National Geographic: The New Chimpanzees Page #5

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The interesting thing is that,

two years ago,

chimps in Tai started for

the very first time to leaf clip

when they were making a resting period

They were asleep,

they would change position,

would do some leaf clipping,

and sleep again.

A new context of use.

And, interestingly

the individuals have started

to use the leaf clipping

in this new context were younger

or were females.

There is much we could learn

from the chimps,

but we are running our of time.

Poaching for meat and

the logging of forests

are driving them towards extinction.

Today, Jane Goodall is fighting

to save them and their heritage.

We're finding that across Africa

where different researchers are

studying different chimpanzee groups,

there are different traditions,

different cultures

and the tragedy here is that the

chimpanzees are disappearing so fast,

not only, eh, is it sad

that the individuals are going,

but their whole cultures are going, too

and that's the area where

we have most yet to learn.

The group studied by Christophe Boesch

is disappearing fast.

The cause is a mystery.

Only rarely does he find any evidence

of their passing.

It's only in one of

the oldest female we had.

And she was found by the

group actually dead on the floor

with her last baby dead and the oldest

juvenile sitting nearby watching.

The losses are tragic for the species,

and for all involved.

I have lost, in the last six years,

about half of the chimps.

There were 80,

there are now only 40 left.

So, it's a dramatic reduction and,

but for us it's depressing, yeah, sure

Predation and disease

have always taken their toll,

but death at the hand of man

may prove too much to bear.

We have some clear proof that poachers

are killing chimps here in our group.

And I have the feeling that the toll

they pay to poachers is just too much

and it's this part which is the causes

of the decline of the population and,

if that is true,

it's very worrying not only

for the study group

but for all the chimps in this park.

Each death is felt dearly.

Yet it is when chimps are forced

to confront death,

that we seem to catch a glimmer

of the chimpanzee soul.

What is striking is

that they feel compassion.

I mean, they really feel the

individual has something not normal

and that they need help.

In one case, I observed a fresh

juvenile being killed by a leopard.

So, you have an individual that looks

actually very similar to a wounded one

but he's dead

and it was very surprising

to notice that the chimps reacted

totally differently,

as if they knew this individual

is not just injured,

this individual is dead.

And all the adult males stayed around

the body for all this time,

groomed it a lot what they would

never do with a live juvenile

and, in a kind of a way,

asked for the other group members

to show respect for the dead.

And the only young that was authorized

to come to the body was

the younger brother of the dead.

So, yeah, it makes you think

what they feel

and how they understand.

We can only guess what this female,

called Castor,

understands about her own tragedy.

Her infant is mortally ill.

Since her baby is too feeble

to cling to her,

she resorts to carrying it

with her foot as she climbs

in search of the food she needs

to survive.

Still the baby clings to life.

How do we really realize

that somebody's dead?

How would we realize if we didn't have

all the science and all these things.

So, I think, in a way,

they certainly know

that something, special is happening

that they would like

to fight against it,

but that they can't and

they realize it after a while.

Finally, the emaciated

form of her infant lies deathly still.

Then with a gesture so human it's

painful to watch,

she seems to bid her baby farewell

with a kiss.

If chimps share with us the emotions

that bring us to tears,

perhaps they share others, as well.

Jane Goodall wonders.

Do chimpanzees feel perhaps

a sense of awe,

similar to that which must have lead

to the first religions of

our ancestors worship of fire, of sun,

of rain, worship of rushing water

that is always coming,

always going, yet always here?

Face to face with

our nearest relations.

Our mutual family history

is glorious and tender,

brutal and shocking.

As humans, though, we are distinct,

and must choose how our own nature

is expressed.

But it's clear that, for good or ill,

we are part of nature

just another of its promising

but flawed creations.

Through the study of the chimps,

science,

which once strove to set us apart

from the rest of nature,

has now brought us back within its fold

discovering this mind in the forest.

What grabs you is when

you feel that there's an animal out

there that has a human like mind

that can solve problems,

that has extraordinary

social relations

and has got this beginnings

of the diversity of culture.

It's when we see into the mind of the

chimps that we get that strange tingle

What it means in a deep way

is that as long as these

chimpanzees are surviving,

humans are in touch

with their ancestry

and we know we're not completely alone

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