Monkeying Around

Photograph by Linda Davidson, The Washington Post

It's not a secret, I love monkeys. Large and small, every species-- I love them all. I volunteered at the National Zoo for many years and it’s still one of my favorite places to visit, but while I love seeing the orangutans perform their high wire act on the O-line across the park, or the Gibbons squawk and eat their apple slices, and I love searching for the free ranging mini Golden Lion Tamarins, there is something inside me that wants them to be free. Zoos are great for teaching kids about animals, and the National Zoo is known for its conservation efforts, nursing endangered animals to health and breeding some of the most endangered animals on earth to help increase dwindling populations.

That said, there is something about knowing an animal can be in their natural environment. One of my heroes, Jane Goodall, has spent her life doing both, researching the behavior of chimps in the wild but also establishing a sanctuary for baby chimps to help them learn how to survive. Young chimpanzees, just like human babies, cannot survive in the wild without their parents. They learn how to eat, how to live based on learned behavior from their parents or social group. When it came to light that in certain areas of Africa chimps were being killed for bushmeat, leaving baby chimps to die, she established a foundation and sanctuary in Tanzania for them to learn how to survive. I know this because someone who loves me gave me the gift of adopting one such little chimp and his name is Timi.

I have known about the Goodall Foundation now for several years, but today I was given more insight into the workings of another woman, Lone Droescher-Nielsen, a Dane who established the Nyaru Menteng rescue center in Borneo. The Washington Post had an interesting piece about how her rehabilitation center will be releasing 75 orangutans back into the forests of Borneo next week. I’m fearful, as are others that this will prove to be a bad experiment, that these ‘tans won’t make it now that they’ve been brought up in a pampered environment. Goodall’s Tanzanian project allows the chimps to grow up, learn how to take care of themselves, but they live in the large expanse of wilderness the foundation has purchased and are not released into any non-preserve land. How will the orangs being released by Droescher-Nielsen’s Nyaru Menteng project react and what type of biological impact will they have on their new environment? Who knows…but I’ll stay tuned to find out.

Here is today’s offering, a new poem inspired from the Post article:

Evolution

by Nicole Speulda

Some days I wish I was a chimp

Happy with the basics-- hanging, eating,

Swinging free, solid in grip

Fearless and fun, throwing dirt,
Making bark angels in tree chips.

Some days I dream I’m a gibbon,

Scampering up and down trees
In a graceful ballet of constant motion
Nit picking my partner—an act of love,
Our tiny hand purpousful in the art of grooming.

Some days I’m required to act the ape,
Cutting and pasting, formatting and testing,
Using exact words in the same place,
Version 8.2 of Lather, Rinse, Repeat,
Then take my opposable thumbs home
Via concrete, rubber on my feet.