Sue, one of the chimpanzees at the Indianapolis Zoo, inside the Culture Center in the International Chimpanzee Complex on Dec. 13. The complex, which will open on Memorial Day, features a series of indoor-outdoor habitats for the apes, connected by an overhead walking trail that winds through the zoo.
RYAN TRARES | DAILY JOURNAL
This summer at the Indianapolis Zoo, guests shouldn’t be surprised to look up and see chimpanzees clambering over their heads.
The versatile, intelligent apes will have a brand new playground that will take them all over the zoo. In stainless steel passageways that prevent the chimps from getting out, they can observe people on the ground while visitors get an up-close look at their social lives and interactions.
“To really work with chimpanzees well and do it right, the first thing we had to focus on was asking what is normal and appropriate in terms of the size of the community of chimpanzees we have, as well as their behavior,” said Dr. Rob Shumaker, president and CEO of the zoo.
Work is nearly complete on the International Chimpanzee Complex, a groundbreaking new environment for the primates that spans much of the Indianapolis Zoo’s grounds. Part of a $53 million effort known as The Campaign for Our Zoo, Our Community, Our World, the new habitat includes multiple indoor and outdoor living spaces for chimpanzees, connected by an overhead trail system that includes about a quarter mile of travel space.
The center is slated to open to the public on Memorial Day weekend.
With its unique focus on observing how groups of chimpanzees interact socially, as well as their approach to learning and cognition, the International Chimpanzee Complex will help further conservation efforts of the apes while letting zoo visitors have more personal experiences with them.
“It’s incredibly unique. Zoos are becoming more of an epicenter for this kind of science, especially as the number of animal species that are studied in university settings decreases,” said Dr. Chris Martin, director of research for the zoo. “Zoos are offering scientists and researchers the opportunity to study different types of animals, and the relationship we have to the natural world.”
In December 2022, the Indianapolis Zoo announced its massive capital campaign. Included in the projects were a newly envisioned guest welcome experience as well as the Global Center for Species Survival. The center is a first-of-its-kind partnership with the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Species Survival Commission, which is the world’s premier organization focused on species survival.
Both of those aspects opened to the public on Memorial Day weekend earlier this year.
But work has extended on the most intensive aspect of the project, the International Chimpanzee Complex — a major addition to chimpanzee conservation in the United States.
“In the U.S. in accredited zoos, the last new chimpanzee facility that was built from the ground up opened in 2004. So this is a major initiative for us here at the zoo,” Shumaker said.
Chimpanzees live in a social structure known as “fusion-fission,” which means there is a community of individuals, and in the course of a day, the animals will come and go as they please. Some individuals will go off on their own, while others work in small or even large groups. Those social encounters change repeatedly day to day.
The new habitat had to accomodate that organization, Shumaker said.
“What we really wanted to do was replicate that and give chimpanzees the ability to decide where they go and what they do and who they do it with — exactly like they do in the wild,” he said.
After visitors to the zoo enter the complex through the new welcome center, they are funneled through the Global Center for Species Survival and out into the zoo grounds. There, they encounter the first aspect of the new chimpanzee habitat: the community hub.
With indoor and outdoor areas, the community hub is dominated by a climbing structure that rises 36 feet into the air.
“It’s representative of a natural canopy level that chimpanzees might use for boreal locomotion, or to get up and make nests in the trees,” said Tim Littig, curator of primates. “There are multiple platforms, so we know when they explore the space, they like to go up to all levels of it. Some like to go up very high, some may not want to. So we allow them to make choices on how they use the space.”
Wrap-around windows give people multiple opportunities to see the chimpanzees in action. Indoor areas with heaters for cold weather and fans for summer will allow chimpanzees to be outside in nearly all types of weather, Shumaker said.
“Chimpanzees are pretty durable. They don’t mind the cold very much, but since it does get pretty cold for us, we wanted to provide some kind of heat, and a little bit of relief in the hot weather,” he said. “When this opens, we think we’re going to have certainly three seasons, and probably three-and-a-half for use of the apes.”
The hub is designed to be a comfortable habitat for all of the zoo’s capacity for the chimpanzee community — about 30 primates.
From the community hub, the chimpanzees can travel to two other indoor-outdoor facilities via the stainless steel overhead trail system.
“One of the great aspects about the complex is the ability for the animals to make decisions where they want to go, and not just have one single indoor-outdoor space for them,” Littig said.
The walkway winds through the zoo to the cognition building and multiple indoor and outdoor areas, where the apes will be engaged in a number of cognitive activities that are computer-based.
“The focus we can have here, that’s kind of unique, is a community-based cognition, because we have so many chimps. So we can see a large group of participants — how they’re all similar, how they’re all different,” Martin said. “Since they live in a big community, we can also ask them questions about how they think about their community, their social relationships, all of those things.”
A final stretch of the trail system takes the chimpanzees to the Culture Center, the largest of the indoor spaces that will focus on showcasing chimpanzee culture and tool use.
The major buildings of the International Chimpanzee Complex are finished, with only some minor touches being finished currently. The overhead trail system is about 65% done, and work will continue finishing those through the winter and spring, Shumaker said.
AT A GLANCE
International Chimpanzee Complex
What: A new exhibit featuring indoor and outdoor spaces for chimpanzees, designed to encourage natural chimpanzee behavior and mimic a wild environment.
Where: Indianapolis Zoo
How large: 9,600 square feet, including three indoor-outdoor spaces for chimpanzees connected by an overhead trail system.
When will it open: Memorial Day weekend
Information: indianapoliszoo.com
