Congo Page 5

  He met with John Morton in the firm’s wood-paneled library overlooking Grant Street. Morton took notes on a yellow legal pad. “I think you’re all right,” Morton began, “but let me get a few facts. Amy is a gorilla?”

  “Yes, a female mountain gorilla.”

  “Age?”

  “She’s seven now.”

  “So she’s still a child?”

  Elliot explained that gorillas matured in six to eight years, so that Amy was late adolescent, the equivalent of a sixteen-year-old human female.

  Morton scratched notes on a pad. “Could we say she’s still a minor?”

  “Do we want to say that?”

  “I think so.”

  “Yes, she’s still a minor,” Elliot said.

  “Where did she come from? I mean originally.”

  “A woman tourist named Swenson found her in Africa, in a village called Bagimindi. Amy’s mother had been killed by the natives for food. Mrs. Swenson bought her as an infant.”

  “So she was not bred in captivity,” Morton said, writing on his pad.

  “No. Mrs. Swenson brought her back to the States and donated her to the Minneapolis zoo.”

  “She relinquished her interest in Amy?”

  “I assume so,” Elliot said. “We’ve been trying to reach Mrs. Swenson to ask about Amy’s early life, but she’s out of the country. Apparently she travels constantly; she’s in Borneo. Anyway, when Amy was sent to San Francisco, I called the Minneapolis zoo to ask if I could keep her for study. The zoo said yes, for three years.”

  “Did you pay any money?”

  ‘‘No.

  “Was there a written contract?”

  “No, I just called the zoo director.”

  Morton nodded. “Oral agreement. . .“ he said, writing. “And when the three years were up?”

  “That was the spring of 1976. 1 asked the zoo for an extension of six years, and they gave it to me.”

  “Again orally?”

  “Yes. I called on the phone.”

  “No correspondence?”

  “No. They didn’t seem very interested when I called. To tell you the truth, I think they had forgotten about Amy. The zoo has four gorillas, anyway.”

  Morton frowned. “Isn’t a gorilla a pretty expensive animal? I mean, if you wanted to buy one for a pet or for the circus.”

  “Gorillas are on the endangered list; you can’t buy them as pets. But yes, they’d be pretty expensive.”

  “How expensive?”

  “Well, there’s no established market value, but it would be twenty or thirty thousand dollars.”

  “And all during these years, you have been teaching her language?”

  “Yes,” Peter said. “American Sign Language. She has a vocabulary of six hundred and twenty words now.”

  “Is that a lot?”

  “More than any known primate.”

  Morton nodded, making notes. “You work with her every day in ongoing research?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” Morton said. “That’s been very important in the animal custody cases so far.”

  For more than a hundred years, there had been organized movements in Western countries to stop animal experimentation. They were led by the anti-vivisectionists, the RSPCA, the ASPCA. Originally these organizations were a kind of lunatic fringe of animal lovers, intent on stopping all animal research.

  Over the years, scientists had evolved a standard defense acceptable to the courts. Researchers claimed that their experiments had the goal of bettering the health and welfare of mankind, a higher priority than animal welfare. They pointed out that no one objected to animals being used as beasts of burden or for agricultural work—a life of drudgery to which animals had been subjected for thousands of years. Using animals in scientific experiments simply extended the idea that animals were the servants of human enterprises.

  In addition, animals were literally brutes. They had no self-awareness, no recognition of their existence in nature. This meant, in the words of philosopher George H. Mead, that “animals have no rights. We are at liberty to cut off their lives; there is no wrong committed when an animal’s life is taken away. He has not lost anything

  Many people were troubled by these views, but attempts to establish guidelines quickly ran into logical problems. The most obvious concerned the perceptions of animals further down the phylogenetic scale. Few researchers operated on dogs, cats, and other mammals without anesthesia, but what about annelid worms, crayfish, leeches, and squid? Ignoring these creatures was a form of “taxonomic discrimination.” Yet if these animals deserved consideration, shouldn’t it also be illegal to throw a live lobster into a pot of boiling water?

  The question of what constituted cruelty to animals was confused by the animal societies themselves. In some countries, they fought the extermination of rats; and in 1968 there was the bizarre Australian pharmaceutical case. * In the face of these ironies, the courts hesitated to interfere with animal experimentation. As a practical matter, researchers were free to do as they wished. The volume of animal research was extraordinary: during the 1970s, sixty-four million animals were killed in experiments in the United States each year.

  But attitudes had slowly changed. Language studies with dolphins and apes made it clear that these animals were not only intelligent but self-aware; they recognized themselves in mirrors and photographs. In 1974, scientists themselves formed the International Primate Protection League to monitor research involving monkeys and apes. In March, 1978, the Indian government banned the export of rhesus monkeys to research laboratories around the world. And there were court cases which concluded that in some instances animals did, indeed, have rights.

  The old view was analogous to slavery: the animal was the property of its owner, who could do whatever he wished. But now ownership became secondary. In February, 1977,

  *A new pharmaceutical factory was built in Western Australia. In this factory all the pills came out on a conveyor bell; a person had to watch the belt, and press buttons to sort the pills into separate bins by size and color. A Skinnenan animal behaviorist pointed out that it would be simple to teach pigeons to watch the pills and peck colored keys to do the sorting process. Incredulous factory managers agreed to a test; the pigeons indeed performed reliably, and were duly placed on the assembly line. Then the RSPCA stepped in and put a stop to it on the grounds that it represented cruelty to animals; the job was turned over to a human operator. for whom it did not, apparently, represent cruelty.

  there was a case involving a dolphin named Mary, released by a lab technician into the open ocean. The University of Hawaii prosecuted the technician, charging loss-of a valuable research animal. Two trials resulted in hung juries; the case was dropped.

  In November, 1978, there was a custody case involving a chimpanzee named Arthur, who was fluent in sign language. His owner, Johns Hopkins University, decided to sell him and close the program. His trainer, William Levine, went to court and obtained custody on the grounds that Arthur knew language and thus was no longer a chimpanzee.

  “One of the pertinent facts,” Morton said, “was that when Arthur was confronted by other chimpanzees, he referred to them as ‘black things.’ And when Arthur was twice asked to sort photographs of people and photographs of chimps, he sorted them correctly except that both times he put his own picture in the stack with the people. He obviously did not consider himself a chimpanzee, and the court ruled that he should remain with his trainer, since any separation would cause him severe psychic distress.”

  “Amy cries when I leave her,” Elliot said.

  “When you conduct experiments, do you obtain her permission?”

  “Always.” Elliot smiled. Morton obviously had no sense of day-to-day life with Amy. It was essential to obtain her permission for any course of action, even a ride in a car. She was a powerful animal, and she could be willful and stubborn.

  “Do you keep a record of her acquiescence?”

  “Video
tapes.”

  “Does she understand the experiments you propose?” He shrugged. “She says she does.”

  “You follow a system of rewards and punishments?” “All animal behaviorists do.”

  Morton frowned. “What forms do her punishments take?”

  “Well, when she’s a bad girl I make her stand in the corner facing the wall. Or else I send her to bed early without her peanut-butter-and-jelly snack.”

  “What about torture and shock treatments?”

  "Ridiculous.”

  “You never physically punish the animal?”

  “She’s a pretty damn big animal. Usually I worry that she’ll get mad and punish me.”

  Morton smiled and stood. “You’re going to be all right,” he said. “Any court will rule that Amy is your ward and that you must decide any ultimate disposition in her case.” He hesitated. “I know this sounds strange, but could you put Amy on the stand?”

  “I guess so,” Elliot said. “Do you think it will come to that?”

  “Not in this case,” Morton said, “but sooner or later it will. You watch: within ten years, there will be a custody case involving a language-using primate, and the ape will be in the witness-box.”

  Elliot shook his hand, and said as he was leaving, “By the way, would I have any problem taking her out of the country?”

  “If there is a custody case, you could have trouble taking her across state lines,” Morton said. “Are you planning to take her out of the country?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then my advice is to do it fast, and don’t tell anyone,” Morton said.

  Elliot entered his office on the third floor of the Zoology Department building shortly after nine. His secretary, Carolyn, said: “A Dr. Ross called from that Wildlife Fund in Houston; she’s on her way to San Francisco. A Mr. Mori­kawa called three times, says it’s important. The Project Amy staff meeting is set for ten o’clock. And Windy is in your office.”

  “Really?”

  James Weldon was a senior professor in the Department, a weak, blustery man. “Windy” Weldon was usually portrayed in departmental cartoons as holding a wet finger in the air: he was a master at knowing which way the wind was blowing. For the past several days, he had avoided Peter Elliot and his staff.

  Elliot went into his office.

  “Well, Peter my boy,” Weldon said, reaching out to give his version of a hearty handshake. “You’re in early.”

  Elliot was instantly wary. “I thought I’d beat the crowds,” he said. The picketers did not show up until ten o’clock, sometimes later, depending on when they had arranged to meet the TV news crews. That was how it worked these days:

  protest by appointment.

  “They’re not coming anymore.” Weldon smiled.

  He handed Elliot the late city edition of the Chronicle, a front-page story circled in black pen. Eleanor Vries had resigned her position as regional director of the PPA, pleading overwork and personal pressures; a statement from the PPA in New York indicated that they had seriously misconstrued the nature and content of Elliot’s research.

  “Meaning what?” Elliot asked.

  “Belli’s office reviewed your paper and Vries’s public statements about torture, and decided that the PPA was exposed to a major libel suit,” Weldon said. “The New York office is terrified. They’ll be making overtures to you later today. Personally, I hope you’ll be understanding.”

  Elliot dropped into his chair. "What about the faculty meeting next week?”

  “Oh, that’s essential,” Weldon said. “There’s no question that the faculty will want to discuss unethical conduct—on the part of the media, and issue a strong statement in your support. I’m drawing up a statement now, to come from my office.”

  The irony of this was not lost on Elliot. “You sure you want to go out on a limb?” he asked,

  “I’m behind you one thousand percent, I hope you know that,” Weldon said. Weldon was restless, pacing around the office, staring at the walls, which were covered with Amy’s finger paintings. Windy had something further on his mind. “She’s still making these same pictures?” he asked, finally.

  “Yes,” Elliot said.

  “And you still have no idea what they mean?”

  Elliot paused; at best it was premature to tell Weldon what they thought the pictures meant. “No idea,” he said.

  “Are you sure?” Weldon asked, frowning. “I think somebody knows what they mean.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Something very strange has happened,” Weldon said. “Someone has offered to buy Amy.”

  “To buy her? What are you talking about, to buy her?”

  “A lawyer in Los Angeles called my office yesterday and offered to buy her for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  “It must be some rich do-gooder,” Elliot said, “trying to save Amy from torture.”

  “I don’t think so,” Weldon said. “For one thing, the otter came from Japan. Someone named Morikawa—he’s in electronics in Tokyo. I found that out when the lawyer called back this morning, to increase his offer to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?” Elliot said. “For Amy?” Of course it was out of the question. He would never sell her. But why would anyone offer so much money?

  Weldon had an answer. “This kind of money, a quarter of a million dollars, can only be coming from private enterprise. Industry. Clearly, Morikawa has read about your work and found a use for speaking primates in an industrial context.” Windy stared at the ceiling, a sure sign he was about to wax eloquent. “I think a new field might be opening up here, the training of primates for industrial applications in the real world.”

  Peter Elliot swore. He was not teaching Amy language in order to put a hard hat on her head and a lunch pail in her hand, and he said so.

  “You’re not thinking it through,” Weldon said. “What if we are on the verge of a new field of applied behavior for the great apes? Think what it means. Not only funding to the Department, and an opportunity for applied research. Most important, there would be a reason to keep these animals alive. You know that the great apes are becoming extinct.

  The chimps in Africa are greatly reduced in number. The orangs of Borneo are losing their natural habitat to the timber cutters and will be extinct in ten years. The gorilla is down to three thousand in the central African forests. These animals will all disappear in our lifetime—unless there is a reason to keep them alive, as a species. You may provide that reason, Peter my boy. Think about it.”

  Elliot did think about it, and he discussed it at the Project Amy staff meeting at ten o’clock. They considered possible industrial applications for apes, and possible advantages to employers, such as the lack of unions and fringe benefits. In the late twentieth century, these were major considerations. (In 1978, for each new automobile that rolled off the Detroit assembly lines, the cost of worker health benefits exceeded the cost of all the steel used to build the car.)

  But they concluded that a vision of “industrialized apes”

  was wildly fanciful. An ape like Amy was not a cheap and stupid version of a human worker. Quite the opposite: Amy was a highly intelligent and complex creature out of her element in the modern industrial world. She demanded a great deal of supervision; she was whimsical and unreliable; and her health was always at risk. It simply didn’t make sense to use her in industry. If Morikawa had visions of apes wielding soldering irons on a microelectronic assembly line, building TVs and hi-fl sets, he was sorely misinformed.

  The only note of caution came from Bergman, the child psychologist. “A quarter of a million is a lot of money,” he said, “and Mr. Morikawa is probably no fool. He must have learned about Amy through her drawings, which imply she is neurotic and difficult. If he’s interested in her, I’d bet it’s because of her drawings. But I can’t imagine why those drawings should be worth a quarter of a million dollars.”

  Neither could
anyone else, and the discussion turned to the drawings themselves, and the newly translated texts. Sarah Johnson, in charge of research, started out with the flat comment “I have bad news about the Congo.”*

  For most of recorded history, she explained, nothing was

  *Johnson's principal reference was the definitive work by A. J. Parkinson. The Congo Delta in Myth and History (London; Peters. 1904).

  known about the Congo. The ancient Egyptians on the upper Nile knew only that their river originated far to the south, in a region they called the Land of Trees. This was a mysterious place with forests so dense they were as dark as night in the middle of the day. Strange creatures inhabited this perpetual gloom, including little men with tails, and animals half black and half white.

  For nearly four thousand years afterward, nothing more substantial was learned about the interior of Africa. The Arabs came to East Africa in the seventh century A.D., in search of gold, ivory, spices, and slaves. But the Arabs were merchant seamen and did not venture inland. They called the interior Zinj—the Land of the Blacks—a region of fable and fantasy. There were stories of vast forests and tiny men with tails; stories of mountains that spewed fire and turned the sky black; stories of native villages overwhelmed by monkeys, which would have congress with the women; stories of great giants with hairy bodies and flat noses; stories of creatures half leopard, half man; stories of native markets where the fattened carcasses of men were butchered and sold as a delicacy.

  Such stories were sufficiently forbidding to keep the Arabs on the coast, despite other stories equally alluring: mountains of shimmering gold, riverbeds gleaming with diamonds, animals that spoke the language of men, great jungle civilizations of unimaginable splendor. In particular, one story was repeated again and again in early accounts: the story of the Lost City of Zinj.

  According to legend, a city known to the Hebrews of So­lomonic times had been a source of inconceivable wealth in diamonds. The caravan route to the city had been jealously guarded, passed from father to son, as a sacred trust for generation after generation. But the diamond mines were exhausted and the city itself now lay in crumbling ruins, somewhere in the dark heart of Africa. The arduous caravan routes were long since swallowed up by jungle, and the last trader who remembered the way had carried his secret with him to the grave many hundreds of years before.