8 Chapter 7 The Dark Years

Chapter 7 The Dark Years In zoos, chimps can live to be sixty-five years old. In the wild, they don't live nearly as long—perhaps forty or fifty years. Why? It is much harder to survive in the wild. Babies have the hardest time of all. Baboons may attack and kill them. Some years, there isn't enough food to go around. Chimps in the wild also catch diseases such as pneumonia or the flu, which zoo chimps are protected from.

In 1966, an outbreak of polio swept through the forest at Gombe. It killed several chimps and left others with crippled arms. (Polio is a disease that can also strike humans, but since the 1950s there has been a vaccine to prevent it.) Flo managed to avoid polio. But in August 1972, old age caught up with her. Jane wrote a letter to her family that Flo had died. In it, she said, "I had known her for eleven years and I had loved her." Jane also wrote about Flo in London's Sunday Times newspaper. It was the first time that there had been an obituary for an animal. Flo was probably around fifty years old when she died. Her youngest, Flint, was eight and a half years old

by then. He was strong and well past childhood. But he could not bear life without Flo. Three days after her death, Jane saw him staring at Flo's empty nest. Flint stopped eating. He stopped traveling with the group. Instead, he stayed by the spot where Flo had died. He soon fell ill. There was nothing Jane or the students could do to help Flint. His death on September 15 was heartbreaking. In 2012, on the television show 60 Minutes, Jane said that at first she had thought chimps were like humans, "only nicer." Perhaps she had Flo

and David Graybeard in mind when she said that. However, the longer Jane remained among the chimps, the more she saw that some of her early ideas about them were wrong. Chimps had a very dark and violent side, just like humans. In 1974, a war broke out, a war within the chimp community. A couple of years earlier, the chimps at Gombe had split into two groups. Both groups remained in the home range. But they stayed in different parts of it. The war started after six male chimps from one group attacked a male chimp from the other group. The chimp was beaten savagely and left to die. The attacks went on for almost three years, until one group was nearly wiped out. Jane wrote about the battles in the May 1979 issue of National Geographic magazine. And then there was Passion. Jane had observed Passion for years. Passion seemed to not have an ounce of kindness. She neglected her daughter, Pom. It was pitiful watching little Pom beg for her mother's attention.

Uncaring was one thing. But in 1974, Passion did something so awful, the researchers at Gombe were stunned. Jane was away from camp, but heard the story upon her return. Gilka had just given birth to an infant daughter. Like Flo, Gilka was a loving mother. She was sitting in the sun, cradling her tiny newborn, when all of a sudden Passion appeared. Without warning, she charged at Gilka. Gilka tried to escape, but polio had crippled her hand. She could not run fast enough. Passion snatched Gilka's baby, and after killing it, fed on it until every last bit was gone.

There had been several instances of babies suddenly disappearing. Now Jane believed that Passion had probably killed them, too. Why did she behave this way? Jane had no answer. But Passion's actions forced Jane to change her thinking about chimps. Another awful event struck the camp the following year, in May 1975. This time the chimps were not involved.