Jane Goodall is not impressed at the zoo. Picture by Amit Datta

The champion of the chimpanzees did not like what she saw at Alipore zoo on Friday morning.

“The male chimpanzee was urinating and catching it in his mouth, which is what they do when they are bored,” observed primatologist Jane Goodall, who has spent five decades researching chimpanzees in the Gombe forest of Africa.

“There are two chimpanzees at the zoo, and while the male was in a moderate-sized open enclosure, the female was shut in a dungeon-like place. No one could tell me why the two were being kept apart,” said the 72-year-old. “The chimpanzees have nothing to do. The male looked healthy, but he was not fit. He couldn’t be fit, he has nothing to climb.”

Goodall, on her first visit to Calcutta as part of a British Council-Aranyak initiative to screen wildlife films at Nandan, reached the zoo around 10.45 am and spent close to 45 minutes there.

She headed straight for the chimps, before checking out the birds, elephants, bear and big cats. “The bear has such a tiny cage. The lions, too, are in prison-like enclosures, and all alone. I do not know why the animals are put alone in cages,” repeated Goodall. “There is much that can be done to improve the zoo.”

Goodall, who was accompanied by vice-president of the Jane Goodall Institute Mary Lewis, has already dashed off a report on what she saw to the director of the zoo. “I offered to provide him with any information that might help in improving the conditions,” she stressed.

On Thursday, she had been requested to check out the condition of the zoo. “Are there chimpanzees in this zoo?” she had asked, and on hearing that there were, she said: “Well, then I must visit it.”

Goodall, who delivered a lecture at Nandan on Friday evening before the screening of When Animals Talk, is not against keeping animals in zoos. “People are cutting down trees, there’s not enough forest cover and animals are being hunted. Chimpanzees are being hunted for meat. At the zoo, the animals will at least be safe. But, of course, the zoo has to be properly maintained.”

Listing the requirements of any chimpanzee being kept in a zoo, Goodall said: “There must be enough space and trees for them to climb. There must be a community, not just one or even a pair. Chimpanzees are intelligent animals and they need something to enrich themselves with, and the best way is through social manipulation. They must also think and work to get food.”