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Gentle, trusting, kind and intelligent Azy turned 30 on Dec. 14. Photo courtesy of Steve Pope. |
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Great Ape Trust’s first resident ape, Azy has been a partner in Shumaker’s cognitive research for over a decade
Des Moines, Iowa – December 19, 2007 – Azy, a male orangutan known for his cognitive abilities and gentle disposition, turned 30 this month. He was born Dec. 14, 1977, at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., where he lived most of his life before coming to Great Ape Trust of Iowa in 2004.
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Dr. Robert Shumaker was a 19-year-old volunteer at the National Zoo in 1983 when this photo was taken of him holding Azy, then 6.
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Azy was the first resident of Great Ape Trust, and Dr. Rob Shumaker, director of orangutan research, has spent most his professional career collaborating with him on language, memory and other cognitive exercises. The scientist counts Azy as a friend and research partner and describes the orangutan as “extremely gentle, extremely trusting, extremely kind and extremely intelligent.”
Their relationship began in 1984, when Shumaker, now an evolutionary biologist specializing in ape cognition, was a caretaker at the National Zoo, and continued when Shumaker began his professional career. They have been research partners since 1995.
Azy is the only orangutan in the world who uses written symbols to communicate, and Shumaker said the advantages of collaborating on such research with a single ape over a lifetime cannot be overstated. “Developing a long-term relationship with an individual over decades allows for insights into mental abilities across a lifetime,” he said. “These types of longitudinal studies are rare, but can have tremendous scientific value.”
Shumaker said short-term studies can be useful in determining an orangutan’s cognitive abilities, but there are significant differences in the understanding gained by looking at an individual’s cognitive trajectory over a lifetime. “We can talk about what a child does on a math test in fifth grade,” he explained, “but that doesn’t tell us much about their mathematic abilities in college, and how they made that progression.”
Shumaker said it would take at least another decade of work with another orangutan to gain the level of insight into ape intelligence that he gained through partnering with Azy. “I can’t overstate the benefit of experience in terms of all of that,” he said.
Azy is particular about some things, including his nest.
Watch him prepare it here. |
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While it’s fair to say that Azy has a specific skill set that distinguishes him from other orangutans, “he is probably a typical adult male orangutan,” Shumaker said. “Azy has over a decade’s worth of experience with cognitive testing, making him special and unique in that way, but he is not the only orangutan capable of it.”
Azy enjoys close relationships with the orangutan caretaker staff, which includes senior caretakers Andy Antilla and Peter Clay, as well as Tine Geurts, a caretaker who has known Azy for about two years and has come to appreciate the ape’s playful demeanor, as well as his intellect.
“It took a while for him to become completely comfortable with me when I first started working here,” Geurts said, “but we have a lot of fun together – for example, playing with big sheets of paper, which he will put on his head and cover his face with while we are playing.”
Azy also apparently likes a sense of order in his life and is “very neat and particular in the way he does many things,” Geurts said, including the manner in which he prepares nests for sleeping.
“He’ll gather some straw together and spread it out around him with both hands,” she said. “Then he’ll take a flat bed sheet and spread it out on the straw. If there are any creases in the sheet, he’ll straighten them out with his hands. Then he turns around and lies down on the sheet on his back. Often he’ll put his feet up on the mesh in front of him and stretch his hands out above his head and lie there looking completely content.”
Despite his size – Azy weighs about 270 pounds and has an arm span of more than eight feet – Azy “is a very calm individual,” Geurts said, “apart from the fairly rare occasion when he feels the need to display.”
He also is gentle and tolerant when interacting with Knobi, an adult, and Allie, an adolescent, Great Ape Trust’s resident female orangutans. “Especially Allie will sometimes give him a few accurate blows to the head or face, or pull on his beard or cheekpad,” Geurts said. “But he’ll just let her and sometimes pretend to bite her hand. It’s a lovely sight to see them having such fun together.”
Great Ape Trust Background
Great Ape Trust of Iowa is a scientific research facility in southeast Des Moines dedicated to understanding the origins and future of culture, language, tools and intelligence. When completed, Great Ape Trust will be the largest great ape facility in North America and one of the first worldwide to include all four types of great ape – bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans – for noninvasive interdisciplinary studies of their cognitive and communicative capabilities.
Great Ape Trust is dedicated to providing sanctuary and an honorable life for great apes, studying the intelligence of great apes, advancing conservation of great apes and providing unique educational experiences about great apes. Great Ape Trust of Iowa is a 501(c) 3 not-for-profit organization and is certified by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). |
Great Ape Trust is certified by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums
