Feature chimp: Pablo

by Gloria Grow
Winter 2001 newsletter

I've noticed in past newsletters that we often tell you about the wonderful friendships that have been formed between the residents and myself, so I thought it was about time that you knew that not all of the folks at Fauna like or care about me. One such resident is Pablo.

I simply adore Pablo and would do just about anything for him but clearly the feeling is not mutual. After three years together, we have made little or no progress in our relationship. As painful as it may be, I understand completely that he doesn't have to like me. And it makes me realize what a privilege friendship really is!

I thought it was important for me to share this with everyone, so that we all don't go about thinking that the chimps are just so darn happy, and that they all love me so very much, and that life in a sanctuary is all they have ever dreamed of or that they should be eternally grateful to me for rescuing them from their previous lives.

In fact, chimpanzees are so much more like us than we could ever dream, and in so very many ways. One difference is the need for each individual to work towards earning a friendship. Faith and trust are very high priorities. Certainly there are some people, like some chimpanzees, that jump right into any relationship. Sometimes these friendships go bad very quickly and sometimes they don't, but most people are cautious. And, if they have been hurt or betrayed, they will be even more careful before entering a new relationship. This seems to be the case for our Pablo.

Pablo was born in 1970, and like so many other captive chimpanzees has lived in many places, met some really cruel and wicked people, and has been torn from his own family and friends time and again.

Pablo spent time in the circus with two chimpanzee friends, Tiger and Lisa. The boys — Pablo and Tiger — had their incisor teeth extracted and their canine teeth filed to the gum line. It seems the boys became rather unruly, like most captive chimps, and so were sent to a breeding facility in Oklahoma. From there they were split up and Pablo was sent to New York University, to be used in bio-medical research, when he was just 11 years old!

If I think about what Pablo must have been like emotionally when he was only eleven, I compare him to Jethro, Binky or Regis, our chimpanzee youngsters, or my nephew Ryerson. These guys are still so very loving and vulnerable but they can be little boys one minute, big tough men the next. They can be fighting, screaming and acting all macho and all of a sudden be frightened and come for a hug, or playing chase and laughing while tickling each other to death. At that age they're just little boys, and it was at that age little Pablo entered the worst life anyone could ever wish on a young child. How very sad that this is the fate of most chimpanzees in the entertainment world, and one we could so easily stop.

I can only imagine how frightened and lonely Pablo must have been living alone in a steel cage, not having any friends left. And because he does not make friends quickly, he would endure some of the hardest years of his life.

I remember to this day when I was told, after meeting Pablo for the first time in the lab, that he was considered a hard-core research animal. One can only conjure up the worst images of what this life must have been like. Today Pablo will still scream uncontrollably, throw himself around, choke and convulse at the mere sight of surgical equipment and lab clothes. I find it so interesting when I hear people in the field of research say that animals do not think or worry about such things. That they do not suffer in the same way we do or feel the things we do, that they can endure more than we can. Pablo certainly proves that wrong. First of all, no one knows just what another is thinking or feeling, and anyone with some basic common sense can clearly see that Pablo is terrified and obviously remembers what has happened to him. He does not trust people because he has suffered. He remembers that people hurt him and the tools they used to do their job, and you do not have to be a university graduate to figure that out.

Pablo apparently was an uncooperative fellow in the lab because he wouldn't give his arm willingly for injections. No making friends easily, you can imagine his horror at being surrounded by people he didn't know well or worse than that, people he didn't like, dressed in white suits, faces hidden, circling his cage holding dart guns and syringes. If, like Pablo, you didn't cooperate, you had only one choice: to be shot with a dart out of a gun, from less than six feet away. I doubt any of us could even imagine how painful or terrifying that must have been for him and others like him.

The unfortunate part was that one dart was usually not enough, for a number of reasons. Chimpanzees are quick and can easily pull out the dart, so not enough of the drug would be administered and another dart would have to be used. Hopefully, the second would immobilize the victim but there's always the worry that too much medication has been administered, so it must be given in stages in the hope that the individual falls down. Then you could use a syringe, sticking it in the arm, leg, back or wherever instead of using another dart.

Sometimes, they had to use many darts on poor Pablo and on one occasion, he had one stuck in his forehead and another in his gums, a result of his thrashing about and the inability of the shooter to hit a moving target. This was not the way it was for others but it was like this for Pablo. All this fear and anxiety, for periods of up to 30 minutes, was what he went through just so a small blood sample and perhaps a dental scaling could be taken.

His body shows the years of the suffering and abuse. He looks weathered and worn, and much older than his 30 years during which he has served some very hard, unimaginable time. His sentence was unjust. He was just a circus entertainer, for heaven's sake. What could he have done wrong? Maybe he grew up too quickly and lost his temper occasionally. Is this why he would be put in a cell by himself, shot at, cut-up, tortured and eventually infected with the blood of someone with the HIV virus? Perhaps he would be killed by this virus and maybe, hopefully, something would be learned so his suffering would not be in vain.

Pablo is a hero. He doesn't get to go home when the job is done, though, and he doesn't get a pension or any support from the people who made millions from his suffering. It's true that his living conditions have improved and we are trying to help him adjust to his new life, but somehow it just doesn't seem like enough.