Primatologists in the Mist

Monroe : That region of the Congo's uninhabited.
Dr. Karen Ross : Well, something inhabits it.
Dr. Peter Elliot : What exactly did you see on that tape?
Dr. Karen Ross : A camp destroyed. People dead. A grey gorilla...
Dr. Peter Elliot : There's no such thing as a grey gorilla.
Dr. Karen Ross : Well, I saw one. -- "Congo, 1995"

One story that’s strong on buzz today is the all-new, ‘this time for real’, remake of “CONGO.”

Rumors of a "new kind of great ape" have got the Bigfoot crowd humming and booking tickets to the Congo. It’s very exciting to think we’ve discovered a “new” species of great ape, and perhaps we have. Except for the fact that this great ape may not be all that “new” after all.

What might be new, but not all that new as these things go, is the new public smackdown between two competing primatologists, Shelly Williams, wearing the white pith helmet armed with a video tape, and Karl Ammann, wildlife photographer, bushmeat activist, and a man who has been on the "Big Chimps of the Bondo" case for many years. What's also new is some National Georgraphic money in the mix.

It’s a popular notion that science is above the petty bickering of politics, but the reality is closer to Henry Kissinger’s famous remark: “Why are academic politics so vicious? Because the stakes are so small.“

Today’s story updates several that Shelly Williams did last year, but brings us a

bit more up to date:

BBC NEWS ‘New’ giant ape found in DR Congo

Scientists believe they have discovered a new group of giant apes in the jungles of central Africa. The animals, with characteristics of both gorillas and chimpanzees, have been sighted in the north of the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to local villagers, the apes are ferocious, and even capable of killing lions. A report about the mysterious creatures is published in this week’s edition of the UK magazine New Scientist. If they are a new species of primate, it could be one of the most important wildlife discoveries in decades.

...Primatologist Shelly Williams is thought to be the only scientist to have seen the apes.

While Ms. Williams may have been the only “scientist” to have seen a live specimen, that doesn’t mean they’ve gone unnoticed or unseen. Here you see two photographs that span decades:

70 year old journal

Photograph of ape killed by hunter in 2004

A few more shots can be seen at Karl Ammann’s Bondo Gallery.

All of this circles around to the main question concerning today’s “revelations,” ‘Are we dealing with a new species of ape?’ Mr. Ammann says we are not:

KarlAmmann Documents - The Bondo Mystery Ape

In 2004 two film teams accompanied Mr. Ammann , Dr. George Schaller, Dr. Christoph Boesch, Dr. Wrangham, Dr. Butyinski, Dr. Sarmiento on a five week field visit. This was based on the aforementioned scientists having evaluated all the available evidence and watching video footage of ground nests, hair and fecal samples, foot prints, red ant fishing sites etc.

These scientists came to the conclusion that while some of the chimps around Bili may have some interesting new cultural traits worth investigating, there was little evidence for a new species or even sub species.

Since then the ground nests, the crested skull, the foot casts have also been featured in a special half an hour documentary by CNN and BBC World. The Economist last year did a special feature on the facts surrounding the Bili chimp population as well.

The DNA result, in form of mt DNA was done by three different labs arriving to the same conclusion. (The ground nesting chimps are clearly of the schweinfurthii subspecies). For your information, we are attaching you an exchange of emails between Dr. Wrangham and Dr. Gagneux, the contents of which is self-explanatory and illustrates that carrying out more mt DNA analysis is essentially a duplication of past efforts. -- Letter to Dr. Lee Simmons, Director, Henry Doorly Zoo, Omaha, Nebraska August 2003

But if that is the case, why are we getting a new spate of articles? The answer is Primatologist Shelly Williams seems to have had a falling out with Mr. Ammann.

From the same letter quoted above:

... it became clear that the only way to learn more about the ground nesting chimpanzees of Bili, was to habituate them. That’s when Dr. Shelly Williams was offered to help with the habituation - after all the above facts had been clearly established.
The first five years of research also showed that there was a very serious problem of bush meat poaching, affecting not only the elephant population but the chimpanzees as well. It became clear that if these chimps were to be habituated and researched, a serious conservation project was necessary to guarantee their medium and hopefully long term survival.

The Wasmoeth Wildlife Foundation ( www.wasmoethwildlife.org) agreed to fund a project whereby the population of the region would be able to sell their coffee beans again at fair market prices, and would, in return, refrain from poaching all protected species.

Ammann goes on to say that Williams gave media coverage of their own efforts to National Georgraphic in exchange for $20,000 which flew in the face of pre-existing agreements surrounding the Ammann project. Disagreement resulted and, of course, lawyers appeared.

We therefore consider the above mentioned press release - which as it would appear was widely circulated - not only to have been premature and incorrect, but above all scientifically far fetched and tendentious (As the one photograph which Dr. Williams uses shows clearly the local people do hunt the big chimps, they do not howl at the moon but are more vocal during full moon nights, the bodies are those of chimps and not gorillas and so is their diet.)

There are at least two pictures available of chimpanzees looking larger than what is considered average size, but the aforementioned scientists do not consider them conclusive. They are, however, a lot more conclusive than any of the video footage Dr. Williams returned with. (much shot by one of the trackers, who has been with the project since 1999). Besides that footage, there is absolutely nothing Dr. Williams has contributed that was not known and established before she got involved.

The habituation was started, with local trackers trying to find the chimps at regular intervals and trying to provision them with sugar cane, long before Dr. Williams visited for the first time.

Needless to say, that we are totally dismayed with Dr. William’s unprofessional attitude and her unscientific and mendacious press release.

This simply can not be the basis for future cooperation and we shall inform the local, regional and central authority by copy of this letter that from now on Dr. Williams is no longer welcome in the project area, as per the terms and conditions of our existing research and conservation agreement with the authorities.

All of which may go some way to explaining why the details found in today’s spate of stories are essentially those revealed in August of 2003 by Williams.

But at the same time it undercuts the claims she has recently been making such as:

“I can’t speculate yet as to what they are. Their behaviour is so unusual. It is a puzzle. I feel like Dr Dolittle in the land of Oz,” said Williams, who has captured some video of the animals but no photographs.

Because of their size and elusiveness, the apes have no predators - not even poachers hunt them, Williams said. With no fear of lions, leopards or hyenas, the large animals hoot at the moon as it rises and sets, which is extremely unusual for apes, she said.
Ananova - American zoo testing DNA from mystery apes

Or this even more dramatic one on CNN from July of 2003:

WILLIAMS: I think based on their size and also some experiences I’ve had with them, one being, we pretended to be -- one of my trackers pretended to be an injured Diker and made the sound of a -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- like that. And all of a sudden the huge apes did come rush us in for the kill. And I’m telling you, these apes were large, they were muscular, they had long limbs, and they were ready to come in until they saw my white face. -- CNN.com - Transcripts, July 20, 2003

Nothing like a white face in the Congo to stop a giant ape in mid-charge. The implication here is that the apes had never seen a white face before when Williams is certainly aware that Ammann and host of other scientists have been beating back and forth in the bush for years. She knows, because she’s been there with them.

If you take the time to examine the transcript from CNN(scroll down), and compare it to the current spate of stories , you’ll see that there’s virtually nothing new in this “news.“ Even the soundbites seem recycled. As in many other items palmed off as “news,“ it only makes me wonder why organizations such as the BBC can’t seem to afford putting on a low-salary intern with Google skills to cross check these items.

I’m sorry but all of this is enough to raise my own suspicions that what we are about to see is not a new species of great ape, but a new National Geographic television special starring Shelly Williams.

Posted by Vanderleun at October 13, 2004 11:27 AM