Primates | 60 Minutes Full Episodes
In a Nutshell
Bonobos, mountain gorillas, and rhesus macaques are being studied to understand primate social behavior and conservation success. Bonobos demonstrate peaceful, female-led societies that resolve conflicts through frequent sexual contact instead of violence. Conservation programs for gorillas and rhesus macaques show how tourism revenue, community involvement, and scientific research can reverse population decline and build resilience against environmental disasters.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Most people know that chimpanzees are our close cousin. They share over 98% of our DNA. We also have another primate cousin just as close. They're called bonobos. They may look like chimpanzees, but they are an entirely separate species of ape, and their behavior couldn't be more different. Bonobos are the only great apes that live in female dominated groups. And unlike chimps and humans, which are often violent and aggressive with each other, bonobos would rather make love than war.
Bonobos are an endangered species and only found in one place, the Democratic Republic of Congo. In central Africa, Congo's been torn apart by war for decades, keeping researchers away, which is why bonobos are the least understood apes on the planet.
The world's only sanctuary for bonobos sits on the outskirts of Congo's capital, Kinshasa. It's called Lola Ya Bonobo, the NOBO paradise. This refuge was created by conservationist Claudine Andre. She's Belgian born, but has lived in Congo most of her life. If you ask her why she cares so much about bonobos, she'll tell you, just look into their eyes. The way they look in your eyes deeply in your soul. It's rare that most primates don't maintain eye contact like that. It's a threatening gesture if you do with a gorilla, but bonobos look right at you.
Bonobos may have a brain that's a third the size of ours, but they're remarkably intelligent. Those high-pitched screeches are a sophisticated form of communication, and their gestures are unmistakable. Like chimpanzees, bonobos use tools in a wide variety of ways and are capable of abstract problem solving. They have been observed using sticks to test water depth, selecting longer sticks when shorter ones prove inadequate.
Bonobos are unique among great apes because they're not dominated by males. According to Brian Hare, a Duke University evolutionary anthropologist who studies them at Lola, it's the females who run the show here. If you try to be an alpha male, you will be, as the Congolese say, corrected by the females. Not just by one female, but by sort of an alliance of females. Bonobos really violate a rule of nature where usually if you're bigger, you're going to be dominant. Here, females are actually smaller, but they're still not dominated by males because they work together.
What's more, bonobos have never been observed to kill each other. The same can't be said of chimpanzees or of humans for that matter. Bonobos on the other hand, they don't really have that darker side. So that's where they could really help us is how could it be that a species that has a brain the third of the size of ours can do something that with all our technological prowess we can't accomplish, which is to not kill each other.
The answer might be found in Bonobo's favorite pastime. These apes have more sex more often in more ways than any other primate on the planet. Their sexual contact is so frequent, Brian Hare refers to it as the bonobo handshake. It's not that they want to procreate or have kids. It's not that they even find each other attractive. It's just a negotiation. And it's hardly surprising that many of these negotiations take place over food. Chimpanzees will fight each other over food. Bonobos won't necessarily fight each other. So basically, chimpanzees get primed for competition. Testosterone increases. Bonobos, they get really stressed out and if they feel like they're not going to be able to share, they get really anxious and then that drives them to want to be reassured and they then happen to have a bonobo handshake to feel better. Males will do that with females, males will do that with males, females will do that with females, doesn't matter even the ages, any combination, any age.
It's an irony that this peaceloving primate is being hunted to extinction. Though it's illegal to kill or capture bonobos in Congo, that hasn't slowed their rapid decline. Forest animals are sold in bustling bush meat markets for food. At the largest in Congo's capital, Kinshasa, you can buy monkeys, porcupines, even alligators, dead or alive. Bonobos aren't openly sold here anymore, but you can still buy them in many parts of Congo. Their orphaned babies often end up in the only place that can care for them: Lola Ya Bonobo.
The babies arrive traumatized, often injured. Each is assigned a surrogate human mother, and their job is to raise the babies as their own, showering them with the love and attention the orphan apes so desperately need. It's incredible to see them up close like this. They are so human. Claudine Andre says, for sure they are great apes. They are not us and we are not them. But we have a line in the middle of the two world that we cross all the time. Baby bonobos are as playful as any human toddler and just as curious.
Susie Quettoendanda is in charge of the bonobos's welfare at Lola and oversees their rehabilitation. She has a child of her own. She says there is no more difference. You really have to be a mother to this baby. Most of the time you need experienced mothers. They give love and affection and this is the only way to save them. That's what saves these babies. They need love. Absolutely. Without that they die.
Susie decided to study bonobos because she felt they could teach us a lot about human evolution. After 5 years at Lola, she realized that their behavior is closer to ours than she'd ever imagined. It is hard not to think of them as humans because we share most of the time with them. You spend all day with them. At the end of that day, Susie sees to it the babies are tucked into their hammocks for the night. At 6:00 p.m., it's lights out. They don't need a story because they're tired. They spend all the time jumping in trees, playing so much. They're exhausted.
By age five, the orphaned apes move from Lola's nursery to the kindergarten where their peers teach them something their human mothers never could. They teach them how to be bonobos. They still crave affection, but they're also more confident and have started developing their own distinct personalities.
Claudine Andre came across her first bonobo 20 years ago. The country was racked by violence and on the verge of a brutal civil war. She volunteered to help at a local zoo and that's when she saw a baby bonobo. The zoo director warned her about getting too close. He said, "Don't put your heart in this animal." It was the first time for me I hear this word and he say they never survive in captivity. So he was warning you don't fall in love with a bonobo because it's going to die. But it was a sort of challenge. There are now more than 70 bonobos at Lola. Many of the original orphans have children of their own.
To save these primates from extinction, their numbers in the wild will have to grow. Six years ago, the team from Lola decided to try to release some back into the forest. Nothing like it had ever been done with bonobos before. They handpicked nine apes who they thought would do well on their own. They have to be able to get along in a group as well as be strong themselves. It's just like you chose people to go in the moon. The site they found to release the bonobos is about as remote a place as you can find on the planet. It's a 3-hour flight deep into the wilderness of northern Congo, then a long, slow ride up the Leapori River in a dugout canoe. Life along the river hasn't changed much in centuries. Congo is one of the least developed countries in the world and has millions of acres of virtually untouched forest.
It may look pristine, even peaceful, but many of the people who live in these parts have suffered from years of war. The wildlife here was decimated. The bonobos disappeared from this area because of hunting for bush meat. And also during the war, soldiers would hunt here. For a while, we couldn't see anything, just dense forest spilling over the banks of the winding river. Then Claudine began calling out the names of the apes she herself once mothered all those years ago. They knew. That's crazy. They're responding to me. They know I'm here. We still couldn't see them, but they could hear Claudine. And suddenly, the forest was alive with the sound of apes, excited to hear her voice once again. One by one, the bonobos came to the water's edge to see the people who'd saved their lives.
Claudine and her team weren't sure releasing bonobos back into the wild would work. And although some had trouble adapting, most now seem to be thriving. Tumb, the bonobo Claudine is perhaps most proud of. For 17 years, she was trapped in a tiny cage at a Kinshasa laboratory. Now she's the leader of the group. And she gave us a first baby born here. So it's my friend or my sister. Your family. This is as close as Claudine allows herself to get. Now that they're wild, she doesn't want the bonobos to get used to humans ever again. Do you still find it thrilling when you suddenly see them after all this time? Oh, yes. It's so nice for me. It's so nice present to return to the wild and be free. This is what you dreamed of. Yes. With close to a million species now threatened with extinction, it's not often you hear about a conservation success story.
As we first reported in November, the mountain gorillas of the East African nation of Rwanda are just that. When American naturalist Diane Fossey moved to Rwanda half a century ago to study mountain gorillas, their numbers were dwindling down to just 254 individuals. But today they're up to over 600 with another 400 in neighboring Uganda, the only great ape whose numbers are actually on the rise. How they've done it? A joint effort by scientists and government to save gorillas and help the human communities around them with a key role played by tourists. These are the Virunga volcanoes, home to most of the world's mountain gorillas. Diane Fossey aptly called them gorillas in the mist. But when the mist lifts, they are gorillas in the sun doing what mountain gorillas do. Eat, rest, eat some more, and snuggle. When you look in the eyes of a gorilla, you see a kindred spirit looking back at you. They are so much like us. They have friends. They have enemies. They love to play. They love to eat. They love to nap. They are incredible moms and incredible dads.
Primatologist Tara Stoinski heads the Diane Fossey Gorilla Fund, a nonprofit research and conservation organization that grew out of Fossey's work. She was in the forest for 18 years. Fossey was sent to Rwanda in 1967 by famed anthropologist Louis Leakey who had also sent Jane Goodall to Tanzania to study chimps. The people in the region they gave her a nickname Nyiramachabelli which meant woman that lives alone in the forest. I'm sure they wondered like what was she doing up there? Strange woman living in the forest and very tall. She was 6 foot. What she was doing, as Stoinski showed us, was observing gorillas for hours a day. What she would do each night is come back and type up all of her notes. Fossey's research and her appearances in National Geographic helped change the perception of gorillas from aggressive King Kong brutes to the gentle vegetarian giants they actually are.
But gorillas back then were under assault. At the time people unfortunately wanted parts of gorillas as trophies. So, they wanted a gorilla head for their mantel piece or a gorilla hand. The gorilla's habitat was also being eaten away as thousands of acres of forest were cut down so farmers could plant cash crops up the mountain side. The demarcation line between farmland and forest stands out like a bad haircut, showing how little land gorillas have left. We cut down their homes. Unfortunately, that's the story for wildlife around the world.
But here, that story is getting a rewrite. And the new version starts at Volcanoes National Park headquarters every morning, where tourists gather to trek to see gorillas led by expert guides. They can live up to 45 years. The Rwanda government regulates the visits, no more than eight people per group, for just one hour with the gorillas with precautions taken to protect them from human illness. The price tag is steep. $1,500 per person, turning Rwanda, a country known for its horrific 1994 genocide, not so much for its beautiful scenery, into a prime destination for the wealthy. Some of the most luxurious hotels in the world have opened here, generating tens of millions in tourism revenue. Other countries have diamonds, oil. Would you say that gorillas are the most important natural resource of this whole country? Definitely. It's one of, if not the top source of foreign revenue is tourism to see the gorillas for the whole country.
The government gives 10% of the money from those gorilla treks to districts that border national parks in a program called tourism revenue sharing. Chief park warden Prosper Uwingeli met us at a local primary school. Behind him was the old school. Behind me, look at the windows. New classrooms paid for by tourism revenue sharing funds. It costs $1,500 to go see the gorillas for one hour. Special experience. He admits it's a lot, but says it's made a tremendous difference in his meetings with local leaders. We go there and we listen to what communities want the revenue sharing to support. They decide. This village built a health center. This one, new housing with water tanks and electricity. Here a new marketplace. The 10% gives communities up to $650,000 US a year.
Prosper Uwingeli divides his time between greeting tourists, managing his rangers and traveling around these villages, talking, cajoling, and celebrating what tourism revenue has achieved. A few years back, this community chose to get milking cows, which have since had calves. So, the cows are now being given to new needy families. And those colorful striped sweaters, they're a product of tourism revenue sharing, too. One year, this community used its funds to buy knitting machines. A lot of the guides, porters, come from these communities. And some of them are former poachers themselves. Some of the porters and guides were poachers or come from poacher families. So has all poaching of gorillas stopped? Yeah. In Rwanda, yes. Confidently, yes. But gorillas can still get caught in snares set for smaller animals like antelopes. So the Fossey fund dispatches a small army of trackers every morning, 365 days a year. We go out into the forest. We know every gorilla in all of the families that we monitor. We check and make sure every one of them is okay. If one looks ill, we'll notify the veterinarians. And we call this extreme conservation. It could also be called an extreme workout.
We set off on a gorilla trek with Stoinski, Uwingeli and a team of porters. Visiting mountain gorillas is no walk in the park. It's an uphill hike for more than an hour at an altitude of 8,000 ft through that farmland that once belonged to the gorillas. Just as we reached the park border. Oh my goodness gracious. I can't believe it. A silverback used to seeing tourists sat calmly eating. He's right here. Come. Come. Unfazed by our gawking and pointing. Uwingeli told us he's an adult male named Lisanga. Fossey fund country director Felix Ndagijimana taught us how to signal that we come in peace. Inside the park after more climbing. Look, Leslie, look. Oh, look at the baby. Oh my goodness. We found the rest of Lisanga's group. Let's follow them. Uwingeli told us the dominant silverback was heading higher up the mountain. So, the whole group was following and so were we. In a sign of the population's health, this group has five infants and several juveniles. They're having a ball. She told us they play for fun and to practice fighting or perhaps just to show us who's boss near us in the forest. It sounded like a silverback photo shoot was going on, but Fossey fund research assistant Nadia Neon wasn't snapping ordinary pictures. She was using a technique called photogrammetry to get better measurements of gorilla size. By beaming lasers onto the gorilla's body and head, which it doesn't feel. Back at the office, she uses the dots to make precise calculations of their size.
Science remains the heart of the Fossey fund's mission. They have the largest collection anywhere of gorilla skeletons where scientists from around the world come to do research. And a gorilla poop lab. You gather their poop. It's like a treasure trove of information for us to study stress hormones and do DNA and paternity testing. But Stoinski says they're running out of space. So, they're constructing a new multi-building green campus with initial funding from Ellen DeGeneres. The campus will celebrate the progress made in saving mountain gorillas with plenty of space for researchers, exhibits for tourists and people from local communities, and views of the volcanoes. And you can see the mist, and it really rolls in. The building process itself reinforces the fund's motto, helping people saving gorillas. It's employing more than 1,500 local workers, more than 20% of them women. One exhibit on display here will teach visitors to speak like a gorilla. We can play. Welcome to Gorilla Town. We're happy that you want to learn to speak like a gorilla. It plays gorilla vocalizations somewhat comparable to human ones. Yes, gorillas laugh. Isn't that great? So, the idea is that you have to try and mimic it. That's impossible. She gave me one she said was simple. So, this is the pig grunt. What does it mean? It's kind of like a mild warning. The sort of human version is uh uh uh you're on thin ice. Try again. I did such a bad job. It's hard. So fun. Stoinski wants school kids to come and be inspired to solve the next set of problems. Increasing numbers of gorillas inhabiting a fixed amount of space. As the population has increased, but the habitat hasn't, it is putting more pressure on the gorillas. And so the government is looking to try and expand the park so that there will be more space so that population can continue to grow. There are plans to expand the park by 23% and relocate communities to what the government calls model villages like this one with electricity and brand new schools trying to make park expansion another win-win for gorillas and their human neighbors. It's a success story. It is a success story definitely, but we say it's a fragile success because there are so few of them left and there are still so many threats. But for now, the news is good. Last year, 33 new baby gorillas were born here. Wow. I mean, you can't have enough of telling the stories of gorillas when you look at the moms carrying the babies. Do you know that when you talk about gorillas, your face completely lights up? I know about it. But much of the smile comes from what they are helping us to achieve. That's really the best way we can save the next generation of kids and gorillas. Oh my goodness. And people with extreme weather events on the rise across the globe. We were interested in a study that's taking place on a remote island very few people are allowed to visit where scientists are studying how the stress of these environmental crises affect longevity and overall health. As Leslie Stahl first reported in 2023, the subjects are not what you'd expect. They're monkeys. Rhesus macaque monkeys who've been studied there for over 80 years because 94% of their DNA is the same as humans. They survived with relative environmental stability until 8 years ago when the island was hit with a devastating storm. After taking tests for tuberculosis, measles, and COVID, Leslie and her team were allowed to visit the island called Cayo Santiago or Monkey Island off the coast of Puerto Rico. There are roughly 1,800 monkeys on Cayo. They live in isolation in what is a natural laboratory halfway between captivity and the way they would live in the wild. Yeah. But are they fighting? Yeah. Yeah. She's looking around and screaming for help, trying to get others to come to her aid. Wow.
Biologists James Higham of NYU and Noah Snyder-Mackler of Arizona State University are part of a team of investigators in this long-term research project. What's the lifespan? Usually the lifespan here on the island for the females, the median lifespan is about 18 years and then in males about 15 years, right? Do they have is there a predator? Is there any? No predators here. Another way life here is unlike the wild is that these guys are served their meals every morning. Researchers tell us there's a hierarchy. The highest ranking monkeys get to eat first. I've even seen high-ranking individuals go up to a lower ranking individual who is eating food in their mouth and hold their mouth open and take the food out of their mouths and then quit. What did they get? Purina monkey chow. There's monkey chow made by Purina. Oh my goodness. Rhesus monkeys are commonly used for medical research because they are close relatives genetically and physiologically similar to humans. They have systems that are quite like us, eyes that are like us, lungs and hearts that are like us. These Rhesus macaque monkeys, their ancestors, came here from India in 1938. The macaque is used in larger numbers for medical and zoological research than any other kind of primate. American primatologist Clarence Carpenter took 500 of them on a grueling 14,000 mile sea voyage that lasted 51 days. He wanted to create a naturalistic research facility to study the monkeys' social and sexual behaviors. Their early years here were tough. Many died from disease, but enough of them lived on so that by the 1950s, scientists began tattooing them and taking a daily census. That meticulous recordkeeping has continued with today's monkeys, all of whom descended from the original group, giving scientists rare access to more than six decades of their biological and behavioral data. One of the things they learned is that they're highly adaptable, acclimating quickly to the island. They also learned that they can be quite aggressive, especially around food and during the mating season. Are these monkeys intelligent? Sure, they're they're pretty intelligent. You know, they're socially intelligent. How similar to us are they and how they live? They form really strong social relationships with their best friends and their family members. They have best friends, some close friends, some best friends, right? Rhesus monkeys live in female-led societies. Mothers, daughters, aunts, and grandmothers stick together in groups, while the males leave when they
Research assistants Daniel Phillips and Jose Negron have worked on Cayo Santiago for years and document daily behaviors including aggression, grooming, vigilance, and feeding. They arrive every morning by boat at 7:00 a.m. and work for the next seven hours. The researchers recognize individual monkeys by their walking patterns, movements, and facial features, noting that monkey faces become as ordinary to their eyes as human faces. They can also identify family relationships, such as determining that one monkey is the son of a particular female.
Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in September 2017 with 155 mph winds that destroyed homes, office buildings, the power grid, and communication systems, killing nearly 3,000 people. Angelina Ruiz Lambiti, then scientific director of Cayo Santiago and seven months pregnant, sheltered with her family outside San Juan. James Haim and Noah Snyder-Mackler could not get news about colleagues or the monkeys, so two days after the storm, the team hired a helicopter to survey the island.
The helicopter survey checked for visible monkeys, their survival status, vegetation condition, and standing pools of water. Angelina accompanied the pilot and recorded footage showing 80-plus years of research work completely flattened. Before the hurricane, the island had a dense canopy of trees and lush foliage; afterward, the green oasis turned brown and was buried in dead branches. The island lost two-thirds of its vegetation.
Initial aerial estimates suggested only 300-400 monkeys survived out of 1,700, but a complete ground census revealed most had lived, with only about 50 deaths. Researchers remain puzzled about survival strategies during the storm, including where monkeys sheltered from the wind and what they ate without regular feeding. One hypothesis is that the hurricane deposited seaweed and algae on the island, providing alternative nutrition that the monkeys still appear to enjoy.
After the hurricane, monkeys adjusted to a more hostile environment with reduced shade and vegetation. Replanting efforts have been hindered because monkeys uproot new trees before they can grow. Monkeys now cluster in limited shaded areas due to changed shade distribution. Researchers observed increased social behavior and greater tolerance among individuals, which contrasts with expected competition over scarce resources.
The increased tolerance and social bonding among monkeys parallels human responses to disasters, where communities often unite despite resource scarcity. Blood tests conducted over 13 years revealed that monkeys who survived the hurricane showed immune systems aged an extra two years on average, equivalent to 6-8 human years. Researchers hypothesize that individuals with stronger social bonds and friendships may have been protected from the stressful event.
The hurricane opened new research avenues examining what predicts survival of catastrophes like earthquakes or hurricanes and how quickly recovery occurs. Given the strong similarity between these primates and humans, findings about resilience factors may be translatable to human populations and could inform interventions to buffer against negative effects of traumatic events.
The Medidi wilderness in the Bolivian Amazon represents a unique ecosystem where the Andes meet the Amazon, with icy peaks descending directly into steamy jungles. British biologist Rob Wallace, working with the Wildlife Conservation Society, discovered a new monkey species after a decade of exploration in this region.
Medidi National Park, roughly the size of New Jersey, may be the richest place on Earth for animal life. The park contains diverse wildlife including otters, tapirs, caimans (southern caimans), and capybaras (the world's largest rodents). Researchers estimate approximately 1,100 bird species may eventually be documented in the park, exceeding the total bird species found across all of North America.
The expedition faced significant logistical challenges including shallow rivers requiring passengers to exit and push boats, hidden obstacles that damaged vessels, and difficult terrain consisting of water, mud, and dense jungle. The team encountered herds of wild pigs that communicate through jaw-clicking sounds while cracking palm nuts with their teeth. Herds of 250-300 animals have been observed, and stampedes are theoretically possible.
The new monkey species is characterized by small territories and territorial behavior, with pairs duetting each morning to defend their territory. Researchers use recorded calls from other groups to elicit responses and locate the secretive animals. After extensive searching, the team achieved their first sighting of the new species, described as a cuddly ball of red and gold fur.
The newly discovered monkeys mate for life, with males carrying and sheltering their young. They display close, affectionate behavior including tail entwining when sitting together. The primary distinguishing characteristic is the golden crown color, which initially alerted Wallace to the possibility of a new species. This conclusion has been supported by scientific peer review.
Wallace plans to auction the right to name the new monkey species to raise funds for Medidi's park management plan and protection efforts. Rather than naming the species after himself, which is considered poor form in scientific circles, the auction approach could generate significant funding for conservation. Wallace emphasizes that protected areas like Medidi are inspirational beyond their economic and ecological importance.
From 110 feet up in the forest canopy, researchers gain perspective on the spectacular landscape, including views of macaws flying below. The descent reveals brilliant rainbow colors of macaw feathers caught by sunlight, demonstrating the extraordinary biodiversity visible from the upper forest levels.
Keep 60 Minutes in your library
Save the videos and channels worth coming back to, and find them again in one place.
