Customer Reviews

The Wauchula Woods Accord: Toward a New Understanding of Animals

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I have admired many of Charles Siebert's work over the past 10 years or so, from his essays in The New York Times to his other published works. And though I fell in love with his poetic memoir titled Wickerby, his latest work is by far, his craftiest storytelling yet. Siebert has managed to take a roughly two hour secretive encounter with a retired chimpanzee performer, who is nestled in an actual chimpanzee retirement community, and poses deep philosophical and scientific questions about the connection between the two of them, all the while trying to determine why Roger, the chimpanzee's name, seems to think he knows him from some past experience he had. Siebert weaves his past experiences with human-animal encounters along with the latest scientific data and historic accounts of human-animal interactions to help him and the reader discover some answers to the questions that just might lead us to a better understanding of animals, and ourselves. Bravo!

I like history, but I've never much cared for historical fiction. Life's too short to waste time trying to figure out what parts of a book are fact and what parts are made up. And that's where I have a problem with The Wauchula Woods Accord. It falls into a fuzzy category that you might call fictiony non-fiction. Or maybe non-fictiony fiction.

Like Charles Siebert, I have spent a lot of time at the Center for Great Apes, where I have volunteered for several years. So when I learned of this book, I felt compelled to read it. I could understand how he felt a connection with a chimp, Roger. But I was confused when I read Siebert's account of walking across the grounds of the Center in the middle of the night and slipping into Roger's nighthouse. I know that the holding areas are all carefully locked in the evenings and that all locks are double checked. Then I learned from the director of the Center for Great Apes that Siebert told her he was using "a certain amount of creative license" and that some events were "fictionalized for dramatic effect" (in Siebert's own words from a hand-written note).

OK. The author is using the fantasy of a night spent with Roger as a literary structure on which to build this story about chimps in captivity. There is a vague warning on the copyright page of the book stating that "...events such as the night-time visit and physical contact with Roger have been compressed, reordered, or embellished," but nowhere does Siebert actually tell the reader that his night with Roger is all in his imagination.

Further into the book, I discovered more factual problems. On page 162, he describes an experience in the primate house at the zoo in Portland, Oregon, that supposedly took place in 1979. I immediately realized that his description of the setting and the incident (a young chimp dousing his face with a mouthful of water) was impossible. Either he had a false memory of something that happened long ago at a different zoo, or else he was inventing the whole story -- just as he had invented the night with Roger. By the time I finished the book, I had no idea which parts were true and which were imagination. And the facts he presents about the history of chimps and other animals in captivity are not backed with any specific references, so there is no way to figure out whether he mis-remembered or creatively interpreted even those.

The Wauchula Woods Accord is a decent read, but be advised that it is a book about Charles Siebert and his feelings more than it is a book about the animals he wants us to care about and understand.

I purchased this book after having enjoyed Mr. Siebert's work in the NY Times Magazine. I think it is a fascinating and entertaining look into the author's mind, and the thinking process of higher life forms. Mr. Siebert has a real page turner here. While attempting to study the world of retired chimps, he manages to examine not only the ape's mind but that of their keepers,& the society that put them in "retirement" homes. It delves into many environmental and sociological issues, but these themes were woven in so seamlessly, that the book was hard to put down. I enjoyed it immensely and appreciate that one does not have to be a scientist to follow along on this fascinating trip!

Enthralling. Disturbing. Up-lifting.

Yes, somehow author Charles Siebert manages a hat trick.

The central narrative in the book The Wauchula Woods Accord, is the surprising connection, i.e. relationship that spontaneously happens between the author and Roger, a "humanzee": a chimpanzee that has spent his entire life living with humans, now being forced to retire in the company of other chimps. Roger must somehow find his inner chimp relinquishing his humanity. But is that even possible? Can his human/chimp psyche even be stretched that far? Isn't it too much to ask of him emotionally? And just where is the line between humanity and "chimpanity"?

Even though Roger's great ape retirement village is idyllic, he sits alone, plagued by insomnia, self-isolated from the other members of his species.

As the book progresses, Siebert dismantles the notion of anthropomorphism: the projection of human behaviors and emotions onto animals. He writes about other very "human-like" qualities found in mammals--great apes, elephants, whales, dolphins--completely dispelling the myth that only people have personalities, emotions, remembrances.

Siebert writes, "And yet it makes no difference any longer that we can't, as the standard warning against anthropomorphizing goes, possibly know what Roger is thinking. Or what a Roger day is like, or a whale's, or an elephant's, or a parrot's.

"That is one of the peculiar things about this moment we've arrived at with the animals. We've come to know enough now about the shared biological underpinnings of so many of those brains in Dr. Hof's cooler that somehow the question of what Roger's or another animal's day might be like has become wholly incidental to the fact that they clearly have days, too, and deeply wounded ones.

"Science has obviated anthropomorphism--the crime of projecting our stories upon the animals--by, of all things, repeatedly pointing out to us just how uncomfortably close to our stories so many aspects of theirs actually are."

Along the way, many of Siebert's side trips are disturbing as he details some of the anguish our kind has wrought upon the world of their kind, but in the final pages he restores our humanity, or at least the sense that it IS possible to heal a wounded psyche. And in the end we come to realize that our species is not alone, only disturbingly self-isolated like Roger.

This book is profound; its implications far-reaching. Why look to outer space for other intelligent life when it surrounds us here on earth.

Before I even got to the title page of this book I found myself reading an excerpt from a poem by Pablo Neruda:
"It so happens I'm tired of being a man...
It so happens I'm fed up -- with my feet and my fingernails
And my hair and my shadow
Being a man leaves me cold: that's how it is."

And I knew I was going to be taking a journey for a while with a fellow being (or beings, since I have to count Roger the chimp too) who knows. Knows what I am always looking away from, taking in and strangely trying to deny all at once: how it is with us and the rest of creation. How every where you look just about every species or habitat or environment is under siege from us and animal cultures are being subject to wholesale destruction. Why can't we stop? At one point Siebert fantasizes about getting right into Roger's cage and just letting him kill him (not that Roger would have) -- but I think I understand, though I also think he made a better choice in staying where he did, and putting his excellent mind and wide ranging experiences together to form this book. He doesn't try to tie up everything neatly at the end of the book, but in the end doesn't over-intellectualize the point either, just lets it stand. Roger exists -- they all do, the rest of the animals, alongside us, the other animals (the ones in denial about ourselves) and they are saying what Carole Noon heard that first night the Coulston chimps got to see the night sky and the moon in the New Mexican desert, as their sounds changed. She says she thought they were announcing themselves to the night, to the world. They were saying We live here, too. We exist. As they have every right to. Siebert doesn't miss a step along the knife edge we're travelling on this precariously balanced planet, and I am forever grateful to him for getting it all down. Just where we stand at this point in time.

I don't know if Charles Siebert's long meditation on animal intelligence amounts to "a new understanding of animals" but it certainly casts light on our shameful exploitation of them.

Written as a series of mental journeys, each excursion starts and ends during one long night in Wauchula FL where the author sat outside the cage of Roger, a chimpanzee raised in the company of people and now living in the Center for Great Apes. The author ponders what might be going through poor Roger's brain (equivalent to a 5-year old human's), as Siebert embarks on stories of his own researches into elephant culture (and its destruction caused by poaching the eldest members of so many herds), the effects of deforestation in Peru, threatened jaguars in Belize and rhinos in Nepal, visits to various chimp retirement homes around the country both good and bad, the bizarre history of humans holding "trials" to convict dangerous or destructive animals, the cruel legacy of zoos and traveling circuses, medical experimentation, and ape language experiments.

There is a lot of deeply philosophical speculation about what it means to be human, and some fairly hilarious fun-poking at Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort for their ignorant "The Way of the Master" biblical literalism. The pacing of the book is leisurely, as befits a meditation; but the author manages to put across quite a bit of information in a thoughtful, one might even say humane manner. The reader comes away sobered but sensitized.

Another book which covers some of the same ground is Eugene Linden's heartbreaking Silent Partners: The Legacy of the Ape Language Experiments (1986).

What a writer. I've read a lot of books about exotic animals throughout The Medici Giraffe and this is the most thoughtful, well-written and interesting. It has a narrative for a change, which is nice. It's a book about our relationship with animals and our growing understanding of their psychology and personalities, told through the events of a night the author spent with a chimp in the woods of Florida. Why, he asks, are we so drawn to portraying certain species as the opposite of what they are - chimps as comical man-children, elephants as kindly old women? How is this any different than the Roman's absurd caricatures of sex hungry apes or their belief that elephants could live to be 300 years old? A wonderful example artistic mastery, I loved this book because the author says so much in so few pages, without footnotes or research papers or lecturing.

What I liked:

Mr. Siebert created a complex structure to tell his story, sort of like the Russian nested figurines. Throughout, we are with Mr. Siebert and Roger (the chimp) for a minute-by-minute meeting. But during that time, Mr. Siebert casts back to a past story that tells how he arrived at this meeting. And while telling that past story, he also casts back to a different past story. Mr. Siebert maintains this structure beautifully, never toppling a board.

Mr. Siebert also introduced me to a fascinating history in which animals have been put on trial for their actions.

Ditto for his stories on the dysfunctional 'culture' of elephants, and the parallels with a lost generation of people in Uganda. Fascinating stuff.

What I didn't like:

With the above exceptions - most of the book's content.

Although Mr. Siebert talks about many studies, he does not include references. Although Mr. Siebert quotes individuals who think similarly to himself, he offers no alternative conclusions arrived at by other researchers. And some of the conclusions cry out for at least a sentence or two of contrary opinions.

I found the overwrought exploration of Mr. Siebert's "connection" with Roger wearing. I wish he'd have just pulled in a medium to discover how they knew each other in past lives, and be done with it.

Mr. Siebert was given to some grandiose statements that didn't make much sense, like stating animals had no chance for survival without humankind. None. Well, how about if all humankind were gone, wouldn't they bounce back then?

Or the conclusion that humans are the most entrapped of all animals. OK, this sounds all adolescently earnest, but.

Or the curious, human-centric observation that elephants only caressed, cared for human bones as much as their own elephant bones. OK, I've got to go look *that* up.

I found myself reading the entire book so I could learn what exactly the proposed Wauchula Woods Accord was. And when I did see it, I thought, oh, OK, I guess that sounds pretty good. Unfortunately, I can't remember it now, only 24 hours later.

I could not put this book down and cried at times while reading this book. The story is so compelling and I have for years believed that our use of primates for medical research, consumer products research, entertainment purposes or as pets is wrong. Mr. Siebert's book is written so well, that anyone on the fence in this issue will by the end of this book, choose to support the welfare of these animals.

Mr. Siebert has written an incredible account of his personal and deeply moving encounter with a chimpanzee named Roger who is caged humanely in a retirement compound in Florida. He also writes of his travels around the country to discover where other primates are housed either in retirement, still being bred, or (unbelievably) even rented out for birthday parties! These stories are also heart breaking and at times will make you angry that there are people in the US who are using these amazing animals for such frivolousness, thoughtlessness and cruelty.

This book is moving and it pushes the reader to question why humans are allowed to own these precious animals and exposes the dark side of primate ownership in our country. It must take a very sick mind for someone who in my opinion, wants to "own" one of these amazing animals with the intent of making them work for them so they can make money off of them doing tricks or as pets.

I also don't understand how scientist can perform experiments on them which are so horrific and cruel. Luckily, there are hero's in this book who ride to the rescue of many of these primates and provide wonderful places for them to live once these humans are done with them. Their stories and what they are accomplishing for these primates go a long way to make up for the former harsh treatment of these innocent animals. I for one was not surprised to find out that they are both women. These two amazing women, have established sanctuaries for primates in Florida and dedicated their lives to those primates who, if not for them would not have anywhere to go when discarded by their owners. One of the residents is Michael Jackson's chimpanzee Bubbles.

There are other animal captivity stories alongside of the primates (story) in this book. Mr. Siebert traveled all over the US and to Africa as well. He is a beautiful writer and this book will stay with you and may even haunt you, long after you finish reading it.

And not only the primates. The elephants are being perverted too. You can read about their perverted acts in The Wauchula Woods Accord: Toward a New Understanding of Animals by Charles Siebert.

The chimpanzees and orangutans have been deliberately perverted for amusement and experiments by the most perverted and dangerous primate of them all: in television shows and commercials (until they reach more than a few years of age and are no longer controllable), in circuses and zoos, by psychologists turning chimps into family members until they get tired of them, by scientists still deliberately infecting them with human diseases; it's a long and ugly list.

Elephant perversion, such as their increased violent behavior and the raping of rhinos, is simply a byproduct of the destruction of their social groups and territories by, well, you know who. This section of the book features Gay Bradshaw, an expert in animal trauma who has a book titled Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach Us about Humanity coming out in October, and Eve Abe, a Ugandan animal ethologist who draws parallels between the breakdowns in elephant and human societies.

Advocates of legal rights for animals might be interested to read that until about a century ago animals were sometimes put on trial--however, not being judged by their peers, it usually didn't end well for the accused. Victims of bestiality were killed for being too enticing and elephants were hung for murder. Meanwhile, Thomas Edison publicly electrocuted animals on a regular basis in an attempt at personal gain of currency.

The book contains several of these interesting historical and present events within an added for dramatic effect framework (a night spent with one chimp) which seems to go nowhere during most of the book but pays off in a big emotional finish. All of this is to serve what the epilogue calls the book's central premise--"the degree to which we humans will finally stop abusing other creatures and, for that matter, one another will ultimately be measured by the degree to which we come to understand how integral a part of us all other creatures actually are." Modern humans need to relearn what earlier societies knew--we're not the only people on the planet. Chimps and elephants and all the others live here too.

There's also a bit of science throughout the book such as the similarities of brains of various species, the increased acknowledgment of various personalities within each species, and that damaged individuals, non-human as well as human, can improve with proper treatment and conditions. The book's title comes from the location of one of the places trying to repair the damage, The Center for Great Apes. Other organizations featured in the book include Chimp Haven and Save the Chimps.