The Kendall Project

It has been a busy and challenging couple of months for Kendall and the NCZP staff.  Since our last update, we’ve had Kendall in a group with seven other chimps on twoseparate occasions.  In August 2009,Jonathon and Ruthie went into Kendall's group,which was already comprised of Kendall, Hondo, Tammy, Amy, Betty and Maki.  All was going well until we sadly lost Betty,a 35 year old female, in September 2009. She suffered from cardiac arrest (http://www.nczoo.org/newsroom/PressReleases/Chimp_Succumbs_To_He.html). 

After the loss of Betty, in an effort to move forward  towards our goal of one group of chimps, we decided to add another chimp into the group.  We picked a dominant female named Ruby, age 13 years, who was acting extremely interested in Kendall at themesh.  We initially introduced her onlyto Kendall and Tammy, and Kendall and Ruby appeared to get along well rightaway.  We then put these three chimps back with the rest of their group the following day. 

Everything appeared to be going well, but Kendall suffered a setback about 5 days into the introduction.  Chimps that are the focus of an aggressive attack often deflect that aggression by turning on weaker, more subordinate individuals.  In turn, most socially appropriate chimps faced with this situation would either submit to the others or attempt to defend themselves.  This appeared to have happened to Kendall before keepers reported to work on October 31, 2009. Most likely two or three chimps in the group began fighting, and one or more individuals turned on Kendall to take the pressure off themselves.  Keepers arrived to find Kendall with several minor injuries, which included a couple of bite wounds that required veterinary attention.  Kendall’s poor socialization at a youngage and his lack of knowledge as to how to submit or defend himself most likely were the reasons he received the bite wounds. After the fight, he also appeared very frightened of several of the other chimps, most likely because he never developed the coping skills that would have allowed him to appropriately deal with aggression.  As a result, staff made the decision to separate Kendall from his group so that he could heal, physically and mentally.  Kendall was kept with Tammy, a female with which he has developed a close bond since his arrival at NCZP and who has oftenbeen observed defending Kendall during periodsof aggression. 

After two weeks of rest, recuperation, and attention, staff members agreed to get Kendall back into hisgroup so he could move towards rebuilding bonds with the other members of his troop.  Reintroductions with Hondo and Maki went smoothly.  Keepers then attempted to reintroduce Ruby and Amy three days later.  For some reason, this introduction caused Maki and Hondo to become aggressive towards Kendall, and again he made no attempt to submit or defend himself. Although he was not injured, he again appeared frightened.  The decision was made to separate Kendall andTammy from the others until the best course of action is determined.  The goal is to socialize Kendall, keeping in mind his mental and physical well-being as well as the well-being of the rest of the chimps.

All of the chimps, including Kendall and Tammy, are doing very well.  We will keep you updated as to Kendall’s progress and we thank you for your continued support of The Kendall Project and chimps like Kendall.

July 6, 2009

Hello all!  Hope this finds everyone well.  It has been a busy few months for Kendall!  Keepers have been working hard getting Kendall’s group on and off exhibit.  For a long time, coming off exhibit caused Kendall quite a bit of anxiety, as his troop mates would often run inside first and call loudly to the chimps inside.  It was intimidating to the little guy to enter a building with 12 other screaming chimps!  In fact, many days Kendall would hide up at the top of the exhibit when it was time to come inside, as far away from the keepers and other chimps as possible. 

Keepers wanted to make shifting on and off exhibit a comfortable experience for Kendall, so after many hours of training (and many treats), Kendall began coming down to the holding access door several times throughout the day.  Keepers started letting him inside a little earlier than the others, so that he could enter the building when it was quiet and the inside group was occupied with lots of good food and enrichment.  As a result, Kendall now comes in to chimp holding reliably when he is called.

Also, on June 15, 2009, 15 year old Maki (Tammy’s daughter) was introduced to Kendall’s group.  Maki and Kendall lived together for many months shortly after he arrived at NCZP’s chimp building, and were frequent playmates. Keepers believed Kendall’s group was stable enough to add another chimpanzee, and since Maki gets along well with all of the chimps in his group, she was the obvious choice.  Maki seems to have settled into the new group nicely, and she and Kendall are observed playing together often.

Thanks for all of your support of The Kendall Project!  The Kendall Project team is working on many new and exciting projects for the coming months.  Stay tuned!

Kendall's group recently went from four chimps to five chimps!

We introduced adult male Hondo to the group a few weeks ago. Hondo has been the alpha male of the NCZP chimp troop for many years.

With Kendall turning 10 years old in May, keepers believed it was more important than ever to let Kendall begin building relationships with other male chimps. If Kendall is to make it into the entire chimp troop, it is essential for him to have other chimps (preferably strong males) that will back him up during periods of aggression. Hondo and Kendall had not been previously introduced, and it had been several months since Hondo had lived with Tammy, Betty, and Amy. Fortunately, the introduction went very smoothly. Kendall was very apprehensive of Hondo at first, but within 24 hours was sitting right next to the big guy, taking juice and training with keepers.

Kendall is still somewhat nervous when Hondo approaches him, but does not scream and run away as he has done with other chimps in the past. Hondo is generally very calm around younger male chimps, and has been wonderful with Kendall. He does not push Kendall to interact, and has only chased Kendall a few times to establish his alpha status. We have even seen Hondo offering Kendall reassurance several times! We hope the two will become more closely bonded over time. We are very lucky to have such an amazing alpha male chimp at the zoo!

Happy New Year, everyone! It's very exciting that The Kendall Project is actually in its second year! Starting the group was actually the New Years Resolution for 2008...and we did it! Just some updates...if you've noticed we haven't posted any new information in awhile on the website, there is a good explanation.  We have been working with management at the North Carolina Zoo, to figure out the best way to raise awareness about the apes in entertainment issue, while at the same time making sure our goals and messages fall in line with those of the zoo. Everyone at the zoo has been really supportive, and we hope to get some new information out, soon, once we've figured out the best practices for sharing information.

That being said, the second edition of our newsletter is available. Kelly once again has done a wonderful job!  We also recently posted an article about Kendall and our chimpanzee group on the NC Zoo Society's Field Trip Earth website (www.fieldtripearth.org). It's a cool website that highlights some of the conservation efforts taken on by the zoo and supported by Society.

As for our friend Kendall, he has been doing really well. We have been encouraging him to "branch out,' trying to get him to make some more use of the space he has available...he tends to hang out in a smaller area, his "comfort zone," we call it. But, he is learning to shift into new rooms inside chimp holding, even past older, bigger, scarier chimps. And he is doing great! Sometimes he needs a little encouragement (juice, anyone?), but we are all very proud of him. Still no immediate plans to put him on exhibit at the zoo, since it gets pretty cold at night and we need to prepare ourselves for the fact that he might not come off exhibit right away. Kendall's little group seems to be doing well, though. He interacts with all of the girls, some more than others, however.  He even displays now and we all believe he as acting more and more like a "real" chimp everyday.

We also will soon be selling Kendall Project sweatshirts and fleeces! We ordered a batch from a good friend of Megan, another one of the chimp keeper clan. She does beautiful embroidery and the sweatshirts came out great. There will be pullover and zip hoodies, full zip and quarter zip fleeces available. Price list to be posted soon. 

So, we're excited about some of the projects we hope to do this year...again, it has been a little slow going but we're optimistic that once we've dotted all of our i's and crossed our t's that we'll be able to do some really cool stuff, and help some of our great ape friends in the process! Happy New Year, all!