to Pierre. | 0:51:23 | 0:51:24 | |
He doesn't know what's kind of happening. | 0:51:24 | 0:51:27 | |
And there's a little disagreement, | 0:51:27 | 0:51:29 | |
and then they're reassuring each other with the touching. | 0:51:29 | 0:51:33 | |
They haven't been with girls before, and | 0:51:33 | 0:51:35 | |
all of a sudden all these girls are in their enclosure, | 0:51:35 | 0:51:39 | |
-and they're together. -SCREECHING | 0:51:39 | 0:51:42 | |
They are looking at each other, | 0:51:43 | 0:51:45 | |
trying to figure out what they should do. | 0:51:45 | 0:51:48 | |
That's a reassurance hug. | 0:51:48 | 0:51:49 | |
-So who are these two? -That's Martha and Murphy. | 0:51:49 | 0:51:52 | |
-So then you see they're both fear-grinning. -Aaww! | 0:51:52 | 0:51:55 | |
"We're scared, we're nervous, | 0:51:55 | 0:51:56 | |
"but we're going to reassure each other by hugging and touching." | 0:51:56 | 0:52:00 | |
And then he's inspecting her sex swelling. | 0:52:00 | 0:52:02 | |
-He's inspecting her...? -Sex swelling. Her bottom. -Sex swelling! | 0:52:02 | 0:52:06 | |
Yes. So that's a very affiliative and pro-social thing that they do. | 0:52:06 | 0:52:10 | |
She's no lady to let him do that on a first meet. LAUGHTER | 0:52:10 | 0:52:13 | |
There's Jill. | 0:52:17 | 0:52:19 | |
So Jill's doing some hugging. | 0:52:19 | 0:52:20 | |
Yeah, I think you'll be very proud of her. | 0:52:20 | 0:52:23 | |
I'm already proud, because she was so reticent. | 0:52:23 | 0:52:26 | |
-What's this? -OK, so that's a really important behaviour. | 0:52:29 | 0:52:33 | |
She puts his hand in her mouth. | 0:52:33 | 0:52:35 | |
He's trusting her not to bite his hand. | 0:52:35 | 0:52:39 | |
-He literally put his hand in her mouth. -Mmm! | 0:52:39 | 0:52:41 | |
That's almost a submissive thing from him. | 0:52:41 | 0:52:44 | |
-Jill! -Watch. | 0:52:45 | 0:52:47 | |
-And Hulk completely acts like there's not another chimp there. -LAUGHTER | 0:52:47 | 0:52:51 | |
-Oh, no! -Right? -Jill's been dissed! | 0:52:53 | 0:52:56 | |
Jill's been thrown some serious shade there. | 0:52:56 | 0:52:58 | |
Yeah. I think it's mostly because Hulk was scared. | 0:52:58 | 0:53:03 | |
But Murphy's trying to be playful. | 0:53:03 | 0:53:05 | |
-Oh, she's scared. A bit scared. -A little bit scared. | 0:53:15 | 0:53:18 | |
Then, look, he does the, "It's OK," reach out with his hand to her, | 0:53:21 | 0:53:26 | |
and now she's panting and bobbing, so being a little bit submissive, | 0:53:26 | 0:53:29 | |
but he's panting back to her, so that's again friendly. | 0:53:29 | 0:53:32 | |
This is quite an interesting one-on-one little dance going on. | 0:53:35 | 0:53:38 | |
-Yeah. -He's very interested. | 0:53:38 | 0:53:40 | |
He keeps sitting down. Again, that kind of makes him smaller, | 0:53:42 | 0:53:45 | |
and he's reaching out, saying, | 0:53:45 | 0:53:47 | |
"It's OK, I'm not going to hurt you." | 0:53:47 | 0:53:51 | |
They have a little kiss! | 0:53:51 | 0:53:53 | |
-I can't bear it! -How sweet is that? | 0:53:53 | 0:53:56 | |
They're playing pat-a-cake! | 0:54:00 | 0:54:02 | |
And you can see how relaxed they both look. | 0:54:04 | 0:54:06 | |
And Pierre is wild-born, | 0:54:08 | 0:54:10 | |
so probably lived with his mother for a period of time | 0:54:10 | 0:54:13 | |
-and learned some of these social behaviours. -Yeah. | 0:54:13 | 0:54:16 | |
HOOTING | 0:54:16 | 0:54:19 | |
OK, so here Murphy chases a little bit after Jill. | 0:54:19 | 0:54:23 | |
He's saying, | 0:54:23 | 0:54:25 | |
"I'm still the tough guy," basically, | 0:54:25 | 0:54:27 | |
but they make up very quickly afterwards. | 0:54:27 | 0:54:30 | |
But he got a little rough, and so she's scared. | 0:54:32 | 0:54:35 | |
Now she's going over to Pierre, who's holding out his hand to her. | 0:54:38 | 0:54:41 | |
Look at that! Conciliatory Pierre. | 0:54:41 | 0:54:42 | |
Isn't that interesting, now there are girls there, | 0:54:42 | 0:54:45 | |
that his role as the boss has moved much more into, | 0:54:45 | 0:54:47 | |
"I'm going to, I'm actually going to be gentle and careful and caring"? | 0:54:47 | 0:54:51 | |
There are different types of alpha males, | 0:54:51 | 0:54:53 | |
and what you said is exactly what it seems that Pierre will be. | 0:54:53 | 0:54:57 | |
-A nurturing alpha male. -A nurturing alpha. | 0:54:57 | 0:54:59 | |
So she's not sure about Pierre. | 0:55:01 | 0:55:03 | |
-Then he's like, "Come on, let's play." -LAUGHTER | 0:55:06 | 0:55:10 | |
-It's so intimate, isn't it? -Yes. | 0:55:17 | 0:55:20 | |
You can see them both shaking and, again, that's the panting. | 0:55:26 | 0:55:30 | |
And her muzzle is inside Pierre's mouth at that point, | 0:55:30 | 0:55:35 | |
so again she's trusting him not to bite her. | 0:55:35 | 0:55:39 | |
Like an old romantic Hollywood kiss! | 0:55:43 | 0:55:45 | |
When the woman is slightly obscured from view. | 0:55:46 | 0:55:49 | |
So Jill's become quite an object of... | 0:55:49 | 0:55:51 | |
I mean, she's got two boys interested. LAUGHTER | 0:55:51 | 0:55:55 | |
-They're enthralled by one another, aren't they? -Right. | 0:55:55 | 0:55:59 | |
She is such a flirt! LAUGHTER | 0:55:59 | 0:56:02 | |
That's a proper snog, isn't it, that one? She loves him. LAUGHTER | 0:56:06 | 0:56:09 | |
I loved watching that. | 0:56:11 | 0:56:13 | |
I could watch that for hours and hours and hours. It is fascinating. | 0:56:13 | 0:56:16 | |
But how extraordinary that a chimp like Jill, | 0:56:16 | 0:56:18 | |
-who's so background... -Right? | 0:56:18 | 0:56:21 | |
-..and there she is with two of the alpha males. -Right. -LAUGHTER | 0:56:21 | 0:56:24 | |
-She's now the belle of the ball. -She did fabulous. | 0:56:24 | 0:56:27 | |
Hello! I can't leave without checking in on Jill, | 0:56:31 | 0:56:35 | |
Pierre and their new chimp forever family. | 0:56:35 | 0:56:38 | |
-Hey, girl. -SHE PANTS | 0:56:40 | 0:56:43 | |
Good girl. Hi, Whitney! | 0:56:44 | 0:56:47 | |
Ladies! | 0:56:47 | 0:56:48 | |
Just feels different. The energy's completely changed. | 0:56:50 | 0:56:53 | |
-This is Pierre right here. -He's not gobbing on me! | 0:56:53 | 0:56:56 | |
There you go. | 0:56:59 | 0:57:01 | |
SHE SIGHS Spit-free Susan. | 0:57:01 | 0:57:04 | |
I'm amazed, though, by the change in atmosphere. | 0:57:05 | 0:57:08 | |
Energetically, it's really shifted. | 0:57:08 | 0:57:10 | |
They're just happy, aren't they? So, I mean, that's what your job's all about, isn't it? Yeah. | 0:57:10 | 0:57:15 | |
You agree, yeah? LAUGHTER | 0:57:15 | 0:57:17 | |
You found love yet? LAUGHTER | 0:57:17 | 0:57:20 | |
That was nothing short of extraordinary. | 0:57:20 | 0:57:24 | |
I'm so proud of shy Jill - not shy any more - | 0:57:24 | 0:57:27 | |
so central to them all getting along. | 0:57:27 | 0:57:30 | |
Oh, it's just magnificent, you know? It really, really is. | 0:57:30 | 0:57:33 | |
It's just feels like that group's been together forever. | 0:57:33 | 0:57:36 | |
Simply, girls meeting some boys for the first time | 0:57:36 | 0:57:40 | |
and realising you're home. | 0:57:40 | 0:57:42 | |
Jill and Pierre's group have successfully formed their chimpanzee | 0:57:45 | 0:57:48 | |
troop, and will be able to enjoy life in a forest home soon. | 0:57:48 | 0:57:52 | |
From the lab to the lap of luxury. It worked out all right in the end. | 0:57:54 | 0:57:57 | |
Take it easy, guys. | 0:57:59 | 0:58:01 | |
Jill, lovely Jill, | 0:58:03 | 0:58:05 | |
and Pierre, sometimes lovely Pierre, | 0:58:05 | 0:58:08 | |
are just two stories amongst the 200-odd that are happening and | 0:58:08 | 0:58:12 | |
evolving every single day here at Chimp Haven. | 0:58:12 | 0:58:15 | |
200-plus more chimps to come. | 0:58:15 | 0:58:18 | |
And if we can do anything for these animals, | 0:58:18 | 0:58:20 | |
it's to lift them from the dry pages of scientific data and make them | 0:58:20 | 0:58:25 | |
real, because every time we make an animal real and flesh it out and | 0:58:25 | 0:58:29 | |
inhabit its experiences, we stand a better chance of treating it | 0:58:29 | 0:58:33 | |
with dignity and respect. | 0:58:33 | 0:58:35 |