URGENT: The Wildlife Waystation Needs Your Help!

I am very sad to write this post.  The Wildlife Waystation - a unique organization I am grateful to be volunteering at is in urgent need of financial support.

For over thirty years, the Wildlife Waystation has rehabilitated wild animals, educated adults and children alike about wildlife, wild and exotic animals and has provided a shelter for exotic animals who would not otherwise be alive.  It is the home of many varied species, lions, tigers, bears, wolves, primates, but also pigs, lamas, exotic birds and many more.

I urge anyone reading this post to please, forward this information to your friends and families, visit the Wildlife Waystation website, visit the Wildlife Waystation Official Fan Page on Facebook and if you can, make a donation today.

Thank You in advance.  Anything you can do, will be appreciated and tremendous help for this worthy non-profit.

onlinecourses.net

Primates featured in Art - part I, the Western World

In my last post I talked about primates making art.  Today, I want to talk about primates featured in artwork and how different cultures perceived (and maybe still do) perceive primates.

There is no shortage of paintings featuring primates and many come to mind.

They tell us about our history.  The painting below by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543) depicts Prince Edward of Wales with a monkey.  The monkey is not represented realistically.  It has a striped tail, similar to that of ring-tailed lemurs and ears we often see in mythical creatures found in Gothic art, possibly ears of a dragon.  It was customary for foreign dignitaries to offer exotic animals to European royalty, so it is possible that the prince possessed a monkey at one time. In his book "Henry VIII: the king, his six wives and his court", Nick Ford specifies that the monkey the prince is holding is a guenon "which signifies wealth and exotic taste".

Kuntsmuseum collection, Basel, Switzerland

They also betray how religion influenced art and society.  In The Virgin and Child with Saints Dominic and Catherine of Siena, Garofalo (1476-1559) placed a monkey at the foot of the Virgin Mary and Jesus.  The monkey is small and his back is rounded as if he were shameful.  The most likely interpretation is that the monkey represents the animal instinct in humans which can be tamed and kept under control though the Christian faith.

Oil on wood - London National Gallery, UK

Monkeys and great apes were later represented to point out the arrogance of humans, especially artists and maybe also to remind us that we are not as noble as we think we are.  This is what Decamps (1803-1860) probably meant to do in Le Peintre Singe (The Monkey Painter).

Musée du Louvre, Paris, France

In Nineteen Century Europe, exotic animals were associated to wealth, but also to women of ill virtue.  It was not uncommon to see pictures of women with an exotic bird or a monkey they would have received as gifts from a rich lover.  Le Douanier Rousseau who liked to paint in Le Jardin des Plantes depicted two monkeys in love in an orange grove.  Is this something he saw in the parc?

Private collection

In more recent times, primates were also depicted as companions, such as in the two self portraits of Frieda Kahlo (1907-1954) and her pet monkey (who seems to have been a spider monkey).

1938 - self-portrait with a monkey - Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY

Self-portrait with Bonito and a parrot - Private collection, USA

In part two, we will look at art featuring monkeys in other cultures.  Until then... cheerio!

Primate Art Making

When visiting Lascaux and admiring the beautiful rendition of horses, one cannot help wondering how primitive humans became such beautiful artists.  The paintings date back about 17,000 years; yet the people of Lascaux knew what they were doing.  For instance, they deliberately chose to use protruberances in the stone to add relief to the rumps of the creatures they were depicting.

Where does art come from?  Do we have an innate ability for it?  Can other creatures make art?  Could our primate cousins create art and deliberately choose to depict what they see or experience on paper?

A couple years ago, I visited with "Cheetah", a chimpanzee residing in Southern California and I bought a painting he made.  The strokes are very free and colorful.  Some are strong, others are light - and I must say the composition is not bad for monkey art.

In the 1950s and 1960s, when psychologists and primatologists teamed up to teach chimpanzees how to sign or use pictograms to communicate with humans, others set out to investigate the origins of art and decided the best way to go about it was to hand out a set of paint brushes to chimpanzees.   Centuries before, painters such as Teniers or Decamps, had portrayed the artist as a monkey to poke fun at the vanity of humans and of art in general.  This time, primates would be taken seriously!

Congo the Chimpanzee, and others like him, shook up the art world.  On August 14, 1954, Dr Desmond Morris published an article in the New Scientist magazine.  The sub-title of the article reads: "Hundreds of paintings and drawings by a young inhabitant of London Zoo are being analysed.  In their progress from simple to more complex patterns they strikingly resemble the scribblings of human infants, and already reveal the germ of visual composition".  In the article, Morris goes on to describe how Congo, who started drawing when he was a little over a year old, became fascinated by the marks he was making on paper and repeated the exercise with a lot of focus.  The lines and strokes filling the page made patterns.  When he graduated to painting, he proceeded with the same intensity to the point of screaming and throwing temper tantrums if his painting sessions had to be interrupted.  

In his book "Monkey Painting" Thierry Lenain relates the story of Nanni, a female chimpanzee at the Munich zoo who discovered the joy of drawing on her own. "On the table was the book in which the temperatures were recorded. The ever-bored Nanni took up the pencil one day and began scribbling in the book.  When she threatened to spoil the book with her doodlings, she was given the pencil the wrong way up; she noticed however, that her efforts produced no visible result and, after examining the pencil, realized the reason and turned it around".

Lenain explains how primates (mostly chimpanzees were used in these experiments) like patterns.  If given shapes, they would fill them up or draw around them to cover the page with lines.

The fan shape seems to be a recurring theme in those paintings and line drawings.  The primates would keep working until the page was covered with lines and shapes that made intricate compositions.

Personally, I love the finger drawings created by Baltimore Betsy.  

Lenain's conclusion is that since there is no intent to make art by the primates, their work cannot really be considered art.  At best it is a collection of sometimes well balanced markings that create the illusion of composition.

In 2005, The Guardian covered an art sale in which three of Congo's paintings featured along with works by Renoir and Warhol.

Protecting the Great Apes from Intrusive Experiments

I recently read a paper published by Dr Hope R. Ferdowsian in which she and her team explore the effects of captivity on primates and their use in research.  "Since nonhuman animals, including chimpanzees, are frequently used in research, there is an ethical imperative to understand the potentially adverse effects of captivity and their use in research.  The association of pathological behaviors with captivity in nonhuman primates has been noted for decades" says the report.
It goes on to explain that symptoms of PTSD, depression and anxiety disorders have been proven to result from severe repeated trauma in humans.  However, no study of psycho-pathology has ever been conducted on nonhuman primates.
Since chimpanzees, like all great apes, demonstrate abilities of self-awareness even in infancy, they have strong attachment to their mothers and have a great memory of events and places, it would be logical to find out if captivity and experimentation can lead them to exhibit mood and anxiety disorders.
The study conducted by Dr Ferdowsian and her team aimed at finding out the prevalence of behaviors in chimpanzees that would compare to human psychiatric disorders.  They used the DSM-IV criteria for PTSD and depression and developed an alternative set of criteria for chimpanzees where those used for humans required the use of language.  For instance "recurrent distressing dreams of the event" was removed from the list since there is no way of knowing if a chimpanzee can dream about a traumatic event.
They compared reports of chimpanzees from laboratories used for HIV, hepatitis and other medical experimentation, as well as chimpanzees living in sanctuaries in Africa, whose histories included being orphaned and violent human conflicts.  The case studies included, among others,  Negra, 36 year-old female taken away from the wild as an infant and held in captivity for medical research her whole life and Mawa, a 14 year-old male who had been captured for the pet trade and had serious injuries when he arrived at the sanctuary where he now lives.  Both exhibited a depressed hunched posture, avoidance behavior, poor attention span (chimpanzees are extremely good at focusing on a task for consecutive hours) and did not show significant interest in grooming (which is the core of social interaction for chimps).  Both showed improved behavior and mood after months spent in their respective sanctuaries.

Dr Ferdowsian and team write: "Our study shows that previously traumatized chimpanzees demonstrate persistent abnormal objective symptoms and that these symptoms cluster into syndromes that are similar to PTSD and depression".

You can request a copy of the study from the "Physicians for Responsible Medicine" organization.

This leads me to a story that many of you probably read about this week - i.e. the release of 30 chimpanzees from a medical lab.  The most popular video on the subject shows the chimps hugging and smiling when they see the sky and the grass of their new enclosure at the Austrian Gut Aiderbichl sanctuary.  The chimps had been in captivity for over 20 years, kept in isolation never seeing the light of day.  You can see a summary of their lives at the sanctuary website.

Great apes are highly social creatures with complex social lives, they are very intelligent, self aware and suffer from similar psychological disorders as humans.  They are also extremely endangered.  Gorillas are on the brink of extinction, so are bonobos and orangutans.  The chimpanzee population is decreasing rapidly as well.  This is why it is so important that we, humans, act on their behalf and give them a voice.

Please join me in supporting the Great Ape Protection Act 2011.  Spain was the first country to adopt it a couple of years ago.  We do not want to remain silent.
More information also available at the Great Ape Project website.

No Aging Chimps Ever Lost Their Marbles

In times when a word is stubbornly stuck on the tip of my tongue, or when I accidentally call my neighbor Steve when his name if Jack, I seriously wish I were a chimp!
Especially since I found out that chimp brains do not age the same way as human brains do.

According to a study published by Chet Sherwood of The George Washington University, humans are paying a price for evolution - i.e. brain shrinkage.  Sherwood and his team set about to determine whether chimps' brains also experience noticeable aging. Using MRI to measure various brain areas in groups of humans from age 22 to 88 and chimpanzees from age 10 to 51, the scientists discovered that chimpanzee brains age with much less degeneration than human brains do.
Sherwood's conclusion is that "the high energy cost of a large brain in humans leads to more wear and tear that cannot be easily repaired because most neurons are not renewed", thereby making human brains more vulnerable to degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's.

Read: Aging Brains Are Different in Humans and Chimpanzees in ScienceDaily for more information.

Check this link to see comparative brain scans of humans and chimpanzees.

If you are getting worried about brain atrophy, you might as well start taking care of your brain fitness.  There are some exercises (I am told) that you and I can do to maintain, if not improve, our mental abilities.
You may want to check this out "Your Brain, Just Brighter".  If that doesn't do the trick, be sure to ingest a lot of cod liver oil...

Of Monkeys and Friends

An article published in Science Daily in January 2010 talked about the importance of siblings on human children's socialization.  Their influence is such that as adults, and long after we have departed the nest, our lives are still considerably influenced by them socially and emotionally.

The article was based on studies carried out by Professor Laurie Kramer (Illinois University) on siblings as "agents of socialization".

Friends are also very important in socialization and have a considerable influence on us, especially during our teen years.  Studies show that adolescents often pick up smoking as a result of "peer pressure".

Our parents teach us right from wrong, how to behave in public, clean up, eat properly.  They teach us the basics, as well as the love and care we need.

Similarly, monkey and great ape mothers are instrumental in the development of their offsprings. They protect them from danger, feed them, teach them the essential skills they will need to fend for themselves.  They discipline them and keep a watchful eye on them as they explore the world around us.

Monkeys and apes toddlers and children grow up with lots of "aunts" around them - other females from the group who help mothers with baby sitting and socialization.  Older siblings also babysit.

Young monkeys play with other monkeys their own age - this is how they learn to fight, solve social conflict, form alliances and simply have fun.

Much like humans, monkeys and apes grow up with a personality of their own, a unique way of dealing with life and need social structure to develop as healthy adults.

In the 1940s, René Spitz conducted experiments on orphaned children - depriving them of human contacts.  The studies showed that children raised in isolation were more prone to infection, lacked confidence, were less curious and at two years of age most had not acquired language skills.

In the 1960s, Harry Harlow conducted a similar experiment with rhesus monkeys - taking them away from their mothers a few hours after they were born and raising them in complete isolation for up to 12 months.  The monkeys demonstrated a complete lack of social skills and exhibited behaviors normally associated to autism.

Both experiments demonstrated that to develop social abilities and self confidence both humans and non-human primates need the loving care and attention of family and friends.

Baby baboons playing:

 Baby chimpanzees playing:

Gorilla Mother and Baby cuddling and kissing:

Orangutan mother and child cuddling

Death and Grieving As Witnessed in Monkeys and Apes

There is nothing sadder than a parent mourning an infant.  Such experience is not limited to humans. Non human primates (as well as other animals) mourn their dead family members and friends.
Or at least they do show sign of sadness, grief and stress related to the death of a companion.

In "Baboon Metaphysics, The Evolution of a Social Mind" Dorothy L. Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth write about the theory of mind in baboons, the rudiments of consciousness and self-awareness.
They describe the social life of baboons and how each individual acquires and constantly updates their knowledge about individuals' status and ranks within the group and talk about how female baboons react to loss: "The greatest stressors affecting female baboons are unpredictable events over which they have little control: predator attacks and infanticide." They go on to explain how female baboons cope by enlarging their social network, increasing their grooming activities and thereby lowering their glucocorticoid levels.  They write: "When her infant dies, a female baboon will often continue to carry the body for as many as 10 more days, cleaning the corpse of maggots and brushing flies away from it.  As the corpse decays and mummifies, she begins to leave the body for increasing lengths of time before finally abandonning it.  It is as if the mother continues to respond to the corpse of her infant even after it has lost all resemblance to a baboon." They then explain that other group members seem to cease seeing the infant as a living entity, they don't grunt when they approach it as they would if the infant were alive, however "they appear to recognize that the corpse still belongs to the mother. (...) When the mother moves away from the body, other group members grunt to her, and a close relative or male friend often guards the body until she returns."

Several accounts of grief in apes have been reported over the years.  In a paper published in 1879 and entitled "Grief in the Chimpanzee" naturalist Arthur E. Brown reports the behavior of a chimpanzee at the Philadelphia zoo: "After the death of the female, which took place early in the morning, the remaining one made many attempts to rouse her, and when he found this to be impossible his rage and grief were painful to witness.  Tearing the hair, or rather snatching at the short hair on his head, was always one of his common expressions of extreme anger, and was now largely indulged in, but the ordinary yell of rage which he set up at first, finally changed to a cry which the keeper of the animals assures me he had never heard before, and which would be most nearly represented as hah-ah-ah-ah, uttered somewhat under the breath, and with a plaintive sound like a moan.  With this he made repeated efforts to arouse her, lifting up her head and hands, pushing her violently and rolling her over." Brown continues on by describing how the lonely chimpanzee continued to grieve and became more attached to his keeper, and exhibited what would be described today as signs of separation anxiety each time the keeper left the enclosure.

In "Visions of Caliban, Chimpanzees and People" Jane Goodall and Dale Peterson talk about Flint, a male chimpanzee who lost his mother when he was eight years old and therefore capable of caring of himself.  "He just seemed to give up, and in the state of what we can describe only as grief, showing signs of clinical depression like grieving human children, he didn't want to eat, he didn't want to interact with the others, and, with his immune system weakened, he died within a short time of losing his mother."

These reports demonstrate that there is awareness of loss, kinship and emotional attachment to some individuals within a group.  It does not prove that non-human primates have knowledge of death or any understanding of it, but they seem to be affected by it somewhat similar to the way humans are affected by it.


National Geographic just published the pictures of a grieving gorilla mother in the Virunga National Park.

Do Monkeys and Apes Have Spiritual Rituals?

Assuming we agree the theory of mind applies to monkeys and apes, what could prevent us from thinking that, much like our early human ancestors, they too lend significance to external phenomena they have no control over?  Thunder, fire, the moon, the sun, waterfalls can stir awe, wonder or fear in humans.  Why couldn't the same natural phenomena stir similar emotions in animals?

In "J.T., JR, The Biography of an African Monkey" (1928), Delia J. Akeley, first wife of the famous taxidermist Carl Akeley, recounts her life with J.T. the female vervet monkey she adopted and whom she studied.   She writes: "While the porters were busy cutting down the undergrowth to clear a site for the tents, I gathered an armful of flowers and maidenhair ferns.  I was arranging them in a paraffin tin (my safari vase) when J.T., who was tied to the limb of a tree, attracted my attention by her excited manner and peculiar cries.  In an effort to learn the cause of her agitation I climbed up beside her.  To my dying day I shall not forget the remarkable sight that rewarded my climb.  Scattered over the great roof, singly and in groups, were assembled hundreds of monkeys. With arms raised above their heads they sat like statues, facing the setting sun.  Everyone in camp, even the porters who were hurrying to finish their task before dark, climbed into the trees to view the monkey assembly.  We had not been watching long when an indescribable medley of sounds rose on the air and echoed through the forest.  The animal world, led by a mighty monkey chorus, was voicing a hymn to the setting sun.  Although I did not see chimpanzees among the distinguished gathering in the treetops, their piercing screams rose shrilly above the trumpeting of elephants and the babel of strange calls and cries that resounded on all sides.  Almost as suddenly as the animal ritual began, it ended."
She goes on to explain that she does not think monkeys are sun worshipers but believed they may raise their arms to dry their armpits. This, she said, solved the riddle to her satisfaction.

In Egypt, baboons were worshiped because large troops were regularly seen greeting the sun with vocalization.  (For more details, refer to one of my previous posts on Hamadryas baboons).
Other reports mention baboons gathering on rocks in South Africa, looking at the ocean in total silence.

Jane Goodall reports witnessing displays of chimpanzees during thunderstorms over a waterfall - as if they were trying to make sense of it all and maybe try to stop it.

How did spirituality become part of human life?  How did it evolve into religion?
I am certainly not qualified to answer these questions, but learning about non human primates makes me wonder.

Are You Smarter Than A Chimpanzee?

As humans we tend to believe that we can outsmart animals of any kind and when it comes to monkeys and apes, we are generally pretty sure our good looks are not the only determining factor of our superiority. Many have tried over the years to test animal intelligence, but how fair is it?

Most tests are based on the use of language and they've all been developed by humans for humans.

How can we compare the intelligence of a chimp to that of a capuchin monkey to that of a goat or a pig?  

What is intelligence?

Howard Gardner talks about multiple forms of intelligence in his book "Frame of Mind, The Theory of Multiple Intelligences" published in 1983.  His work, which is in direct line with that of John Dewey, has had considerable influence on methods of education in the United States.

According to Gardner there are nine forms of intelligence: 

* naturalist - the ability to discriminate between living entities

* musical - the ability to discern sounds, pitch and rythm

* logical - the ability to calculate

* existential - the ability to reflect on life

* interpersonal - the ability to understand others

* kinesthetic - the ability to master various physical skills

* linguistic - the ability to use a language to communicate

* intra-personal - the ability to understand oneself

* spatial - the ability to think in three-dimensions

This list is definitely applicable to most monkeys and apes. All have the ability to recognize objects and other individuals in their environment.  They use different sounds or calls to warn their troops about predators, among other things. They are cunning enough to be able to deceive another member of the group to their advantage or plan and enforce coups to take over power.  This alone implies that they have some understanding of their own volition and desires but also are smart enough to read others' emotions and intentions. They are certainly very physically dexterous and see the world in three-dimensions.  Even though their natural way of communicating cannot be called "language", they do have the proven ability to communicate by gestures, looks, sounds and some have been trained to communicate with humans by learning to use pictograms (Koko), sign language, or lexigrams (Kanzi).

Now, in an effort to level the plain field for intelligence testing, two computer scientists, Dr Hernandez-Orallo and Dr Dowe are working at designing a universal test that will not be based on spoken language.  Instead they will use the Kolmogorov complexity theory as their basis.

Personally, I cannot wait to see the results on monkeys and apes.  

For fun, you can check out the following videos.

Kanzi, the Bonobo

Kanzi plays with his son Teco

Koko learns a new sign

And if you want to test your own intelligence, you can play games at the Posit Science website.

Body Parts Traffickers Arrested in Gabon

The Associated Press reported last week that five people in possession of exotic animal body parts, including gorilla and chimpanzee heads and hands, were arrested in Gabon.

The market for exotic animal body parts is varied - some parts are used in rituals, some are used as trophies, others yet are used for meat (refer to Bushmeat post December 2008 on this blog for more info).

According to an article published in the Gorilla Journal in 1999 by Angela Meder, even though most people now use western medicine, some traditions are still alive.  For example, eating gorilla meat is believed to transfer the strength of the gorilla to the person consuming it; keeping dried gorilla hands is said to bring good luck.

Read: Gabon arrests 5 found with ape heads and body parts  (AP).

Poachers are a reality those dedicated to the conservation of non-human primates have to contend with, however education and solutions to curb down poverty are key.

There are many initiatives in Africa and throughout the world to save endangered primates and help populations who share the same territory as them.  Below are two videos highlighting such projects.

Watch Saving the gorillas in Rwanda - PBS documentary:

Watch - GAFI - the bike that helps save gorillas in Uganda: