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Sunday, October 17, 2010
Anderson Cooper Puts On a Bunny Suit & Delivers "Special" Toys to Chimps



by Adam Bray
Phan Thiet, Vietnam











This week Anderson Cooper from CNN went to Iowa to visit The Great Ape Trust—namely the very famous bonobo chimpanzees there that are involved in a language research study. I’m not sure when the piece will actually air, but Anderson has already released a few photos of himself wearing a bunny suit when he visited the apes. Viewers are asking what this is all about…

Well, I’ll have it known that I wore the bunny suit first. Actually, I seem to remember the one I wore included a full mask that covered the entire face and was very difficult to see out of. Nonetheless, I wore it first… and it has scarred me emotionally ever since.

You see, I used to work at the facility—actually a previous incarnation—known as the Language Research Center of Georgia State University (before that it was part of Yerkes). The research program involved getting chimps to communicate using symbols (arbitrary lexigrams) on a keyboard. At the time the facility had several labs, also with common chimpanzees, orangutans and macaques (the latter for a program funded by Nasa). I worked with the bonobos—namely Kanzi, Matata (Kanzi’s mother), Tamuli, Elikya, and a couple whose names I’ve forgotten (one male was on loan from Japan and another went to live at a zoo in Wisconsin). Tamuli later died, I believe after I left, due to a congenital heart condition. There was also a very neglected, armless orangutan named Mari that went on to live in a sanctuary in Florida. I did not interact with Nyota or Panbanisha as much as the others—they were virtually the personal property of Sue Savage-Rumbaugh (the director) and her sister. However Sue carried Nyota around constantly and occasionally I got to talk with Panbanisha through the plexiglass.

Anyway, back to the bunny suit. I hated that damn thing--hot, sweaty, and suffocating in the Atlanta summer heat. Sue would always claim that Kanzi wanted us to dress up as “Mr. Bunny” and come visit him with treats. Or even worse, she’d make me go out in the forest wearing it and film videos for the chimps to watch later, using the video as a conversation point with the chimps. A number of us on staff were suspicious of these “requests from Kanzi” and felt that the suit was one of many means that Sue used to deliberately humiliate staff on a daily basis.

Anderson mentioned a “ball” he brought the bonobos that they “really loved.” Well, I hope he wore gloves when he delivered the ball. When I worked at the center Sue and her colleagues (thank God I don’t count myself among them) used the ball as a way to sexually interact with the apes. You see, bonobos are very sexual animals. They use sex to calm stress and tensions among a group. Sex is used very casually in bonobo societies, and occurs between both opposite and same-sex pairings, siblings, and parent-offspring pairs. According to my recollection, Sue and other researchers, in their effort to bond with the apes as closely as possible, and thus encourage better communication between apes and humans, felt the lack of sexual interaction between the two societies was creating a barrier of frustration with the apes and could inhibit communication. So, as I remember, the balls were used as a sex facilitator. While Kanzi or Panbanisha rubbed their genitals up against the ball in sexual rapture, Sue and other researchers would slap away on the other side of the ball. I imagine the balls began to take on a sexual life of their own from there. Again, thank God, I never was called to engage in that. But I hated cleaning cages and having to move that filthy ball.

Hope you wore gloves Anderson…

Posted by Adam Bray at 1:40 PM