Scoop on Primates

We're familiar with male bonding in human society.  Chums bumping chests at a football game, buddies hanging out around the barbecue, talking about cars, work and girls.  Guys going hunting together, sharing a beer, doing business together. Rarely do we think of male bonding as a non-human primate activity.  Yet, it is a phenomenon that has been documented among chimpanzees and is being talked about. We now know that chimps remain friends for a long time .

As we had indicated earlier in this blog, 2009 is the Year of the Gorilla. On January 15, humans dressed in gorilla costumes performed a dance on ice at the Natural History Museum of London.  This was part of the UNEP launch of the Year of the Gorilla. This year will be marked by a number of initiatives to educate and raise awareness on the plight of one of our closest relatives.  More research will also be done in Cameroon and Nigeria to improve community-based conservation efforts aimed at protecting the Cross River Gorilla. Check out this UNEP link to read more about the Projects to Save Africa's Rarest Ape and see pictures of the skating gorillas .

Is medical testing on primates ethical? This is a hard question but to me the answer is unequivocal and resounding.  NO. There are currently alternatives that are viable, faster, more accurate and do not cause suffering of living beings - stem cell testing. I have been reading a lot about the plight of many primates and chimps in particular have had to suffer incommensurably for the sake of medical testing.  Sometimes for good, sometimes in vain. Chimps share 99% of their DNA with human primates, this is why they are perfect test subjects, yet we, humans, are able to turn a blind eye and conveniently deny this fact when it comes to the rights these creatures should be granted naturally. I heartily support the Great Apes Project and I sincerely believe primates should be given basic rights.   I strongly encourage you to check out the " Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History " documentary on PBS.

Paying for physical reward with a member of the opposite gender is a practice documented since times immemorial.  Many poems and mosaics well illustrate the fact in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. We are now finding out that this practice is not specific to human primates only.   Longtailed macaques do exactly that , as reported by Michael Gumert, a Psychology researcher at Hiram College, OH, in the results of his 20 months study of macaques in Indonesia.

Just a few weeks ago, monkey carcasses were found in the luggage of a man who went through Customs at Dulles airport.  Bushmeat is illegal in the US, so the meat was confiscated and the man was let go.  According to The Bushmeat Project website , "People pay a premium to eat more great apes each year than are now kept in all the zoos and laboratories of the world.  If the slaughter continues at its current pace, the remaining wild apes in Africa will be gone within the next fifteen to fifty years.  With them will vanish most of the equatorial rain forest, and the cultures of indigenous people who have lived there for millennia." Some would argue that bushmeat is a necessary evil to feed starving human populations, yet the reality is that bushmeat is a health hazzard to those who consume it. Many diseases can be transmitted cross-species.  Non-human primates (apes and monkeys) are susceptible to many of the same diseases humans are. Hunting, butchering and eating bushmeat pla...

Humans rely primarily on face recognition to identify their family members and friends; so do chimpanzees according to a report published on December 18 in "Current Biology", a Cell Press publication. This paper offers new insight into the origin of face recognition in humans, scientists say. Lisa Parr and Frans De Waal, both researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta - GA, have demonstrated  that chimpanzees, using a joystick device, are able to accurately match unfamiliar female chimpanzees photos with the photos of their sons. This ability to recognize faces is one of the major factors that helped chimpanzees create complex societies in which alliances and networking are crucial. Using Positron Emission Tomography (PET), scientists have now discovered that humans and chimps both use similar brain regions to register faces and identify them. You can find out more about the subject by reading articles at the links below. Science Daily - Humans And ...

I wanted to share this video of Panbanisha, a bonobo at the Great Ape Trust, who paints. I also wanted to show her here because I have not included a lot of news about bonobos, so I wanted to make up for it. The Forgotten Ape, as Frans de Waal calls the bonobo, could be considered the "hippie" of the ape community.  Just like chimps, bonobos are "cousins"of ours.  Unlike chimps though, they prefer to solve their issues with physical promiscuity and love - this is one of the reasons we rarely see them in documentaries on television.   Quite reminiscent of the Janet Jackson wardrobe incident, isn't it?  Violence and foul language are OK on TV, but a boob sneak peek is not... but  I digress. Watch Panbanisha paint.  Quite amazing! If you are curious about bonobos, check the Friends of Bonobos organization, o r visit the Bonobo Conservation Initiative .