I LOOK IN THE MIRROR AND WHAT DO I SEE? NOT ME!

Cameroon, a country of contrasts

One of the most interesting things we found out at Mefou is that Gorillas have an almost identical physiology to humans.  Now when I look at a Gorilla I find it difficult to make the connection.  That animal has absolutely no resemblance to me!  Chimps on the other hand, are physiologically less like humans but mentally much more akin to us. They are smart, smart, smart!  At the Limbe Wildlife Preserve our guide Glen had a stockpile of escapee stories to tell, most of them about Max the Chimp they have grown to love and respect for his uncanny ability to find new and inventive ways to get out! Max didn’t really even want to leave; he just wanted to prove a point, one that he COULD get out and two that he could do it by outsmarting his caretakers. 

So in thinking about comparisons and contrasts it is interesting to note that we feel little to no connection to a Gorilla who is built almost identically to humans,  and a powerful connection to Chimps who are our closest evolutionary relative but are physiologically less like us.  At both Limbe and Mefou the primates are in a living situation that fairly closely resembles their natural habitat, so visitors get to see them interacting pretty realistically.

         Human beings tend to be very conscious of “looks”.  Now this predilection for judging others on looks is common, totally natural (as sight is usually the first messenger of information).  Sadly this will often lead us astray.  Think…grass is greener, the Jones’ next door, pop star adulation, our first crush, or the “coolest” kid in high school.

However most of us also know that true connections are made via the soul.  Eye contact that goes beyond the depth of the outward eye, that amazing feeling that somehow you might have known this person in another life, finding commonalities with a person whom you couldn’t imagine having anything in common with,  or that sense that this person will be your lifelong friend when you’ve only known them 5 minutes. I’m sure you’ve met many couples that at first introduction you think to yourself, how did they end up together; they seem so different? There’s that soul connection.

 As we watched the Chimps at both reserves, I certainly wouldn’t say my connection felt like a friendship, but it did feel eerily human.  Close your eyes and imagine them transforming into human adults and children, interacting as we do.  I FELT their feelings as they were having fun, enjoying each other’s company, getting frustrated with the “annoying one” of the group or just sitting and feeling content at being part of a community.  They laughed, scolded, made faces, jumped up and down excitedly, sulked, pouted and yelled.  Sound familiar?

So there it is.  Our first most powerful sense is our sense of sight.  Even though we KNOW that looks aren’t what makes a person, we register that information, and sometimes have to VERY consciously choose NOT to make a judgment on that first impression. Why? Because our tendency is to make a judgment, whether we want to or not.  Why do you think people always give advice on how to dress for an interview?  It’s the first impression you make, there’s just no way around it.

As we look at the Gorillas as beautiful as they are (and they ARE beautiful), we are kind of put off thinking that they are so like us. Yet as we watch chimps, who also don’t look like our reflection in the mirror, there is this sense that we truly were connected way back when.  We are touched at how human they are. 

Both Gorillas and chimps have very complex social structures, Gorillas more so than chimps.  Chimps tend to be a bit more easygoing.  But Gorilla caretakers spend a lot of their day rearranging Gorilla social time.  In the wild the young males can go off on their own when they are not powerful enough to overthrow the dominant (almost always oldest) male.  Or if the younger male challenges the older, one of them may not make it.  In a zoo they can’t let them kill each other off, but they have to respect their social order and artificially manage the hierarchy that orders Gorilla society. 

Interestingly enough the chimps, those “cute” little animals that everyone thinks would make a great pet, ARE great pets for the first five years.  An odd, (but according to the Wildlife caretakers) totally predictable change occurs at five years of age.  The chimps become very aggressive.  Often chimps are rescued from bad situations because pet owners suddenly find themselves with this completely unmanageable animal and don’t know any other way to control them but to contain them in a cage or with a chain.  This leads to very sad consequences. 

So there we have it.  I learned a lot about Chimps and Gorillas, but more importantly I saw human nature on display from a very different perspective.