A few years ago, I read a book about the closely related chimpanzee and bonobo apes that rocked my world. In “Our Inner Ape”, Frans DeWaal describes a hierarchical power struggle within the polity of ape colonies that so closely resembles the human societal structure that the near kinship between chimps, bonobos and homo-sapiens becomes hard to deny. From the periodic political upheavals to the nature of the patriarchal/matriarchal command, to the general monkey-business that persists between the sexes, the chimpanzee and bonobo apes seem to share the wholesale array of human behavioral traits (not to mention 98% of our DNA). And Mr. DeWaal makes a masterful case to this effect. Yet in the years since my initial reading of “Our Inner Ape” and my subsequent readings on the topic, I had never had the opportunity to see these apes in person. So it was with much anticipation that I recently visited the famous San Diego Zoo, home to one of only a few bonobo colonies in the U.S. (I would have to go to the zoo in Los Angeles to see the chimpanzees).

As good fortune would have it, I met there a fellow ape enthusiast who would accelerate my acquaintance with the San Diego bonobos. David and I had read much of the same material and he, like myself, had developed a keen interest in these apes. Living in nearby Del Mar, David had been making weekly pilgrimages to the resident bonobos for the past couple years and it was obvious that during this time he had developed a rather strong wavelength with the colony. To the uninitiated, one might think David to be a strange sort, frequenting this bunch of apes as he has. But I don’t think so. I think I understand. Locking eyes with these intelligent beings is like peering into the stuff of an evolutionary past, grand and timeless, representative of the ancient bloodstock from which we humans have emerged. (Current genetic understanding estimates a common ancestor for the chimpanzee, bonobo, and homo-sapien at having existed some 4-million years ago, with the chimp and bonobo species becoming distinct more recently.)

Seeing these bonobos in the flesh was like a great polishing to what I have come to know of them from books. These animals are delightfully beautiful and it saddens me to learn that they are only expected to exist in wilds of Africa for another thirty or so years. But for this glimpse of them that I have been granted, I am forever grateful.