Weather: Temp-49F/9C; Sunny; Wind-Calm; Humidity-55%; UV-2 Low; Dew-34F; Visibility 10mi.
When I arrived the group were all sitting by the west door, with Bole right in front of the door. They seem to favor this spot. Perhaps it is the sun. You can't really blame them; on a nice day, I love to just sit out in the sun and do nothing.
Today, I was fortunate enough to meet with Harvey, one of the zoo's docents. He's very knowledgeable about the baboons. And he helped to clear up a lot of questions I had about the group. For one, I now know that the baboon who's sex I was unsure of is definitely a female. Her name is Zula, she is 26 years old, and has arthritis. As most baboons in the wild rarely live past 20 years, Zula is very old. Her story has touched my heart. As Harvey explained, Zula is in the middle of struggle to maintain her hierarchy, as she can no longer breed. One of the mother's wants nothing to do with her, while the other just tolerates her. Once this was revealed to me, so many interpretations of Zula's sitting near-but-still-at-a-distance to the mother's while they are nursing fired in my brain. But, I'm here to observe! Zula's arthritis is very apparent. She kind of reminds me of one of those little old ladies with a shopping cart you see on the streets of NY. She hunches and moves a little slowly but, don't let that fool you. She can still move across that enclosure "with a quickness!" And after watching Zula and Bole grooming each other on Monday, I think he still accepts her as a part of his harem.
Another interesting anecdote Harvey told me is that at night, when the baboons are indoors, the keepers leave old episodes of Scooby Doo playing for them. Apparently, they are fascinated by them! "Scooby dooby doo where are you..."
During this visit, I noticed interesting grooming between Bole, Kaia, and Jabari. Bole made a small noise, that I couldn't really hear because of the glass, and chattered his teeth. Within 3-5 seconds, Kaia, who was sitting immediately behind Bole and nursing Jabari, stood on all fours beside Bole. (Mind you, all the while Jabari was still attached to Kaia's breast.) Bole started to groom her side. And after 1.5 minutes, Kaia and Bole touched noses and she sat with her back towards him. Bole continued to groom her back. After four minutes of this, Jabari, who was still nursing but staring at Bole, stopped nursing and started to groom Kaia's arm. The three of them carried on like this for another 3 minutes. All the while, Jabari would intermittently stare at Bole and then continue grooming. However, during this time Jabari never approached Bole. Nor did Bole make any motions towards Jabari. The dynamics between the three of them were just completely engrossing.
No comments:
Post a Comment