Reflections on William C. McGrew “Chasing after chimpanzees. The making of a primatologist”

„This well-spoken intellectual is crawling through the jungles of Africa chasing chimpanzees? I have a hard time believing that!“ Remarked a Belgian sports-educator after she met William McGrew at a birthday party in the „Schlößchen of Andechs“ in December 2016. It was one of the last merry gatherings in that place, the Research Unit for Human Ethology of Max Planck Society, before the buildings and big park were sold to an investor. Some of the researchers there were emeriti, now shifted back to the main, enlarged set up in Seewiesen, under the feathers of the Lorenzian mother goose, so to speak. The institute has recently been joined with the MPI for Neurobiology and named MPI for Biological Intelligence. Indeed, meeting Bill at occasions like conferences and parties like the one in the little Andechs castle, was meeting a highly educated, polite colleague carefully listening to his communication partners and giving informed, well-phrased answers. The same man endured the hardships of fieldwork in some of the most remote places of our otherwise comfortable world and conducted painstakingly detailed classic ethological observations of chimpanzee behaviour. His training in several sports, especially running long distances, including marathons and extended hikes in the Tyrolean Alps made and kept him physically fit for the adventures in the jungles and savannahs. Following our cousins for days and days is not an easy thing to do – in many respects.