Over time, the chimps became less afraid of Jane, and more hostile toward her. Several of the males would attack her when they saw her, hitting her in the head with branches, knocking her over, pounding her with their hands and feet. However, she never reacted. She curled up in a ball and tried to ignore the aggression. Eventually, they realized that she was not a threat and began to mostly ignore her. They were becoming habituated to her presence. Habituation means learning or getting used to something new. Like when you first here a new noise, you pay attention to it but if it continues, you stop paying attention. But there were still many individuals, especially mothers with infants, that she was not able to get close enough to observe well. She had another pressing concern, Louis Leakey had managed to secure funding for Jane's first year in the field, including support from the National Geographic Society. But they wanted something in return for their investment, photographs and film. Nowadays, we take our phones into the forest and snap pictures as we go, back then, equipment was not so portable. With the rough terrain, the heavy vegetation, and the skittish chimps, it was nearly impossible to get clear pictures. Here's a photo taken in the first years and this was one of the better ones. This put the future of the project in jeopardy. Jane had to find a way to document the important work she was doing. How could she get even closer to the chimps. The solution came about somewhat by accident. David gray beard a male chimp, who is feeding in a tree near Jane's camp, when he spotted something even better to eat, a banana sitting on her table. He snatched it and ran away. Jane decided to begin leaving bananas out in her camp to encourage David gray beard to come by and visit, which he did. Eventually, attracted by bananas, other chimpanzees began to visit her camp too. Finally, Jane started to be able to watch and record detailed social interactions, who groomed whom, for how long, what gestures and vocalizations did they use to communicate. She even learned that Goliath, shown here in the center of the picture, was the alpha male, the highest ranking member of the group. Everyone else backed down when Goliath was around. Around this time, the National Geographic Society, sent a professional photographer, Hugo van Lawick, to get photographs and film. Look at the size of his camera, this would be no easy task. To keep the chimpanzees away from camp, and to establish a place where Hugo could set up his heavy equipment, Jane and Hugo setup a permanent feeding station further into the forest. Eventually, all the Chimpanzees in the area, even the shyer females and their infants, visited the feeding station most days. In this way, they all became habituated to human observers. Hugo was able to capture close-up photos of the chimps and shoot wonderful film that formed the basis of National Geographic specials, that made Jane and Gombe Chimps famous. The funding for the study was secured. The National Geographic continued to fund the study for many years. The feeding station, allowed Jane and her assistants to make detailed observations of social behavior. When old female Flo started visiting feeding station with her family, Jane learnt more and more about mothering behavior and family relationships. Here's Flo grooming her adolescent son, while her juvenile daughter and infant son rest nearby. Jane learnt that even once weaned, Chimpanzees travel and spend time with their mother for years to come. Over the next few years, Jane hired assistants to help with her research. I started working in Gombe 1970 straight after I'd finished my undergraduate degree. Here's a picture of one of my first days at Gombe. Part of my duties, was to record the behavior of all the chimps as they came to the feeding station. When adult males came, they usually announced their arrival to the others by displaying and pant hooting and slapping the oil drum in front of the main building, which made a lot of noise. This oil drum had been put their years earlier so that chimps didn't bang on the doors of the building. Although the feeding station allowed close observation, there was some problems with feeding the chimpanzees at a central area. They fought over the bananas and were aggressive to baboons that were also attracted to the area as you see pictured here. Coming to the same place every day, also change their natural ranging patterns. Another major concern, is that chimpanzees can get many of our diseases. So the close contact with them through food, put them at risk. Because of these concerns, researchers at Gombe eventually stopped feeding the chimpanzees bananas. Today, researchers starting new field studies attempt to habituate their subjects without feeding them. This means lots of research assistants spending long hours sitting quietly in the forest, until the chimpanzees learn that there's nothing to be afraid of. Now that the chimpanzees at Gombe are all used to people and ignore them, we can follow them as they go about their daily lives in the forest without disturbing them.
