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Gimli

July 14th, 2012

Gimli is a cheeky little punk.  Rather small, he trails after his mother, Gremlin, a decrepit old chimp, chronically bored.  To pass the time, then, he has had to create his own fun and his own fun mostly entails harassing baboons.  My baboons.  On several occasions Gimli has chased my target female off into a clump of machaka (thick vines) or up a tree, where I can no longer see her very well.  In the trees, he will hang from one arm, taunting her, shaking branches, and she will scream and fear grin and eventually run away.  If his behavior weren’t so counterproductive, I might actually find it cute.

 

The other day we had a particular active interaction with Gimli in which he took to harassing various baboons and, when screaming ensued, the males got involved.  Suddenly, the whole baboon troop wasn’t terribly keen on the gregarious little chimp and a kerfuffle rippled through the crowd.  Soon males were giving out aggressive RBGs (rapid broken grunts) with the females punctuating the noise with their own calls, eyebrows were flashing, and hands were sweeping the ground and shaking leaves.  Everybody was running around as if the forest was on fire.  Eventually mayhem ensued in which I could here Gremlin screaming and baboons grunting and a whole lot of running back and forth through thick leaves and I knew that a throw-down was in progress.  Below us a cadre of chimps pant-hooted and beat tree trunks and I worried that a whole slough of male chimps would beeline our way and then a real reckoning would take place.  However, eventually things quieted down and the chimps and baboons seemed to occupy a similar space in relative harmony.  Except for Gimli.

 

I was following Ulaya at the time.  Ulaya is a recent convert to the ways of womanhood, having started receiving her “monthly visit” (which actually happens every 38 days or so), and thus is all hormones with not a lot of men willing to pay attention (a newly cycling female is not a sexy thing in the baboon world, except maybe to the teenage boys, but mostly because they’ll hump anything).  At the time I hadn’t formed a lot of opinions of Ulaya, but when she was chased by Gimli for the third time, screamed, and then returned back to the spot near him, I began to think she might be a little stupid.  In fact, for half an hour I watched her get chased, freak out, circle around, see Gimli (always with the slight air of surprise), get chased again, and repeat.  I kind of want to kick her by the fourth go-around.

 

But that’s not the real issue.  The real issue is, what’s up with Gimli?  What’s with all the baboon hullabaloo, the chasing and taunting and incessant pestering?  The short answer is he’s bored.  I mean, he doesn’t have a lot of playmates to be sure.  His little brother Gizmo is a viable candidate, but perhaps not quite as mobile as he’d like.  Also, the baboons just respond so theatrically, screaming and bounding around trees with their tails in the air.  Though his little displays are certainly frustrating from a data standpoint—I lose my baboons for several minutes after he runs them off—Gimli has a thoroughly entertaining gimmick going.  He’s very straight-faced as he approaches his quarry, his brow practically furrowed.  It’s almost as if what he is doing is work, work that requires great concentration.  He does a good job of employing implements around him—tree branches, the railing of a bridge, dry leaves—making the whole chase a serious study in the best way to herd baboons.  In fact, in some ways his repertoire is almost compulsive, like he simply can’t help himself, yet derives little pleasure from the pursuit.  It’s very strange.

 

My favorite episode, though, occurred in camp a few days ago.  After chasing away all the baboons, Gimli decide to take on a colobus monkey.  Typically, these guys are smaller than baboons and considerably more skittish.  Also, adult male chimps eat their babies, so I can’t see them being super thrilled about hanging around when chimps are present.  Spotting one in a tree, though, Gimli ambled his way over, eventually swinging himself up onto a nearby branch.  And the colobus monkey did the most miraculous thing.  He stood his ground.  Gimli clearly didn’t expect this.  He swung in front of the colobus, all feet and leaves, trying to scare it off.  The colobus swatted back at him, not giving an inch.  Gimli tried again.  The colobus met him tit for tat.  Eventually, Gimli had to admit defeat and parade off after his mother and the colobus, smaller by far, sat silently in his tree watching Gimli go.  I wanted to climb up and give him a high five.