I saw the movie "Gorillas in the Mist" and I have to give Dian Fossey her props. It took guts to get close to a silverback. Whenever I visited the Philadelphia Zoo, I spent lots of time staring at Massa, the ape who held the title of oldest gorilla in captivity in the early 1980's. Once I saw him sitting next to one of his keepers. The two of them sat there in silent companionship. I thought he looked sad, harmless and sad. This was near the end of his 52 years, so maybe he was telepathically communicating that he was tired, or his teeth hurt, or life wasn't as much fun as it used to be. To me, he was still frightening, huge, and powerful. If something set him off, could he bite off a human head? I could empathize from a distance, but I didn't want to touch his arm.
I had my chance to get close to our simian brothers and sisters when I went on safari in Botswana. Baboons were everywhere. The cheeky monkeys descended on our camp every afternoon around three o'clock. We watched them moving along in a great herd dragging bath towels and other items that the camp's residents carelessly left out in the open. Occasionally, they used their opposable thumbs to unlatch a door and raid the inside of a tent. The camp manager lost her favorite teddy bear to a thieving baboon. One particular tent became the adolescent apes' playground. The youngsters dropped onto the roof from the high tree branches, slid from peak to the edge, and hurtled off, as if the roof was a ski jump. While on the fly, they reached out and grabbed the nearest branch, scampered to the top of the canopy, and repeated the routine. The inhabitant of this tent couldn't take a siesta during the hottest part of the day because the racket sounded like living inside a bass drum.
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| Baboon inducing roof rage |
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| Baboon burglars |
The worst thing about these baboons was their bathroom habits. Campers had to be aware of who was sitting in the trees above and often had to dodge falling excrement.
I fell in love with chimpanzees in 1961. That's when the television show, "The Hathaways," premiered. The show starred Peggy Cass, Jack Weston, and three chimps. The comedy was a semi-flop, lasting twenty-six episodes. By it's end, I wanted a knuckle dragging sibling. I frequently told my mother that I wanted a monkey. Instead we had an English bulldog and a succession of stray cats. I was pretty well into my twenties when I realized that chimps are wild animals with great strength and an unpredictable nature once they reach puberty.
I no longer want to brush the back hair of a chimp wearing Pampers, but I still get the warm fuzzies when I see their comical faces. Disneynature is opening a movie called "Chimpanzees" this weekend. I'm usually not a fan of nature films, probably the vestiges of being forced to sit through too many episodes of "Wild Kingdom" at my grandparents' house, but I'll probably go to see "Chimpanzees." I suppose it is safe to say "The Hathaways" this movie is not.
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/chimpanzee/photos/five-film-facts-chimpanzee-slideshow/five-film-facts-chimpanzee-photo-1334702910.html#crsl=%252Fmovie%252Fchimpanzee%252Fphotos%252Ffive-film-facts-chimpanzee-slideshow%252Ffive-film-facts-chimpanzee-photo-1334702910.html
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