Fu Manchu

Summary

Radiolab: "Fu Manchu" (January 26, 2010) — Episode Summary

Main Theme Overview

This Radiolab episode explores the fascinating story of Fu Manchu, an orangutan at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, who repeatedly escaped his enclosure using a hidden handmade tool. The story delves into questions about animal intelligence, specifically whether animals are capable of intentional deception—a trait typically considered uniquely human. Through vivid storytelling and investigation, the episode raises deeper questions about what separates the minds of animals and humans, and whether those boundaries are as clear as many believe.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: The First Escape ([01:58]–[03:19])

• Introduction to Jerry Stones: Facilities director at Gladys Porter Zoo, sharing his memories from his time at the Henry Doorly Zoo.
• Fu Manchu's Community: Nicknamed "Fu" or "Phooey," the orangutan lived with several other orangutans.
• The First Escape: One day, keepers find all five orangutans high in the elm trees near the elephant building, having mysteriously escaped their enclosure.

2. The Mystifying Escapes ([03:19]–[06:37])

• Initial Investigation: The keepers think someone left a door unlocked. The orangutans had descended into a moat, entered a furnace room, climbed a ladder to a janitor’s closet, and exited into the zoo.
• Immediate Solution: Jerry blames the staff and warns them to be more careful.
• Repeated Escapes: The orangutans escape repeatedly, each time the staff insisting they had locked the doors.
• Tension Building: Jerry threatens job losses if it happens again.

"I was convinced that these people were not sharp enough to tie their shoes."
— Jerry Stones ([06:00])

3. The Great Discovery ([06:37]–[08:41])

• Caught in the Act: The staff finally catches Fu Manchu fiddling with the furnace room door.
• Observation: From afar, they can’t quite see what he’s doing, but he appears to open the lock with ease.
• Revelation: Upon close inspection one day, Jerry spots a glimmer in Fu Manchu’s mouth—a 4-inch piece of wire shaped into a horseshoe, hidden in his lower lip and used as a lock-picking tool.

"Not only did he make the tool, but he put it in a place where I couldn't find it."
— Jerry Stones ([09:01])

• Fu’s Lock-Picking Technique: The orangutan used the wire to slip the lock, akin to the “credit card trick” in movies.
• Tool Concealment: Fu Manchu’s genius was not only in constructing a tool, but in hiding it for days, evading daily exhibit cleanings.

4. Intelligence and Deception ([09:28]–[11:39])

• Tool Use vs. Deception: While animal tool-use is well documented, intentional deception suggests something cognitively deeper: imagining what others know or don’t know.
• Expert Input: Ben Calhoun brings the case to Rob Shoemaker, a primatologist at the Great Ape Trust, who studies orangutan cognition.

"Deception is special. It requires that the deceiver get into the mind of the person who they're deceiving."
— Ben Calhoun ([09:53])

• Scientific Perspective: Shoemaker notes it’s hard to definitively prove animal deception, but personally believes Fu Manchu’s actions are compelling evidence.

"Keeping a tool concealed over a whole number of days and timing his escapes so that no one was around to see him. I think the evidence is just absolutely compelling to suggest that Fu Manchu was able to deceive and was deceiving."
— Rob Shoemaker ([11:14])

5. Reflecting on Human and Animal Minds ([11:39]–[12:32])

• Awe and Humility: Jerry Stones expresses profound respect for Fu Manchu, highlighting how animals can surprise human caretakers with skills once thought exclusive to humans.

"When you think you're so smart that all the other animals are way below you, and all of a sudden you find this animal that does these sort of things... you have to be in awe."
— Jerry Stones ([11:43])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Finding the Tool:
  "I saw this little blink of light...and in there, lo and behold, there was a piece of wire about 4 inches long he had bent into a horseshoe to fit inside of his lower lip."
  — Jerry Stones ([08:03]–[08:15])

• On Deception:
  "Deception is special. It requires that the deceiver get into the mind of the person who they're deceiving."
  — Ben Calhoun ([09:53])

• On Animal Intelligence:
  "Next time you go to a zoo and you're around one, you just look at their face, and you look at their eyes, and you can see in there, there's these wheels turning trying to figure you."
  — Jerry Stones ([12:20])

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Important Segment Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-----------|--------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:58 | Jerry Stones introduces himself and the story begins | | 03:19 | Discovery of orangutans' first escape | | 04:35 | Explanation of the furnace room escape route | | 06:19 | Fu Manchu seen fiddling with the door | | 08:03 | Wire "key" discovered in Fu Manchu's mouth | | 09:53 | Discussion on the significance of deception | | 10:34 | Scientist Rob Shoemaker weighs in on animal deception | | 12:20 | Jerry reflects on animal intelligence and lessons learned |

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Episode Takeaways

• Animal Intelligence: Fu Manchu’s ingenuity in both tool-making and tool concealment points to a sophisticated level of problem-solving and possibly even theory of mind.
• Deception: The story raises the possibility that some animals are capable of true deception, requiring an understanding of the thoughts of others.
• Humility: Encounters with animal intelligence can challenge human assumptions of superiority and prompt a sense of wonder.

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Conclusion

"Fu Manchu" is a classic Radiolab story blending humor, science, and philosophy. Through the real-life escapades of a clever orangutan and the reflections of his human caretakers, it invites listeners to think more deeply about the mental lives of other creatures, and perhaps to see a glimmer of themselves in those curious orangutan eyes.

Transcript

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[Jerry Stones]

Wait, you're listening.

[Rob Shoemaker]

Okay. All right. Okay.

[Ben Calhoun]

All right. Listening to Radiolab, Radio Lab from WNYC.

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And npr.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hello, I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Krulwich.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab, the podcast. So today on the podcast, we're gonna continue the conversation that we started in our last hour. You know, animal minds, like, what can you share with, say, your dog? Like, really, truly share?

[Rob Shoemaker]

Right.

[Jad Abumrad]

In this 10 minutes, we're gonna explore a kind of sharing that we didn't get to in our last hour. One that's arguably a deeper kind of sharing comes to us from a reporter, Ben Calhoun.

[Jerry Stones]

Hello.

[Jad Abumrad]

Grew out of a conversation that he had with. Well, just listen, okay?

[Jerry Stones]

You can start anytime you want.

[Ben Calhoun]

All right, thank you very much, sir.

[Jerry Stones]

You ready to go? Are you?

[Ben Calhoun]

Yeah, absolutely. Jerry, you ready?

[Jerry Stones]

Yes, sir. Whenever you are.

[Ben Calhoun]

Let's just start with having you introduce yourself.

[Jerry Stones]

I'm Jerry Stones. I'm the facilities director at the Gladys Porter Zoo.

[Ben Calhoun]

That's where Jerry is now. But he told me this story. He was working at the Henry Dorley Zoo in Nebraska, and he was working with this orangutan named Fu Manchu.

[Jerry Stones]

I call him Fu. Everybody that loved that old boy referred to him as Foo or Phooey.

[Robert Krulwich]

Wait, let me just set the scene. So we're in the Nebraska Zoo. Where in Nebraska is this?

[Ben Calhoun]

In Omaha.

[Robert Krulwich]

Oh, in Omaha.

[Ben Calhoun]

Okay, so in the Omaha zoo, it's.

[Jerry Stones]

Fall 1967, late 66 or 67, kind of cold.

[Ben Calhoun]

The leaves have fallen off the trees. Jerry Stones is just going about his daily business.

[Robert Krulwich]

What is his daily business?

[Ben Calhoun]

Being in charge of the zookeepers. So he's kind of the top dog among the Crew of zookeepers there, and he's up at the office, and all.

[Jerry Stones]

Of a sudden, here come a couple of the keepers running up over this hill. Jerry. Jerry. Jerry. The orangutans are in the trees by the elephant building. Well, mine went dead for a minute because I couldn't figure out what the places they were talking about. And I said, what? And they. The orangs are in the trees by the elephant building.

[Robert Krulwich]

So the orangutans are no longer in their assigned area.

[Ben Calhoun]

Yes.

[Jerry Stones]

So I took off with them. We ran down there, and sure enough, there was this grove of elm trees on this hill overlooking the elephant building. And there, up in the top of these trees were all the orangutans.

[Robert Krulwich]

Oh, God.

[Ben Calhoun]

Yeah.

[Jerry Stones]

And there was Fu Manchu and his female Tondaleo, and an old female named Sophie, a big, heavyset girl, and Toba, a young female, and Dennis, a young male. And they were all up in the trees.

[Ben Calhoun]

Five of them.

[Jerry Stones]

Five of them up there, you know, looked like these huge red clumps of grapes.

[Ben Calhoun]

At this point. Jerry's a young guy, so he went Tarzan on him.

[Jerry Stones]

Back in those days, I didn't think anything about going to the top of a tree and grabbing an orang by the hand and leading him back out of the tree, even though a couple of them had already bit me.

[Ben Calhoun]

So he gets them all back in the exhibit, and they didn't know how the orangutans had gotten out.

[Jerry Stones]

No. I'm questioning everybody and not listening. I have a tendency to do that, you know. Anyway, I would get them down to the building, we put them away in the cage, and we go out to see what was going on. And in the exhibit itself, there's moats on each side of this exhibit.

[Ben Calhoun]

You know, like a zoo moat. You've got the exhibit, and then you've got where people look from, and in between, there's a moat.

[Jerry Stones]

Right.

[Ben Calhoun]

Well, down at the bottom of this moat, there was a door to a furnace room.

[Jerry Stones]

Big metal door that had just a regular furnace lock and everything on it.

[Ben Calhoun]

It was always shut, kept locked all the time that door was open.

[Jerry Stones]

What had happened? The orangs had climbed down in the moat, went into the furnace room, which was in the basement, up a ladder to the janitor's closet on the first floor.

[Ben Calhoun]

1, 2, 3, 4, 5. They all emerged from this janitor's closet.

[Jerry Stones]

And then just pushed the big glass doors open and went out into the park. I figured somebody had not locked the door shut. Oh, right.

[Ben Calhoun]

So Jerry Stones gathers his zookeepers around and he says, basically, we needed to be more careful.

[Jerry Stones]

Somebody evidently went out in that moat to do something. And when they came back in, they did not lock the door. A mistake, and it should not happen again. And everybody vowed that this would not happen again. And it didn't. Didn't happen again for about a week.

[Ben Calhoun]

A few days go by.

[Jerry Stones]

I can't even remember where I was at.

[Ben Calhoun]

And again, the orangutans, they're in the.

[Jerry Stones]

Trees by the elephant building. And, Jerry, the door was locked. Jerry, we didn't do it. We didn't do it, you know, on and on and on.

[Ben Calhoun]

So they take them all back into the building.

[Jerry Stones]

Same thing. I get there, go down to mo.

[Ben Calhoun]

That furnace room door is open again.

[Jerry Stones]

I was convinced that these people were not sharp enough to tie their shoes, you know. And they said, but, Jerry, we don't go down there. Well, somebody screwed up. So I'm discussing with these keepers what's going to happen to them and their short lives. And I swore to God, I said, look, next time this happens, somebody's being fired. A few days later.

[Ben Calhoun]

Somebody runs up to him, jerry, come. You got to come see this.

[Jerry Stones]

I go, no, not now.

[Ben Calhoun]

They ran out into the zoo, and they went to this hill that's near the exhibit. Peaked over the top of it, commando style. Down at the bottom of the moat, Fu Manchu was messing with that furnace room door.

[Jad Abumrad]

What was he doing?

[Ben Calhoun]

They couldn't exactly see what he was doing because of how far away they were. But he was fiddling with the lock, and he's fiddling, and he's fiddling, and.

[Jerry Stones]

Then all of a sudden, the door opened.

[Ben Calhoun]

Bam.

[Jerry Stones]

Just popped open. And we went boiling down the hill, and we caught him before he could do any damage.

[Robert Krulwich]

You mean the orangutan seemed to be opening the door?

[Ben Calhoun]

Yes.

[Jerry Stones]

You know, I realized now it wasn't their fault. And, you know, I ate the crow that I had to eat. And we still didn't know exactly how he did it. And we went out there and we looked around, and there was a few little sticks and stuff laying around. We thought, well, he must be using this stuff to pry the door open or do something, you know.

[Ben Calhoun]

So Jerry figured, easy solution. Clean the exhibit every day.

[Jerry Stones]

I said, look, from now on, we need to go out in this yard every day before we put the rings up and search that place over and again. You know, make sure there's no sticks or anything out there. Because I don't know how he did it, but he did it. You know, we knew what the problem Was. And we knew how to deal with it. Went along like that for a week or two. And then here come the keepers, Jerry. The orangutans are in the trees by the elephant building. And we checked it, Jerry. We did everything we were supposed to do. You know, they're bound and determined. They didn't do anything, anything wrong.

[Ben Calhoun]

So they had been searching this exhibit every day to make sure that he didn't have anything.

[Jerry Stones]

There was no. We walked that exhibit. We cleaned them all. We did everything. There was no sticks, no anything we could find that he used to pry the darn door open.

[Ben Calhoun]

No tools.

[Jerry Stones]

No tools, no nothing.

[Robert Krulwich]

Wait, aren't we now, like, how can this be? How can this be?

[Ben Calhoun]

How can this be? So he's ushering Fu Manchu through the building. They've got all the orangutans. They're moving them. And all of a sudden, he sees in the corner of Fu Manchu's mouth.

[Jerry Stones]

I saw this little blink of light.

[Ben Calhoun]

Just a little glimmer of light.

[Robert Krulwich]

Like a silver filling or something.

[Jerry Stones]

Yeah, a little shiny thing at the corner of his mouth.

[Ben Calhoun]

He walks over, pulls down Fu Manchu's.

[Jerry Stones]

Lip, and in there, lo and behold, there was a piece of wire about 4 inches long that he had bent into a horseshoe to fit inside of his lower lip and around his gum.

[Ben Calhoun]

And he's had it there for so.

[Jerry Stones]

Long that it was just polished, shiny.

[Robert Krulwich]

Suggesting what? This animal has been secreting his actual key all this time?

[Ben Calhoun]

Yeah.

[Jerry Stones]

All this stuff that we're picking up and hauling away to keep him from opening the door was of no use because he was carrying his own key with him all the time.

[Ben Calhoun]

What he had done was, was stick the wire into the space between the door jamb and the door, wrap it around the latch and pull it back. It's like the credit card trick, you know, from the movies.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jerry Stones]

Nobody taught him this. Nobody ever did anything like that around him. Not only did he make the tool, but he put it in a place where I couldn't find it. He was smart enough to know that if I found it, I'd take it away from him. The Locksmith Union of the United States gave him an honorary membership, and the zoo in Omaha had that hanging on their wall for years. I don't know if they still have it or not.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, this has been very interesting. It's a really great story to Ben. Very nice. But I don't quite understand what exactly was. Why are you telling it to me? What is the reason for this?

[Ben Calhoun]

Well, you know, there's a lot of stories of orangutans using tools, right?

[Jerry Stones]

Yeah.

[Ben Calhoun]

But even though this is a funny story, there's actually a really serious question at the heart of it about deception.

[Robert Krulwich]

Why? What's so important about it?

[Ben Calhoun]

Well, deception is special. It requires that the deceiver get into the mind of the person who they're deceiving. And nobody has been able to prove that animals can actually do this, know a human being's thoughts intimately enough, get inside their heads, and, you know, consciously deceive them. So I took the Fu Manchu story to a scientist, a primatologist named Rob Shoemaker.

[Rob Shoemaker]

Hello, Rob Shoemaker.

[Ben Calhoun]

Hey, Rob, it's Ben. Am I catching you? He's at the Great Ape Trust in.

[Rob Shoemaker]

Iowa, and I study the behavior and cognition of orangutans.

[Ben Calhoun]

And he says the Fu Manchu story doesn't prove that animals are capable of doing this.

[Rob Shoemaker]

Well, in this particular case, I can't prove it one way or another. There's always a question of whether or not it was really happening.

[Ben Calhoun]

But when I really pushed him, I'm just wondering, like, personally, do you believe in his case that it was.

[Rob Shoemaker]

He said, you know, if I had to just give an opinion about this, that deep down, I have no doubt at all. I 100% believe it was deception. Keeping a tool concealed over a whole number of days and timing his escapes so that no one was around to see him. I think the evidence is just absolutely compelling to suggest that Fu Manchu was able to deceive and was deceiving. And if someone really has that much trouble believing it, I think then maybe they ought to question, is it because I don't believe what I'm hearing, or I don't want to believe it because it's an orangutan? If they don't want to believe it because it's an orangutan, that's no excuse.

[Jerry Stones]

It was like, who taught him? I just. I couldn't figure out. I mean, when you think you're so smart that all the other animals are way below you, and all of a sudden you find this animal that does these sort of things, and, you know, people that couldn't open the door with a key right there, you, you know, you have to be in awe. I've been around a lot of other orangutans in my almost 45 years in this business. And next time you go to a zoo and you're around one, you just look at their face and you look at their eyes, and you can see in there, there's this. These wheels turning trying to figure you.

[Jad Abumrad]

Ben Calhoun is a reporter here in New York City. Thank you to him and thanks to the people who make Radiolab possible. They are.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, they're the National Science foundation and.

[Jad Abumrad]

They are the Sloan Foundation.

[Rob Shoemaker]

Yep.

[Jad Abumrad]

I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Krulovich.

[Jad Abumrad]

Thanks for listening.

[Rob Shoemaker]

Sam.

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