Context is Everything

 "Where's her mother?"

That's the question that I saw over and over again as news station after news station shared the pictures and video of Maisie, the new baby chimpanzee at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore.  I didn't say "from" the Maryland Zoo because that is not, in fact, where Maisie comes from.  The adorable baby chimp was born at the Oklahoma City Zoo, but her mother failed to care for her.  Hand-raising is always an option, but then what?  When you're dealing with a super social, behaviorally complicated animal like a chimpanzee, the only real solution is other chimps.

The decision was made to transfer the little ape to Baltimore, where the goal is to integrate her into the troop of chimpanzees there.  Of course, you don't just dump an infant in with a group of big, powerful adults (especially of a species that is known to eat small primates, including other chimps).  You carefully, slowly introduce them - which means that, in the meantime, someone (or someones) on the keeper staff is playing mama.  

That leads to lots of cute footage - after all, chimp babies really aren't that different from human babies at a quick glance.  Raising a baby chimpanzee seems like social media gold.  The problem is that if news stations take cute video clips and run them without much context - or even if they do have pertinent information in the linked article, but not in the post itself on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, things can get taken out of context.

One post I saw didn't even mention that there was a zoo involved.  It just looked like there was a baby chimp in someone's house being tickled.  Some people seemed ticked off.  All of them settled back down when other viewers explained the context of the story to them... but what if no one had?  It could lead to a lot of people being angry... or a lot of people wanting to know how they, too, could cuddle a baby chimp, maybe supporting some sketchy places and sketchy people.

It's for that reason that I'm always wary about posting my animal stuff on social media.  I dread the near certainty of someone sharing it, and then it getting shared again from there, and so on, until soon there's just a picture of some weirdo hanging out with an exotic animal, doing something that might be dangerous (or look dangerous) and encourage either a) bad behavior or b) outrage.

Not saying that hand-raising a baby chimpanzee and introducing it into another social group isn't newsworthy. It certainly is, and is a major achievement for Baltimore - one they've done before (which is why they were chosen for this difficult undertaking).  They should share it and be proud of it.  The responsibility lies with the media, however, to make sure that they are conveying an accurate story as to what is going on.

Maisie is doing well and growing quickly, as baby chimps are wont to do.  She won't be tiny and cute forever.  Soon, she'll hopefully be living with a foster troop and living the good chimp life (at which point her keepers will presumably be able to get a respectable amount of sleep again).  Baby pictures on the internet, for good or for ill, can last forever.