The primary aim of my field study was to discover as much as possible about the way of life of the chimpanzee before it is too late-before encroachments of civilization crowd out, forever, all nonhuman competitors. I found his 1931 report invaluable as I prepared my own program. Nissen made his pioneer study in French Guinea. Leakey asked me if I would undertake a field study of chimpanzees.Īlthough the chimpanzee has been known to science for nearly three centuries, and although, because of its striking resemblance to man, it has been used extensively as an experimental animal in medical and other fields, no attempts had been made to study this ape in its natural habitat until Dr. Leaky, then curator of the Coryndon Museum. There I was fortunate in meeting and working for Dr. Therefore, after leaving school, I saved up the fare and went to Nairobi, Kenya. I cannot remember a time when I did not want to go to Africa to study animals. This discovery could prove helpful to those studying man’s rise to dominance over other primates. Most astonishing of all, I saw chimpanzees fashion and use crude implements-the beginnings of tool use. Though this had been suspected, nobody dreamed that a chimpanzee would attack an animal as large as a bushbuck, until I saw an ape with his kill. I saw chimpanzees in the wild hunt and kill for meat. “You’ll never get close to chimps-not unless you’re very well hidden,” they told me.Īt first it seemed they were right, but gradually I was able to move nearer the chimpanzees, until at last I sat among them, enjoying a degree of acceptance that I had hardly dreamed possible.Īt this intimate range, I observed details of their lives never recorded before. In England, before I commenced my field study, I met one or two people who had seen chimpanzees in the wild. To be accepted thus by a group of wild chimpanzees is the result of months of patience. The males scarcely glanced in my direction. The females and youngsters stared at me as they passed. One by one the others followed, the infants riding astride their mothers’ backs like diminutive jockeys. Then one of the males stood up, scratched thoughtfully, and moved off down the valley. ( Discover how a captive orangutan learned a "human way of life.")įor about an hour I sat with the group. The chimpanzee imprisoned behind bars is bad tempered in maturity, morose, moody, and frequently rather obscene in his freedom he is majestic even when excited and, for the most part, dignified and good natured. I thought then, as I always think when I am face to face with mature chimpanzees in their native forests, of the striking difference between the wild apes and those in captivity.
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