July 2007
She Writes of Empathy & Apes Watching bonobos at the Milwaukee County Zoo and then writing about their behavior and culture is a bit like poetry, says Jo Sandin. When you pay attention to the details of their lives, you see beauty, empathy, drama, rhythm, humor and kindness. She should know. She spent a couple of years writing the just-published book “Bonobos: Encounters in Empathy.” And she has promoted the book in several recent interviews with news media and public talks. Sandin, who retired in 2002 as a journalist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, donated her time and effort on the book to the Zoological Society of Milwaukee (ZSM), which is the publisher of the book along with its partner, the Foundation for Wildlife Conservation, Inc. Proceeds from the book go to help the Zoo’s bonobos and to support the ZSM’s bonoboconservation projects in Africa, which are run by ZSM conservation coordinator Dr. Gay E. Reinartz, who is featured in the book. As recognition for this significant donation, Sandin has been presented with a membership in the Platypus Society. Her goal in writing the book, Sandin said, was to show through intimate descriptions of bonobo life “how paying attention can inform the kind of thoughtful interaction that makes change and progress and relationships possible. I want people who read this to…find wonder in these animals. We learn a lot from primates.” For example, there’s the story of Brian, a troubled bonobo who arrived at the Zoo with life-threatening mental health problems. Barbara Bell, the chief bonobo zookeeper, called in psychiatrist Harry Prosen for help. Prosen, who is also a Platypus Society member in thanks for all the volunteer work he has done helping Zoo animals, prescribed a set eating schedule for Brian and one-on-one interactions with other bonobos. Thanks to patient zookeeper care following Prosen’s suggestions, over the years Brian has gained enough confidence and social skills to be a contender for leader of the group. Sandin wrote about the Zoo on and off over four decades. She says: “I had three lives at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel–in 1962, right out of college, in 1964 after marriage, and in 1988
after children. I started in the newsroom and covered the vice squad, an unusual assignment for a woman at the time.” She also got to cover the Zoo, which she loved because “everybody likes to read Zoo stories.” In 1963, she married and left The Journal to live with her husband in Chicago and work for the Chicago Daily News. After a year she returned to Milwaukee, where she wrote for the newspaper’s society pages before returning to news reporting in 1966. “I covered the welfare beat,” she says. “I was the only reporter in the newsroom who spoke Spanish. So I also covered the political awakening of the Hispanic community, which is what it was called then. I also covered Father James Groppi’s marches for the poor,” including a spinoff welfare march on Madison. Sandin left the newspaper when her first child was born in 1971 and returned in 1988. In 1997, after the merger of the Milwaukee Sentinel and Milwaukee Journal in 1995, she eventually returned to writing about the Zoo. “I loved the Zoo beat. They’re such good stories. The nice thing about Zoo stories is you would get mail and comments, no matter where the story ran in the paper. One story that stood out was the saga of Brian the bonobo.” Sandin wrote about him both for the newspaper and in “Bonobos: Encounters in Empathy.” The book is available online through the ZSM Web site: www.zoosociety.org. Among the highlights of her career were coverage of Wisconsin’s role in restoring wild populations of whooping cranes and other endangered species, dramatic changes in the state’s farming communities, and the escape and capture of convicted murderer Lawrencia Bembenek. “Jim Stingl (now a Journal Sentinel columnist), photographer Jack Orton and I chased Laurie Bembenek to Canada in a snow and hail storm. Our plane landed in Green Bay because of the weather, and we made a 14-hour drive to Thunder Bay, Canada,” where Bembenek was living. Sandin wrote a story that night that ran in the newspaper the next day. In 2002, the year she retired, Jo Sandin was inducted into the Milwaukee Press Club’s Hall of Fame. By Paula Brookmire