On the edge of Uganda's Lake Victoria is Ngamba Island,
home to a remarkable family of chimpanzees.
Rescued from the chimp trade when they were just babies...
..these chimps are all orphans.
They've lived most of their lives in this semi-wild sanctuary...
..spending their days in the forest and their nights
in sheltered accommodation.
Without their own mothers to raise them,
they are looked after by a dedicated team of caregivers...
..who teach them how to eat, play and speak like chimps.
MIMICS CHIMP'S SCREECH
They seek out stimulating activities as forms of therapy...
They need to be motivated to keep active,
both physically and mentally.
She's filming her legs.
..and they, ultimately, help new orphans integrate
into the community.
Socialisation for chimps is every bit as important
as it is for humans.
Without that, they're not chimps.
This is the story of a remarkable island, a place where rescued chimps
can put their troubled pasts behind them...
..and live life as a chimp once again.
CHATTERING AND WHOOPING
Whenever I see them happily playing in the forest,
it makes me really feel good.
Yeah, they are having a good life.
For Ngamba's caregivers, there's nothing more rewarding
than the sight of a rescued chimp monkeying around in the forest.
Long arms, five times stronger than a human's,
make these animals perfectly adapted for life in the trees.
But it's when they use those same hands to grab a stick...
..and thoughtfully fashion it into a tool...
..the line between chimp and human suddenly becomes blurred.
I take chimpanzees as exactly human, sometimes more than humans.
With chimps, they are different from most animals.
Sometimes I don't want to call them animals.
Chimpanzees are our closest animal cousins.
Sharing 99% of our DNA, they don't just look like us...
..they think like us, too.
They plan their future...
..and remember their past.
They have a sense of right and wrong.
They can be happy, sad, even depressed.
They're very intelligent and they are definitely individuals,
they do have personalities.
And they have very different life experiences.
All of these life experiences are going to shape you into
a completely different individual.
Some of them are very shy, some of them are very confident,
some are just a bit thick and some are a bit smart,
and it's just the same as humans.
With so much in common with us, the scale of the crisis
they are facing at the hands of humans is hard to believe.
In the 1990s, 1 million chimpanzees lived across central Africa,
from Senegal in the west to Uganda in the east.
But since then, habitat loss, hunting for bush meat and the exotic
pet trade has seen their populations crash to just 200,000.
Ngamba Island,
which lies off the coast of Uganda's Lake Victoria...
..is a 100-acre haven for a few lucky survivors.
A place for orphaned and rescued chimps to live
alongside their own kind.
It's very important for us to get them to integrate
and form a community and lead
the natural social life that they would.
The intensely social nature of these great apes
has long been recognised by the world's leading experts.
Socialisation for chimps is every bit as important
as it is for humans.
Without that, they're not chimps, they don't become chimps
unless they're properly socialised.
This is, you know, part of the big job that we do at Ngamba Island.
Established 20 years ago with just 11 chimps,
today, 49 make their home here, most arriving as orphaned babies.
Remarkably, this odd mix of abused orphans, household pets
and circus chimps has grown up to forge an unlikely family.
An incredible feat, given their traumatic pasts.
Chimpanzee communities are quite complex. You can't be integrated
into the group overnight and know how to behave.
You have to learn, to some extent.
And you need to learn how to form the right alliances
and a little bit of brute strength never goes amiss.
The head of the family is Umutama, the alpha male.
He came to Ngamba as a three-year-old toddler
after being rescued from a house where he was being kept as a pet.
Now 21, he has strategically risen the ranks to command the respect
of the entire community.
In an isolated enclosure separated from most of the other chimps
is Ngamba's newest orphan, two-year-old Eazy.
But he is a very different kind of orphan.
Eazy's integration has been more different from the others,
because he was born here.
Although Ngamba's females are all given contraceptive implants,
they don't always work.
Sadly, Eazy's mum rejected him soon after birth,
as she lacked the experience to mother him.
Abandoned and vulnerable,
the caregivers decided to raise Eazy themselves.
After a year and a half growing up with them,
they began his slow integration back into
the chimp community.
So we brought in females one by one,
and formed a bond between Eazy and some females.
Today, Eazy has six friendly females,
including an adopted mother, Connie, to play with and learn from.
For now, he spends his days with them in this enclosure, safely
cut-off from the forest chimps.
But to complete his integration and join the forest community,
Eazy will need to make friends with all of Ngamba's chimps...
..including Umutama.
And alpha males don't take kindly to outsiders
who may grow up to threaten their rule.
When we are doing integration,
the last day when Eazy
has been integrated with all the chimpanzees, that makes us winners.
Until that day arrives, there is much for baby Eazy to learn
as he readjusts from growing up with humans
to living his life as a chimp.
Ngamba's chimps are free to spend all day outside,
but every evening most choose to return to the dusk enclosure
to grab a bite to eat before bed.
A series of sliding doors ensures the chimps go
into their designated rooms.
The caregivers wouldn't want the alpha males like Umutama ending
up with baby Eazy.
He sucks the thumb when he is hungry.
It's an easy way of communicating to us as caregivers
that he needs food.
Although the forest is full of fruiting trees
from which the chimps can feed, it's not big enough to sustain
a group as large as this.
So, the chimps rely on hand-outs of food.
These bowls of porridge are one of four square meals a day.
They're licked clean and returned with care,
since there is always a chance of a second helping.
Without a mother to nurse him, Eazy gets extra milk in his porridge.
His tiny hands too small to hold a bowl like the adults...
..he's quite happy to use a sippy cup for now.
After everyone has had their fill, it's time for sleep.
Each chimp gets one handful of straw...
..before retiring to their hammocks hanging from the roof.
They prepare their beds of straw just as they would fold leaves
up in a tree in the wild.
It's one of the lessons they've had to learn on their way
to become chimps.
They often get into the nest and they kind of roll on their backs
and they put one knee over the other and they look up at the stars.
And that's the way they go to sleep.
So, you assume... I think you have to assume, that they're reflecting
on their day, in the same way that when we go to bed at night,
we're often reflecting on our day.
So, what are they actually thinking about?
And that's kind of the million-dollar question
that we all are intrigued by.
Perhaps Eazy is dreaming about his eventual trip
to the forest.
Daybreak.
And as the rescued chimps are led out of their enclosure...
..a cacophony of calls signals excitement
for the favourite part of their day.
Breakfast.
Serving the chimps outside is the easiest way to get them
out of bed and into the forest, where they belong.
On the menu today is some local cuisine.
In Swahili it's called ugali.
So, this is maize flour, it's mixed with hot water.
Do they like it?
Yeah, they love it, you can hear, they are even complaining,
"Man, give me, give me, give me!"
When it comes to ordering breakfast, social ranking determines a chimp's
seat at the table.
The alphas like Umutama take position closest to the fence.
They use loud calls and elaborate gestures
to grab their caregivers' attention.
The lower-ranking chimps prefer to be less conspicuous.
They stay well back, hoping to quietly grab their food
before an alpha steals it from them.
But even the low-ranking ones, they know the feeding trick.
So, she's asking me, throw it deep in the forest, then I'll get it,
before he gets there. You see?
As the food runs out, the alphas fight over the last scraps...
..while the low-ranking chimps use the distraction to their advantage.
As the bigger ones are fighting,
the smaller ones are gathering now. They're gathering here.
Finally, everyone settles down...
OK.
That's it.
OK, guys!
..and this group heads into the forest to begin their day.
Baby Eazy, who has yet to integrate with the forest community,
is eagerly awaiting his breakfast...
..although he faces competition from his hungry group of females.
Eazy is a big chimp for his age and he looks strong
and he looks healthy.
Adriana Lowe, a primatologist who studies wild chimpanzees,
has joined the morning feed.
For her, the fate of Ngamba's orphans, like Eazy,
is very different to what she has seen in the wild.
Infants who are orphaned before five years don't generally survive.
This is because female chimpanzees emigrate to new communities
on sexual maturity, so they don't have female relatives.
And it doesn't make evolutionary sense for a chimp to start
breast-feeding a stranger's baby.
So, without the direct care of a mother, in the wild, a baby
chimp would definitely die.
At Ngamba, orphans like Eazy are lucky because here, unrelated
females ARE willing to share food with him
and give him the close attention he needs.
Why most of our chimpanzees, they love to look after the babies?
Maybe it's because they never have babies.
Babies are rare here so perhaps they are more special.
Exactly, even that.
Since most females here will never have babies of their own,
they readily care for new orphans to satisfy their maternal instincts.
Ngamba's males, however, cannot be trusted to be so kind.
They see him as a future or a potential threat.
The males will often kill the infants, and this is particularly
when they're very young, when they're newborn.
I've seen multiple killings, I've seen the chimps kill babies,
I've seen the chimps kill other adults, and, yeah, it's an important
part of their behavioural repertoire.
The first time I saw it, it was very, very traumatising.
Adriana was conducting field research in Uganda's Budongo
rainforest when she found herself just metres away from a frenzied
attack on a mother and her newborn baby.
This adult male was trying to kill the baby, and they had essentially
scalped it.
So the baby sits on the mother's chest,
and I think that what they had done
is they'd grabbed the only bit of it possible, which is the top
of the head, and they had essentially removed the vast majority of skin.
There was one, possibly two, adult females, trying to save the baby.
And they were not successful.
Female chimps are about 25% smaller than adult male chimps,
they are socially subordinate, and there's very few cases
of them surviving that.
Eazy may have huge hurdles to overcome for him to integrate
with the forest group.
But at least his troubles are part and parcel of growing up as a chimp.
For Ngamba's other orphans, their pain and suffering
has been caused by humans.
In these diaries, the caregivers keep a detailed history
of all the chimps at Ngamba, which goes back to the very day
they arrived.
Here is an entry for Bili.
"Physically she's a bit of a mess.
"Her hair is thin and sparse, almost non-existent."
Bili is a 21-year-old female.
When she was Eazy's age, her mother was killed for bush meat right
in front of her eyes.
And memories die hard.
She sometimes looks to be sad. We look at her as someone
who is really thinking hard about her past.
Just like in humans, traumatic events can have lasting effects
on a chimpanzee's mental health.
They can suffer from post-traumatic stress and depression and display
symptoms like hair-plucking and spending their time alone.
As part of their integration and psychological wellbeing,
the caregivers use targeted one-on-one enrichment sessions,
like food puzzles, which act as a form of therapy.
With chimpanzees being the species that they are, you know,
they are active, you know, they think, they're intelligent
beings, like humans, and they need to be motivated
to keep active both physically and mentally.
Pasa loves the challenge,
using tools just like she would in the wild.
But it's not just another bite to eat.
It's food for the brain.
Others prefer more creative ways of stimulating their minds.
Good girl!
Medina is Ngamba's answer to Michelangelo.
Although painting isn't a natural form of enrichment, like solving
a food puzzle. In humans, art therapy has been shown to improve
physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.
Good girl, Medina.
It doesn't work for all chimps.
But since taking to painting, Medina's mental state
has improved dramatically.
Good girl, Medina.
However... No, no, no, here.
When boredom sets in...
Medina! ..it's time to pack up the brushes...
Medina... Bad!
..and draw the art class to a close.
SCREECHING
They have very beautiful eyes.
The expression - it communicates a lot.
Ngamba's caregivers are always on the lookout for new ways
to stimulate the minds of their rescued chimpanzees.
They keep looking right in the lens.
They've already tried food puzzles and painting.
But what would these intelligent animals do if handed a camera?
That's a question that's long been on the mind of Audra Allen.
So, I'm really interested in learning about your forms
of enrichment here so that it'll support my current work.
And I think, really, we can just work together and learn from each other.
For the last 20 years, Audra has used art therapy to help
rehabilitate captive chimpanzees in the United States.
It's not just the painting. We know that chimpanzees can paint.
But using, erm, multimedia, teaching them to photograph and film
so that we can help and heal them.
Audra has come to Ngamba to introduce a variety of cameras
and tablets to the chimps
to try and find out if they could be useful
forms of enrichment.
The chimpanzees are going to love it because they are going to take
time to think about what's happening in front of the camera and connect
it with their real life, what they see off the lens.
So it's a good enrichment.
So I'm very excited.
First up is Bili... Hi!
..the orphan who witnessed her own mother being killed by poachers.
How are you this morning?
As one of the smartest chimps at Ngamba, Bili loves a challenge.
She's already learned how to untie and retie shoelaces.
But before she gets to grips with an expensive camera...
Bili, look.
..Audra wants to begin with a more expendable item.
So, this is just another... This is a kaleidoscope,
and what I'm doing with this is I just want to start teaching Bili
where to focus her eye.
So if she looks into the kaleidoscope, she's going
to start seeing.
Bili seems intrigued by the novelty item. Uh-uh!
Although not quite for the reason Audra had hoped.
She thinks it's a new kind of food puzzle
and seems determined to solve it.
She wants those things out.
Getting it back is easier said than done.
Here. Bili!
Being five times stronger than a human...
Bili! Bili!
..negotiations with chimpanzees have to be handled carefully.
Bili... Bili...
But not even the promise of a tasty peanut does the job.
Who's going to take peanuts when they can have something
that looks like Skittles?
You can keep your peanuts, thank you very much!
After Bili realises the treats inside are not food after all...
So, now that you see that that's...
Good girl!
..reluctantly, she accepts the trade for peanuts.
Seeing just how destructive a chimp can be, Audra hopes Bili
will be more careful with the next enrichment tool -
her personal camera phone.
Here, Bili. Who's that?
Bili seems completely mesmerised by the image on the screen.
Is that us?
Gently taking it from Audra's hand, she gives the camera
a closer inspection.
In her studied, thoughtful gaze.
What could she possibly be thinking?
The problem with studying any animal, but also the fascinating
aspect of it is you can't get inside their heads.
So we have to figure out ways to understand them without being able
to interview them.
Jane Goodall was the first person to successfully study wild chimps
back in the 1960s and she deciphered a secret code of gestures they use
to communicate, which the caregivers have also had to learn.
While some seem similar to human behaviour...
THEY SCREECH
..others are very chimp specific.
They also have around 30 different calls which they use
when they really want to grab someone's attention.
I'm crying!
Give me something.
I'm laughing!
While some vocalisations, like laughing, are genetic
and picked up from birth, others
have to be learned.
And that's where the caregivers' teaching comes in.
Most of the chimpanzees, their mothers are killed
when they are still young, and some of
the communications I have to teach them before they're integrated
into the bigger community.
Today, Innocent is helping orphan Eazy brush up
on his own chimpanzee vocabulary.
He is sounding a chimp's warning call for a potential threat.
But it's nothing to be afraid of - it's just a tiny worm.
Little Eazy is learning fast.
If it was something dangerous, I would have increased the threat
warning, so instead of saying...
HE CALLS SOFTLY
I would say...
HE CALLS LOUDLY
Being able to speak chimp is essential if Eazy is to graduate
to the forest group one day, where he will have to face dangerous
males and even poisonous snakes.
They must be able to survive on their own, and that can happen
only if they recognise dangerous things or animals or even objects.
But like any young boy, too much work is no fun at all.
Once school is out, it's back to play.
Back at the dusk enclosure, Audra and the caregivers are continuing
the new enrichment programme to try and find out whether video cameras
can be a good enrichment tool for chimpanzees.
Try to crawl with me.
Over a number of days, they introduce the technology
to a few of the females.
Yes!
That's a good girl!
Bili, look!
Just as she was gripped by Audra's camera phone, Bili is captivated
by the larger tablet.
Look here, good girl.
You see?
Pasa has her eye on the stills camera.
See that?
While Nani seems more of a camcorder kind of girl.
Good girl!
Medina, the painting chimp, is particularly intrigued
by the new art form.
Who is that? Who is that?
Who's that pretty girl?
She even puts her hand behind the screen as she tries
to figure out what's there.
You see the self-recognition?
Or does she just recognise that there's a chimpanzees
in that screen?
We know from studies going back 50 years now that chimpanzees
have the ability to self-recognise, that when they see their own image
in a mirror, they can figure out that they're looking at themselves
and not an image of another chimp.
So, if you dab a little bit of paint on their eyebrow, they'll figure out
that that's them and they'll reach for that to take that off,
they won't reach out to try to take it off in the mirror.
Scientists consider self-recognition to be a hallmark
of higher intelligence
and part of the development of empathy in animals like chimps
and humans.
That effort to reach behind a mirror to find out what's back
there is just what a child would do.
And for chimps, it's not a big learning curve.
I mean, these are smart animals.
As Medina and the other females have never seen a mirror before,
it's unlikely they can recognise themselves on these first viewings.
But one thing is certain - the cameras are definitely
stimulating their minds and are a powerful reminder
of just how special and how similar
to humans they really are.
It's another beautiful morning at Ngamba Island.
And before baby Eazy and the other chimps are let out for breakfast...
HE CALLS OUT
..Byron is taking a few females out for a walk in the forest.
It gives him an opportunity to observe how well
they are integrating.
So they get to see, to learn and to jump on trees, to exercise
themselves in the morning hours.
He wants to see how Angel, Ngamba's other baby chimp, is taking to life
in the trees.
Like baby Eazy, Angel was also born at Ngamba.
But unlike him, she was allowed to mix with the forest
group after only a year.
She's a female chimpanzee, which is an advantage.
And secondly, she was born from here, and the biological mother
is here, who is giving good care to the baby.
So she's having all the protection from the biological mother.
And she's liked by everyone in the group, all these are friends.
For a male orphan like Eazy, things aren't quite so simple
because, even though he is nearly a year older than Angel,
he is still waiting for his chance to join the forest group.
Male chimpanzees are difficult to integrate
than female chimpanzees.
That is now the disadvantage to Eazy cos he's a male chimp
and that is sort of a threat, it's sort of a threat
to other males.
So that's why Eazy's integration is a bit slower compared to Angel's.
But the final phase of Eazy's integration is drawing closer.
Having spent a year building a strong protective bond
with his group of females, and especially Connie, his adoptive
mum, the caregivers think Eazy will soon be ready to meet Ngamba's
alpha male, Umutama.
And if all goes well, he'll finally be able to live out in the forest
with the rest of the chimpanzee community.
As big as Ngamba's 100-acre forest is, it doesn't grow enough food
to feed all of the 49 chimps here.
Once a week, a delivery from the mainland arrives to restock
the island's supplies.
It takes an incredible 1,500 lb of fruit and vegetables
to satisfy their appetite.
Tomatoes!
Amongst this week's delivery is one of their favourite foods, jackfruit.
The jackfruit is the sweetest fruit for chimpanzees.
So I have to make sure that I cut smaller pieces so that each
and every individual at least gets a piece.
For baby Eazy, jackfruits are like candy.
And he is their number one fan.
One fruit he's never tried before are green peppers.
The chimps rarely get them, but mixing up their diet serves
as another form of enrichment.
And for Eazy, it's important he learns to love his vegetables.
Eazy!
Have that.
Yeah, he's fearing it cos it's the first time to see
a green pepper.
Eazy carefully observes the females tucking into this strange new food.
And after a quick sniff, he gets his chance to see
what all the fuss is about.
You see? He wants to try.
He's finding it like strange.
Is it sweet?
Is it nice?
How sweet is it?
After a cautionary test bite, Eazy decides that green peppers aren't
palatable enough for his sweet tooth.
Better stick to what you know.
And nothing beats a tasty jackfruit.
For the orphans at Ngamba, discovering new foods and learning
to use tools to find them are important life lessons,
just as they are in the wild.
So Jane Goodall discovered tool use in chimpanzees in the early
1960s and, at the time, it was not known that any wild animal
could take a natural object and fashion it into a tool and use
it in a novel way.
But chimpanzees will make and use tools in a way that they clearly
learned by watching others around them.
In the wild, chimps have to figure out how to make tools
through trial and error.
Because, unlike in humans, there's no direct teaching
from master to apprentice.
You don't have Mum picking up your hand and guiding
it and showing you how to do it,
and I think that is one of the crucial differences
in learning between great apes and the unique great ape
that is the human.
The unusual thing about life at Ngamba Island is that the special
bond between the chimps and their caregivers...
Good girl!
..means they can be taught to use enrichment tools
that they would have been unable to pick up by themselves.
And when it comes to those cameras, of all the chimps, Bili
is the most intrigued,
at times completely absorbed by the image on the screen.
She's very attentive to learning.
She knows that this is something unique and, given an opportunity,
she wants to find out how it works.
And that's why she is more interested than the others.
The other females, like Medina, the painting chimp, seem
to have lost interest, unless there are peanuts involved.
While previously she was putting her hand behind the tablet to test
the image on the screen, she's now using it as a plate.
Perhaps she's better off sticking to painting.
And leaving the camera work to Bili.
She's filming her legs.
Bili's very patient, and she's very gentle
when using it.
She doesn't intend to break it.
She takes it easy.
And that makes her very unique in the community.
Good girl, Bili! Good girl!
Amazingly, Bili even peers under the camera, seemingly
to compare the image on the screen with the real one behind.
We can't know exactly what she makes of the camera
and what she is thinking.
But in Bili, we can clearly see a curious and intelligent
mind at work.
Amongst the deafening chatter of the nesting weaver birds,
the caregivers are discussing the final phase of the integration
of their youngest orphan.
Two-year-old Eazy, who is facing the most daunting day
of his young life.
I believe it is time today.
For the last few nights, Eazy and his group of females
have been sleeping in a room next door to the alpha male, Umutama.
According to what I have observed, he still has that fear.
Keeps himself in the hammock next to his adopted mother.
This morning, the sliding door between the two rooms
is to be opened - a chance for the two individuals
at the opposite ends of the chimp hierarchy
to finally meet face-to-face.
He's not a ruthless alpha, he's quite a gentle alpha.
But we have to leave the sliding doors open in case of any problem.
We have to observe and see how this works.
With the stakes so high, the mood is tense.
Eazy seems to sense something's up and makes an early move.
As you can see already, Eazy has known that we are calling
the alpha male to come and mix with him.
So he has climbed in a hammock next to his adopted mother.
So, in case of a bad reaction, the adopted mother comes in quickly
to rescue him.
He's a very strategic guy.
Come on, come on!
The caregivers try to entice Umutama over.
But as the door between the two rooms is drawn open, he seems
in no rush to go through.
With integration, you just have to give it time.
As time goes on, they will still come and mingle.
And Umutama is the boss, he decides what he wants to do.
While everyone's attention is distracted by the bananas,
Umutama has quietly slipped into the back of Eazy's room, right
beneath his hammock.
Fortunately, he seems relaxed with the young chimp's presence
and is more interested in getting his hands
on those bananas.
If the alpha male is not targeting the baby, he's living with them freely.
To us, for now, it's a success.
After being rejected by his birth mother, and then raised by his human
caregivers, baby Eazy's integration is nearly complete.
Soon, he will be living out in the forest with the rest
of the community.
And become yet another orphan success story at the extraordinary
place that is Ngamba Island, where a dedicated team of caregivers
gives rescued chimpanzees a second chance in life,
from teaching them how to be chimps...
..to helping them recover from mental trauma,
however unusual their methods.
Today, the demand for baby chimps as exotic pets, as well as the bush
meat trade, puts the very existence of our closest animal
cousins under threat.
But with the tireless efforts of the caregivers, it's sanctuaries
like Ngamba and the people fighting to save chimpanzees in the wild
that need not be their future.
There's hope, there's hope.
There are a few individuals in this world who are committed,
who have dedicated their lives, gives me all the hope.
The ultimate goal for all orphaned chimps is to live and socialise
with their own kind.
For baby Eazy, his integration into the forest group draws closer,
and, one day, perhaps he could rise the ranks to become
Ngamba's alpha male.
Although, as a baby chimp, there's still a lot for him to learn.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media