Save the Chimps bid a sad farewell on Thursday, July 7, to one of our elder statesmen, Lou. Lou was born sometime between 1963 and 1964 in eastern Africa, and was captured and sent to Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico in 1966. He spent the next 35 years in a cage, used repeatedly as a biomedical research subject and later as a breeding male. He eventually ended up in the custody of The Coulston Foundation (TCF), a research lab in Alamogordo, NM.

Lou’s life changed dramatically when TCF went bankrupt, and Save the Chimps rescued Lou and more than 260 other chimps. At the time, Lou was living with several other elderly male chimps, including Jeb, Roman, and the late George and Ted. Lou and the other “old men” quickly captured the hearts of Dr. Carole Noon and her team of caregivers. Lou had a very outgoing, friendly, and relaxed demeanor that endeared him to everyone he met. He always had an enthusiastic greeting for his caregivers, panting heartily and gazing into our eyes.

Lou eventually became the leader of a chimpanzee family, earning a reputation as a bit of a ladies’ man! Lou also had a cameo appearance in the Nature documentary “Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History,” but there was no sign that his 15 minutes of fame had gone to his head. He remained the kind and charming gentleman he always was. Lou and his family left their old lab cages behind forever in March 2007 to move to his new island home—called Lou’s Island– in Florida. Joined by his friends Olivia, Opal, Bam Bam, and Shellie, Lou was at last able to roam freely and enjoy the grass, trees, and hills that his island offered him. He had a favorite spot under the first platform, and would often neatly spread out a blanket to sit on as he enjoyed the fresh air and blue skies.

 
Lou was quite skilled at building massive nests of blankets—works of art that were the chimp version of a La-Z-Boy recliner. And like any typical retiree, Lou enjoyed spending a lot of time in his “recliner”, feet in the air and toes intertwined. He developed a friendly rivalry with his old friend Jeb, but never had a cross word for anyone (well, except maybe when he was displeased with young Braedon paying attention to the ever-popular Amanda.) He always comforted other chimps who were upset.

At times Lou was a picky eater, so his caregivers always made sure to spend extra time with him to encourage him to eat. He obviously enjoyed this special attention. Avocadoes and cooked potatoes were favorite foods, and he loved guzzling grape juice or protein shakes. Rumor has it he also really enjoyed an occasional snack of Doritos.

Lou fathered 29 children during his years as a breeder, including 7 residents of Save the Chimps: Tammy, Vanna, Cori Lyn, Pele, Bradley, Joey, and Jude.

Lou passed away suddenly while in the company of his chimpanzee family. He had just been given a mid-morning treat not fifteen minutes before, and had eaten a good breakfast that morning. Our veterinarian was in the area, and the chimps alerted her to his collapse. They refused to leave his side, however. The chimps’ love and concern, as well as confusion and sorrow, was evident. Although test results are pending, it is most likely that Lou died of sudden heart failure.

Lou’s loss has hit us all hard, but we are comforted by the fact that he passed peacefully in the company of his chimpanzee family, safe in a sanctuary. There is no doubt that we will deeply miss this amazing person. As one of his caregivers, Eron, put it, “He was the sweetest chimp I have ever met.”

You can watch a slideshow of Lou and learn more about the organization, Save the Chimps, on their website.

Allison Argo is an award-winning filmmaker and the writer, director, producer and narrator of Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History. Her previous film for NATURE, The Urban Elephant, won Emmy awards for Outstanding Cultural or Informational Program and Outstanding Achievement in Directing. Below, Argo shares some thoughts on the making of Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History.

Q: How did the idea for Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History come about?

A: The idea grew out of a prior film that I had made for NATURE called Wisdom of the Wild. One of the segments in that film dealt with chimpanzees being retired from a laboratory, but it was just the tip of the iceberg. Both Fred Kaufman [NATURE's executive producer] and I were very moved by the story of chimps that have been used in research and entertainment, and we realized it was a really rich and complex story. The contrast between chimpanzees in the wild using medicinal plants to self-medicate, as we showed in Wisdom of the Wild, and then living in a very unnatural situation was very dramatic.

I should say too that especially now, after having immersed myself for over two years in the world of captive chimpanzees, it is so moving to think back on my experiences of seeing chimps in the wild in Tanzania. It gave me such a sense of well-being to witness them living in family groups. I’ll never forget watching them on numerous afternoons, just lying in a little patch of sun on the forest floor, having a big group of adults and youngsters groom and watching them forage. They seemed very much at peace. And that was, again, such a contrast to what we’ve done with chimpanzees in our society

Q: You are the writer, director, producer and narrator of the film. Why did you choose to assume all those roles?

A: It’s a very personal choice that I participate in so many facets of the film. It’s a much richer, deeper experience for me. It gives me huge gratification. I love writing the script and I love reading the words that I’ve written. At the end of making the film, it’s very cathartic. I usually have a big cry. And yes, there are huge challenges also. It’s very lonely in some ways. But also one of the things that I absolutely love about documentary filmmaking is that we work as a team. It’s really one big creative effort. I really rely on the people that I work with – the wonderful cinematographers, my associate producer who is just the best researcher in the world. And of course the NATURE team. I have gotten such amazing support from them.

Q: Chimpanzees is a very poignant film, and also presents a strong point of view. Do you think a documentary should seek to sway public opinion, and is that something you aim for with your films?

A: What I sought to do with this film is to provoke thought, and encourage people to ask more questions, instead of just accept the status quo. If any documentary filmmaker is to be completely honest, everything’s subjective because you choose when to roll the camera, for example, and when to stop the camera. You choose where to point the lens. You choose which locations to go to. So it never can be completely objective, though we all want to be as objective as we can as documentary filmmakers.

My mantra throughout the whole film was “just the facts.” Just the facts, and don’t comment on it. Don’t say, “And isn’t this sad, or isn’t this terrible.” Because I think it’s more respectful of the audience if you can present the stories and just say, “You decide for yourself.” For example, I don’t say, “And Billy Jo [a chimpanzee] was tortured in the laboratory.” I never say something like that. But Gloria goes through his records. “Punch biopsy.” “Bone marrow transplant.” And you can decide if you think that that would be a positive or a negative experience for a chimpanzee. So I tried really hard not to comment emotionally, but I can’t hide the fact that in general I think we have treated chimpanzees very poorly in our society.

Q: Were you surprised by anything during the making of the film?

A: Definitely. I was amazed by how truly communicative chimpanzees are. Obviously with one another they’re extremely communicative. But what I mean is how easy it is for human beings, if you just open yourself a little bit, to communicate with them, and how they can so easily communicate with us. I guess it’s because we share so much genetic material, but also I think it’s a certain similar kind of intelligence that we share.

Q: Do you have any anecdotes from making the film you’d like to share?

A: Up at Fauna Foundation [outside Montreal], a female chimpanzee named Pepper was grooming my arm and she clearly wanted me to take my watch off because it was in the way. So I took my watch off and she had it so fast! It was in the cage, and I thought, “Oh well, that’s the end of the watch. I really liked that watch, too.” She grasped it in her foot, since they can use their feet like hands. So she held it in her foot and groomed me for about 10 minutes. And then when she was finished, she very gently took it out of her foot and handed it out to me. And I was just amazed. It was so considerate, sensitive. She understood that it was something that was mine, something that I liked.

Q: Did you have trouble getting people from the government to talk on camera for the film?

A: Yes. I tried to call a higher-up person at the NIH who deals with chimpanzee issues, and I was immediately blocked and sent to the P.R. department. I just wanted to get his point of view, to start there. But I was told “No, you have to go through us.” So I sent in some of my films and told them what the film was about. And about a month later, they basically said, “Sorry, we’re just too busy right now. No one can talk to you.” We also contacted all of the laboratories that are still actively using chimpanzees and were told that we couldn’t film within the labs. We’d then ask, “Can we interview one of your scientists?” And they all said no.

Q: Do you think the film suffered at all for their absence, or did you consciously try and make up for it in other ways?

A: It’s a good question. I was really upset that I wouldn’t have that balance. But then I realized, I’m making a documentary and that’s the reality of it. That is the balance. I couldn’t speak for them myself. We were allowed no information, and that became a statement in itself. I did present that there is an ongoing debate about the use of chimpanzees, and we hear from scientists on both sides of the fence.

In a Tanzanian jungle, a scientist and a medicine man follow a chimpanzee in search of a cure for a deadly disease. On the plains of Kenya, a woman learns a powerful lesson about family — from a pair of elephants. And in the Florida Keys, an eight-year old boy with a genetic illness utters his first words, for a chance to swim with dolphins.

From the ancient world to the modern, human lives have been influenced by animals in matters that reach far beyond the food chain. Wisdom of the Wild illustrates some of the surprising ways in which animals help teach, heal, and strengthen people, in body, mind, and spirit.

To order a copy of Wisdom of the Wild, visit the NATURE Shop.

Online content for Wisdom of the Wild was originally posted December 1999.

Do you owe your life to a chimpanzee? Over the last century, millions of people have been able to live longer, healthier lives thanks to the medicines and surgical techniques that were tested on chimpanzees — one of humankind’s closest relatives. Dozens of vaccines, for instance, have been perfected on chimps purposefully infected with diseases such as polio and hepatitis.

And other chimps have helped us make major technological leaps, by testing everything from submarines to spacecrafts to make sure they are safe for human use.

Sadly, chimpanzees have received little thanks for the knowledge they have allowed us to gain. Once their work is over, if they survive, their futures are grim: they often live out their lives — which can last nearly as long as humans’ — in cramped cages or laboratories. As NATURE’s Wisdom of the Wild shows, however, people are increasingly joining a movement to create sanctuaries for these “surplus” animals, allowing them to spend the rest of their long lives with greater dignity and freedom.

One of the leaders of the sanctuary movement is Linda Koebner, an animal behavior researcher who once studied how chimps adapted back to life outside the laboratory, and who now works to place hundreds of surplus research chimps in new homes. In Wisdom of the Wild, we watch as Linda is reunited with some the first chimps she worked with 25 years ago, veterans of medical research later released into a Florida refuge. And the show takes viewers to a new sanctuary she is establishing in Louisiana, where she hopes to realize her dream of creating the nation’s first large-scale chimp haven.

Even as Koebner works, however, debates rage about the fate of surplus chimpanzees. In the United States, several groups have sued the federal government and private laboratories in efforts to reduce the use of wild chimpanzees in research, and move those now stored in laboratories to less restrictive refuges.

In October 1999, for instance, the Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care and the Doris Day Animal League won a long-sought agreement with the Coulston Foundation, a New Mexico research laboratory, to free 21 chimps descended from animals involved in the U.S. space program. The controversy began in 1997, when the U.S. Air Force decided to give 111 of the so-called “space chimps” to the research foundation, which critics charged had compiled a wretched record of violating animal care laws. “It is inconceivable that the Air Force would have given these remarkable creatures to the Coulston Foundation for continued research, rather than retiring them to a sanctuary,” famed chimp researcher Jane Goodall said at the time.

The Coulston Foundation was forced to give up 300 of its 650 chimpanzees, however, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture concluded that the laboratory had mistreated the chimps. The agreement was “a big win for these magnificent animals,” said USDA official Michael V. Dunn when the September 1999 deal was announced. It also made it possible for some “very lucky chimpanzees to move to [a] sanctuary,” notes Liz Clancy Lyons of the Doris Day Animal League.

But other chimp battles are far from over. Congress is considering legislation that would limit the number of chimps used in research. Supporters say the move is needed to reduce the incentive for illegally capturing the animals from the wild, and to prevent research that might harm the apes while returning little useful knowledge.

Opponents of the proposed rules, however, say it could hamstring efforts to find treatments for AIDS and other diseases that urgently need cures. Sometimes, notes one biomedical scientist who works with chimps but declined to be named, “there is simply no alternative to using chimps because they are so closely related to humans, and ethical concerns prevent us from doing some experiments on humans. But we should be treating these animals with great respect and care — after all, sometimes our lives literally depend on them. They provide insights we can gain nowhere else.”

NATURE introduces you to the unsung heroes in our history in Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History.

The history of chimps in our society is a history unlike any other. We have sent them into space, dressed them in costumes and demanded that they entertain us. Some have been adopted into human families until they “outgrew” their cuteness, many have been used to test our drugs or to help develop our vaccines, others have been infected with our most frightening diseases. While we are mesmerized by their likeness to our species and we have continually found uses for chimps, we never considered what they wanted or needed.

But their side of the story is starting to emerge. And it can be heard at the sanctuaries where many retired chimps now reside. It can be read in their medical records, seen in their mutilated bodies, or sensed through their psychological afflictions. We’ve had a conflicted relationships with chimps in our society but there are some people who want to simplify it. Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History will introduce you to the rescuers at sanctuaries like Fauna Foundation, Save the Chimps, Center for Great Apes. And they are determined to see that the traumatized residents they have saved from a life of confinement and suffering can finally be allowed to feel like chimps.

Update (January 2008): Under a new bill, called the Chimp Haven is Home Act, retired chimpanzees living at Chimp Haven in Keithville, Louisiana would not be able to be removed for medical research. President Bush must sign the bill for it to become law. The bill, introduced by U.S. Rep. Jim McCrery and U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, deletes a provision in standing law that would allow such removal. The CHIMP Act of 2000 established the National Chimpanzee Sanctuary System for chimpanzees retired from use in research. Chimp Haven operates this sanctuary system through a public-private partnership. “The chimpanzees at Chimp Haven have spent their lives in research laboratories helping to improve the lives of all Americans,” McCrery said. “Many of our discoveries in space and medicine are due to chimpanzees. I am proud to help modify the existing law to ensure chimpanzees at Chimp Haven will spend their final years happily.

To order a copy of Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History, please visit the NATURE Shop.

Online content for Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History was originally posted November 2006.