Great Apes - Jane Goodall Institute Australia (2024)

About Chimpanzees

Although wild chimpanzees are only found in Africa, most people are aware of what they look like from zoos, photos and films.Jane Goodall Institute Australia Apes

Chimpanzees have black hair and pinkish to black bare skin on their faces (except for hairs on the chin), ears, palms of their hands, and soles of their feet. Infants have very pale skin in these areas and a white tail tuft, which disappears by early adulthood.

Chimpanzees walk on all fours, or “quadrupedally,” on the ground and in the trees. As they use their knuckles for support they are sometimes referred to as “knuckle-walkers.” This form of locomotion means chimpanzees have evolved to have longer arms than legs. They use these long arms to reach out for fruits growing on thin branches that would not usually support their weight and “brachiate” (swing from branch to branch by their arms).

Chimps have opposable thumbs (although these are much shorter than human thumbs) and their opposable big toes enable a precision grip. Male Chimpanzees are slightly larger and heavier than females. At Gombe in East Africa, adult males weigh between 90 and 115 pounds and measure approximately 4 feet when standing upright. Females are slightly smaller. In contrast, Chimpanzees in West Africa, and in captivity, can be larger. In the wild, Chimpanzees rarely live longer than 50 years, although captive individuals can live for over 60 years.
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Behaviour

When Dr. Goodall started her study of chimpanzees in 1960, very little was known about their behaviour in the wild.Jane Goodall Institute Australia Apes behaviour Since then, studies analysing almost every aspect of chimpanzees’ multifaceted behaviour have sprung up across Africa. In the years since Dr. Goodall began, scientists have reaped a bounty of data from chimpanzee study sites, yielding new insights not only into chimpanzee culture, but into our own culture as well.

Chimpanzees culture is much like human culture: groups in different areas share different cultures. Tool-making is a good example of this variation. Chimpanzees in Gombe use long twigs and alter them for better termite fishing while chimpanzees of the Tai Forest in Cote d’Ivoire are more often seen nut-cracking with rocks and planed surfaces. Even chimpanzees living in separated areas in the same countries will exhibit different cultures and behaviours.

But what kind of behaviors do most sub-species and groups of chimpanzees share? Jane Goodall Institute Australia Apes behaviourGeneral behaviours like group structuring, communication, and hunting practices are often common from chimpanzee group to chimpanzee group, and even these factors are never constant!

Posture and Gestures

Posture, gesture, and facial expression communicate many messages and emotions within a Chimpanzee community. When greeting a dominant individual after an absence or in response to an aggressive gesture, nervous subordinates may approach with submissive signals – crouching, presenting the rump, holding the hand out – accompanied by pant-grunts or squeaks. In response, the dominant individual is likely to make gestures of reassurance, such as touching, kissing, or embracing the subordinate.

Friendly physical contact is crucial in maintaining good relationships among chimpanzees. For this reason, social grooming is probably the most important social behavior, serving to sustain or improve friendships within the community and to calm nervous or tense individuals. The grin of fear seen in frightened chimpanzees may be similar to the nervous smile given by humans when tense or in stressful situations. When angry, chimpanzees may stand upright, swagger, wave their arms, throw branches or rocks – all with bristling hair and often while screaming or with lips bunched in ferocious scowls. Male chimpanzees proclaim their dominance with spectacular charging displays during which they slap their hands, stamp with their feet, drag branches as they run, or hurl rocks. In doing so, they make themselves look as big and dangerous as they possibly can, and indeed may eventually intimidate a higher-ranking individual without having to fight.

Apes In Entertainment

JGIA is opposed to using chimpanzees in advertising and entertainment for welfare and conservation reasons and for the dignity of the species. Although performing chimpanzees may appear to happy, the truth about their welfare is often very sad.

For example:

Chimpanzees are strikingly similar to humans and we share almost 99% of the same DNA. Our behaviours and emotions are very similar. Like us, chimpanzees are sentient animals,which means, they have the capacity to experience pleasure and pain.
Performing chimpanzees are taken from their mothers at a very young age. This causes tremendous emotional and psychological distress to the mother as well as to the infant.
Trainers frequently use fear and physical discipline to control their apes and the degree of force increases as the apes grow. This continues until around eight years of age when they become to strong and dangerous to handle.
When their careers are over, the lucky ones end up in sanctuaries. Others end up in poor conditions in roadside zoos or are used as breeders to continue the cycle, spending the next 50 years in a cage. There is no humane or sustainable retirement plan.
Conditions during a commercial production may be monitored, but there is no way to guarantee how apes are treated when they are not “working”.
The use of chimpanzees and other great apes in advertising and entertainment creates misleading and degrading perceptions of these magnificent animals, who are seriously endangered in the wild.
Research shows that people associate the use of chimpanzees in advertising with a healthy wild population. Public perception is that if chimpanzees were endangered, they would not be used for commercial purposes. Such perception is in stark contrast to the current situation in the wild, where great ape populations are seriously declining due to habitat loss, illegal hunting, disease, bush meat trade and the pet trade.
Performing apes are often youngsters. Audiences see cute, cuddly human-like animals and might form the impression they are easily handled. Such images make young apes popular as pets in some countries.

How are chimpanzees trained to perform?

They are separated from their mothers as infants. This is truly tragic, because in the wild, the child stays with his or her family for at least eight years. Furthermore — trainers require obedient subjects. Although it is possible to train animals using only kindness, reward and praise, this requires the kind of time and patience which simply are lacking in the fast-moving world of show-business. Many trainers will admit that they beat their performers during training. In many cases the abuse is horrendous.

What happens to the performers after they reach puberty?

When they are six to eight years old, they typically become more difficult to handle. To make them manageable, trainers may have the chimps’ teeth pulled or may fit them with shock collars under their clothes.

But usually the performers, when they are no longer amenable to discipline, are discarded. And it is becoming harder and harder to place them. Like human children, ape children learn by watching adults and imitating their behaviour. They learn in a social context. And individuals who have no chance to grow up in a normal group not only fail to learn the nuances of chimp etiquette, but in addition are likely to show abnormal behaviours. These chimps are not accepted by accredited zoos. They tend not to fit into established groups. And so, unless they can be placed in one of the few sanctuaries for abused, surplus chimps, they will end up in roadside zoos or being quietly euthanised.

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