Chimpanzee Scrolls Instagram: Think About This If Sharing Video

MYRTLE BEACH, SC — The internet is still swooning over a video of a chimpanzee using a cellphone and scrolling through Instagram. The video of the chimpanzee at a Myrtle Beach safari company illustrates similarities between humans and chimpanzees, but some primatologists who study the behavior of our closest living relative and work to save them from extinction aren’t loving it — at all.

Myrtle Beach Safari founder Bhagavan Antle posted the video of the juvenile chimpanzee Kody on his Facebook page and it’s since been picked up on Twitter, Instagram and Reddit. Antle did not return Patch’s attempts for comment, both through the website and by Facebook Messenger.

Chimpanzees are among the planet’s most amazing animals, sharing 98 percent of genetic DNA with humans. They’re a lot like us in many other ways, too.

Published research has shown chimpanzees lead rich, emotional lives and are capable of feeling emotions such as happiness and empathy. They use vocalizations to warn other chimpanzees in their troupes of approaching danger, and have a repertoire of 58 gestures to communicate with each other. One study found chimpanzees and human toddlers 12 to 24 months of age share behaviors such as jumping, hugging, stomping and throwing objects.

Given all that research has shown about chimpanzee behavior, it’s not a stretch to suggest that the Myrtle Beach chimpanzee was making choices about the Instagram photos, primatologist Benjamin Beck, who has written several books about great ape behavior, told Patch.

“There is no scientific proof in the video but I would not be surprised if the chimp recognizes pictures and selects those he wants to look at,” Beck said, emphasizing his comments were not intended as an endorsement of Myrtle Beach Safari or its operators.

“We know that chimpanzees do that with books, magazines, and tablets. They can recognize pictures of people, other animals, themselves, places, and foods, and they choose to watch some pictures more often and for longer durations, which indicates preferences,” Beck said.

Noting that swiping — that is, a finger motion to move from one image to another on a social platform such as Instagram — “is not a common chimpanzee movement,” Beck said he was impressed by the chimpanzee’s thumb mobility.

And while “there is evidence that seeing video of chimpanzees doing ‘human-like things’ leads human viewers to think they might make good pets,” Beck isn’t too worried the video will spur widespread interest among U.S. citizens in obtaining a great ape as a pet. It’s illegal to purchase chimpanzees and other great apes across state lines in the United States

“We should not rush to conclusions because we don't like the back story of pet chimpanzees and the commercial exploitation of apes in entertainment,” Beck said.

But some primatologists, including the legendary Jane Goodall, cite the illegal pet trade as a key reason for their opposition to Antle’s video and others like it on his Facebook page. Goodall called the video an “awful portrayal” of a chimpanzee in captivity and said it perpetuates both the illegal pet trade of great apes and the idea that they make “cute pets.”

The danger of keeping a chimpanzee as a pet was glaringly demonstrated in 2009 when Charla Nash, a Connecticut woman, was viciously attacked by Travis, her friend’s 200-pound pet chimpanzee. Nash received a face transplant after the chimp mangled her face, leaving her without a nose, eyes or lips. An infection spread by the ape left her permanently blind;

In her statement, Goodall said the interactions depicted in Antle’s video are “highly dangerous, as well as harmful to the well-being of the chimpanzee.”

“As responsible and compassionate individuals, I hope anyone who sees the video will not like, share or comment on it and all responsible media outlets change the coverage of the video to highlight stories of chimpanzees in the wild or responsible captive care,” Goodall said in the statement. “And I hope and urge the people who have chimpanzees in their care will cease use of him in this way and join those of us who are working to end the cruel treatment of chimpanzees in entertainment.”

Primatologist Ashley Edes, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Zoo, wrote in a tweet that “research has shown that sharing images [and] videos like this fuels the exotic pet trade, which we never want to encourage.”

About 3,000 great apes are stolen every year to supply the illegal pet trade, but that number “is only a fraction of the total number of apes captured for the live trade, as apes are prone to high mortality rates during the trafficking process,” Orif Drori, founder of the Last Great Ape Organization, wrote for a report by the United Nations’ Great Ape Survival Project.

The international criminal network supplies a range of markets, including the entertainment industry, disreputable zoos and wealthy people who want exotic pets as status symbols, the report said.

In her tweet, Edes wrote that “animals in the pet trade experience horrific conditions [and] struggle when they’re eventually surrendered.”

Perhaps no organization knows that better than the Center for Great Apes in Florida, where most of the chimpanzee and orangutan residents were rescued from either the entertainment industry or inappropriate living conditions such as basements, garages, tiny indoor cages and backyard cages.

“Exotic pet rescue situations are among our saddest ‘before’ stories because of the unnatural living conditions the apes endure,” Center for Great Apes explained on its website, citing as examples Kiki and Linus, two orangutans that lived for years without exposure to sunlight were barely able to walk when they arrived at the center, let alone move from tree to tree, as they would in the wild.

Many of the chimpanzees and orangutans arrive with profound psychological damage and it takes years to properly rehabilitate them, according to the Center for Great Apes.

Beck said the Myrtle Beach Safari video may well “raise appreciation for the sentience of apes, and make people more responsive to conservation efforts.”

All four types of great apes are imperiled in their range countries. Although the most prevalent of all types of great apes, chimpanzees are endangered, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Bonobos are also endangered, according to the IUCN Red List. All species western and mountain gorillas are critically endangered, as are Bornean and Sumatran orangutans.

All four types of great apes could be extinct in a generation, according to leading conservationists.