by Joshua Curtis
Daily Lobo
William McGrew lives with chimpanzees to study their behavioral differences when he is not teaching in England at Cambridge University.
He has been studying chimpanzees for 35 years throughout Africa.
"My whole life has been in academia as a student, professor or researcher," he said.
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McGrew will speak today at noon in the Anthropology Building, Room 178, about his experiences watching chimpanzees.
He said chasing chimps is not like a typical life in academia - he is far away from grades and promotions.
His work focuses on how each population of chimpanzees is different.
"I go from group to group. The breadth approach gives us different information. It turns out that there are many aspects of their lives: diet, social behavior, technology and sex lives," he said. "Everything shows variation place to place."
He compared the chimpanzees' differences to the cultural differences between France and England. He said if you eat horse meat in England, there would probably be protests. But in France, you can sit down to a nice horse meat dinner.
"They (the chimps) make weapons out of branches and stones as hammers to break things," he said. "Some populations use simple hammers and anvils of stone."
He said others don't use these tools, even though they live in the same environment.
McGrew said he enjoys spending time in the field, even if it's for a longer period of time than what some people might call normal.
"The longest spell I have spent in the bush is 13 months. I was in Congo this year for 11 weeks," he said. "A lot of it is a lot like camping, but people don't normally go camping for months or years."
He said that huts are built for the longer trips. For his most recent trip to Congo, though, he stayed in tents.
Being in the field teaches things that college courses don't, he said.
"I think you learn things you knew all along," he said. "You learn how your body works when you're never indoors. Your body is waiting there to do its thing."
Other than learning about your body, there are life and death skills that are important to know, he said.
"There are also practical skills - how to avoid hazards," he said. "You have to keep in mind that being bitten by a poisonous snake is not any more dangerous than crossing Central."
McGrew said he wants his work to help further the study of humans' evolution.
"I would like to believe I have contributed to the idea that there is a lot of behavioral diversity, and I hope that aids us in figuring out our evolution," he said.
He said humans and chimpanzees are closely related in their evolution.
"We are apes with big brains and walk on two legs," he said.
He said his work has allowed him to see the evolution of chimpanzees.
"In my lifetime," he said, "chimps have changed their diets as Africa develops and forests get cut down and get replaced by agriculture."
