Wild chimps outwit human hunters

[bricolage]

Wild chimpanzees are learning how to outwit human hunters.

Across Africa, people often lay snare traps to catch bushmeat, killing or injuring chimps and other wildlife.

But a few chimps living in the rainforests of Guinea have learnt to recognise these snare traps laid by human hunters, researchers have found.

More astonishing, the chimps actively seek out and intentionally deactivate the traps, setting them off without being harmed.http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8962000/8962747.stm

[Adi Shankara]

Evolution-- 1

Creationism-- 0

[Tavarisch_Mike]

How facinating :)

[Commiechu]

You know what this means right...Soon they will evolve to sapience and will out-compete humans because of their still intact communal tendencies.

[Ele'ill]

I was hoping you'd say something like '...this means they're sentient.'

[Dimentio]

You know what this means right...Soon they will evolve to sapience and will out-compete humans because of their still intact communal tendencies.

Chimps are communal on a small level. Its usually for chimpanzees to wage brutal territorial conflicts with one another.

[Taikand]

<irony>
Let me guess, God taught them to do that?
And the Earth is flat?
AAH!How dare I, a mortal, not trust my Creator.
</irony>

[Vanguard1917]

Shows the need for better traps. If a monkey's getting around your trap, clearly you're failing. Which is not good if you depend on this stuff for your bread and butter.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Chimps are not monkeys. I don't think anyone depends on trapping chimps for their livelihood.

I know you were just being provocative.

[Revy]

Shows the need for better traps. If a monkey's getting around your trap, clearly you're failing. Which is not good if you depend on this stuff for your bread and butter.

I know you hate animals, but apes are our closest relatives, and they are very intelligent. They're not monkeys, there is a world of difference between apes and monkeys especially when it comes to intelligence.

There are alternatives to eating apes. In fact snails are a more profitable delicacy than bushmeat. You might as well defend the pollution of the planet as "bread and butter", or imperialist wars as "bread and butter", etc. Economics is no justification...

All animals are not the same and if you had the opportunity to meet an ape perhaps you would see that.

[Commiechu]

Chimps are communal on a small level. Its usually for chimpanzees to wage brutal territorial conflicts with one another.

True, it's closer to tribalism than communism, but when they finally kill off all the other groups would there not only be one "tribe" left? Socialism out of a catastrophe... I know this makes me sound kinda crazy..almost as crazy as J. Posadas...

[Dimentio]

True, it's closer to tribalism than communism, but when they finally kill off all the other groups would there not only be one "tribe" left? Socialism out of a catastrophe... I know this makes me sound kinda crazy..almost as crazy as J. Posadas...

Its not working in that way. When a chimp pack is becoming bigger than 75 individuals, its split and the new groups are forming two or more new packs.

Humans have written language and a more advanced social organisation, but on the default setting, we are adapted to live in groups of 125 individuals.

[Vanguard1917]

There are alternatives to eating apes. In fact snails are a more profitable delicacy than bushmeat. You might as well defend the pollution of the planet as "bread and butter", or imperialist wars as "bread and butter", etc. Economics is no justification...

:confused: No. Imperialist wars involve the slaughter of humans. Big difference.

Sorry, but in a choice between sympathising with the poor poacher who needs to catch and sell a chimpanzee so that he can feed himself and his family, or with the animal rights eco-misanthrope who wants tougher laws against African hunters because he has no time for human beings, for me the choice is as clear as the clearest of days.

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

Whoa, thats kinda embarrsing for whoever was making the traps.

[Sasha]

note that the traps in genral are not specific disigned to catch the chimps.

[Hit The North]

Sorry, but in a choice between sympathising with the poor poacher who needs to catch and sell a chimpanzee so that he can feed himself and his family, or with the animal rights eco-misanthrope who wants tougher laws against African hunters because he has no time for human beings, for me the choice is as clear as the clearest of days.

It's never just that choice, though, is it? Humans are adaptive and other means of livelihood can be put in place and prevent the hunting to extinction of particular species - an activity which is self-defeating for the humans who depend upon it, anyway. It is the economics of the fox in the hen house and the opposite of good human husbandry of the natural environment. Human beings require sustainable natural resources and, therefore, to promote sustainability is the opposite of misanthropy.

Good conservation programmes should take the local human population into account and allow them to develop self-sustaining practices that break their reliance on a single species - which is, after all, a mark of their economic underdevelopment.

Anyone who blithely dismisses the hunting to extinction of a species as beautiful as the Chimpanzee, simply because it is to the convenience of a local human population (what about the wider needs of all humanity?), isn't only dismissing the rights of the Chimpanzee but also the rights of the human population to raise itself to the common level of the most economically advanced members of its species.

[Vanguard1917]

It's never just that choice, though, is it? Humans are adaptive and other means of livelihood can be put in place and prevent the hunting to extinction of particular species - an activity which is self-defeating for the humans who depend upon it, anyway. It is the economics of the fox in the hen house and the opposite of good human husbandry of the natural environment.

I personally would like to see in my lifetime an Africa in which there has been vast industrial and agricultural development so that backward practices like hunting for survival, regardless of the animal being hunted, no longer need to exist. And while i certainly don't think that it's a good idea for chimpanzees to be hunted to extinction, as a Marxist and a humanist i can have no time whatsoever for the largely Western middle-class demonisation of the impoverished African hunters who undertake such practices in order to live.

[Hit The North]

Of course. What examples of this demonisation are there? Is it typical of the Western environmental movement? Is there no ecology movement in Africa itself? Do Africans not care about their environment?

Why do you constantly hark on about the most negative aspects of conservation and the Western 'middle class' ecology movement? How come whenever the topic of the environment comes up, you only ever rap on the eco movement as the bad guys and ignore the chronic underdevelopment caused by imperialism and the unscrupulous exploitation of the environment by corporate interests who, if left to their own conscience, would degrade and poison an environment for profit before moving on elsewhere?

[Vanguard1917]

Of course. What examples of this demonisation are there? Is it typical of the Western environmental movement? Is there no ecology movement in Africa itself? Do Africans not care about their environment?

I'm sure Africans do care about their environment, but in a very different way to the way in which Western environmentalists 'care' about the African environment. While the former wants economic development and the kinds of living standards enjoyed by many in the West, the latter lot tend to suggest that it's more important to preserve Africa as some sort of giant nature reserve with zebras and monkeys running wild, and that the best that Africans should aspire to in terms of development is that of the 'sustainable' kind, i.e. small-scaled, localised projects, things which are responsible for keeping Africa poor in the first place.



Why do you constantly hark on about the most negative aspects of ... the Western 'middle class' ecology movement?


The bulk of that movement has no positive aspects that i can think of, at least not core ones.


How come whenever the topic of the environment comes up, you only ever rap on the eco movement as the bad guys and ignore the chronic underdevelopment caused by imperialism and the unscrupulous exploitation of the environment by corporate interests who, if left to their own conscience, would degrade and poison an environment for profit before moving on elsewhere?

What i tend to argue is that environmentalism (which is now part of official state ideology in the West) provides very convenient apologia and ideological justification for capitalism's number one crime: its inability to provide adequate economic development worldwide.

[Vanguard1917]

Since this has become as a debate about conservationism, the balanced, wise and refreshing words of old Lev sprang to mind:

"Through the machine, man in Socialist society will command nature in its entirety, with its grouse and its sturgeons. He will point out places for mountains and for passes. He will change the course of the rivers, and he will lay down rules for the oceans. The idealist simpletons may say that this will be a bore, but that is why they are simpletons. Of course this does not mean that the entire globe will be marked off into boxes, that the forests will be turned into parks and gardens. Most likely, thickets and forests and grouse and tigers will remain, but only where man commands them to remain. And man will do it so well that the tiger won’t even notice the machine, or feel the change, but will live as he lived in primeval times. The machine is not in opposition to the earth. The machine is the instrument of modern man in every field of life. The present-day city is transient. But it will not be dissolved back again into the old village. On the contrary, the village will rise in fundamentals to the plane of the city. Here lies the principal task. The city is transient, but it points to the future, and indicates the road ..."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/lit_revo/ch08.htm

[Dimentio]

Since this has become as a debate about conservationism, the balanced, wise and refreshing words of old Lev sprang to mind:

"Through the machine, man in Socialist society will command nature in its entirety, with its grouse and its sturgeons. He will point out places for mountains and for passes. He will change the course of the rivers, and he will lay down rules for the oceans. The idealist simpletons may say that this will be a bore, but that is why they are simpletons. Of course this does not mean that the entire globe will be marked off into boxes, that the forests will be turned into parks and gardens. Most likely, thickets and forests and grouse and tigers will remain, but only where man commands them to remain. And man will do it so well that the tiger won’t even notice the machine, or feel the change, but will live as he lived in primeval times. The machine is not in opposition to the earth. The machine is the instrument of modern man in every field of life. The present-day city is transient. But it will not be dissolved back again into the old village. On the contrary, the village will rise in fundamentals to the plane of the city. Here lies the principal task. The city is transient, but it points to the future, and indicates the road ..."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/lit_revo/ch08.htm

That is insane idealism. In general, we achieve better long-term results by optimalising our use of the Earth's resources and trying to have as little impact as possible. Trotsky's article is a typical 20th century "the-larger-scale-the-better-look-how-big-dick-I-have"-philosophy. Size, intimidation and industrialism before functionality I would say.

The Aral Sea and the river projects of Siberia are disagreeing with Trotsky. So are the rivers Ob and Yenisey.

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

:confused: No. Imperialist wars involve the slaughter of humans. Big difference.

I am concerned with human and animal suffering equally because humans and animals, despite their dramatic differences, both have sentience. The liberation of animals goes hand and hand with communism.


but in a choice between sympathising with the poor poacher who needs to catch and sell a chimpanzee so that he can feed himself and his family, or with the animal rights eco-misanthrope who wants tougher laws against African hunters because he has no time for human beings, for me the choice is as clear as the clearest of days.The choice is very clear. Neither party deserves my sympathy. I have no sympathy for police officers, prison guards, and crack dealers because they are trying to "feed [themselves] and [their] family". Poachers are no different.

Chimpanzees are practically hominids, not monkeys, and not a part of traditional African cuisine. They are only consumed out of desperation.

[9]

The choice is very clear. Neither party deserves my sympathy. I have no sympathy for police officers, prison guards, and crack dealers because they are trying to "feed [themselves] and [their] family". Poachers are no different.


So do you consider people employed in, say, animal research labs or slaughterhouses to be on the same level as "police officers, prison guards, and crack dealers"?

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

So do you consider people employed in, say, animal research labs or slaughterhouses to be on the same level as "police officers, prison guards, and crack dealers"?

Animal research labs, yes, slaughterhouses no.

[Revy]

:confused: No. Imperialist wars involve the slaughter of humans. Big difference.

Sorry, but in a choice between sympathising with the poor poacher who needs to catch and sell a chimpanzee so that he can feed himself and his family, or with the animal rights eco-misanthrope who wants tougher laws against African hunters because he has no time for human beings, for me the choice is as clear as the clearest of days.

I know there is a big difference between humans and non-humans. However, I re-iterate there is no big similarity between all the animals.

Great apes are the only animals that humans can communicate with through sign language. They can learn hundreds, maybe thousands of signs...they're smart, like us.

Humans and apes belong to the same family of animals, Hominidae.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Hominidae.PNG

what this chart means is...humans and great apes evolved from the same ancestor.

The Homo and Pan genus (chimps and bonobos) are part of the same "tribe".

Our shared intelligence has to do with being related species, and evolving from the same intelligent proto-hominid!

You're jumping on the idea that we can obliterate every single non-human lifeform simply because they don't have the privilege of being human.

Attitudes like that is what gets humans into the messes we are in.

What if Neanderthals survived past their point of extinction, but a few people were "feeding themselves" by killing them, even going so far as to put them on the menu. Would you say, that because Neanderthals may not have the same capacity for intelligence, or they're not human, they're a different species, who cares how intelligent they are, I'm trying to feed my family!:rolleyes:

[Dimentio]

Neanderthals had the same intellectual capacity. And the majority of humanity have Neanderthal genes.

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

Neanderthals had the same intellectual capacity. And the majority of humanity have Neanderthal genes.

Fair enough, can we eat homo erectus and homo australopithecus?

(I'm less disgusted, by the way, by the implications of cannibalism, than by condoning the irreversible destruction of African biological diversity by the labor aristocracy, and by the insinuation that a motivation to save African biological diversity necessitates collaboration with the capitalist park systems at the expense of the African working class - and by the general attitude that workers as oppressed and exploited people have no social responsibilities)

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

There are better choices for meat than chimpanzees. Animals like chickens and goats can not only provide meat, but also milk and eggs. Plus they're cheaper (terms of resources and environmental impact) due to being lower on the food chain and requiring less land.

Chimpanzees are more valuable if they're a viable species.

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

There are better choices for meat than chimpanzees. Animals like chickens and goats can not only provide meat, but also milk and eggs. Plus they're cheaper (terms of resources and environmental impact) due to being lower on the food chain and requiring less land.

Chimpanzees are more valuable if they're a viable species.

I don't think it's entirely useful to look at this from a purely utilitarian point of view. I don't think anyone would willingly choose chimp meat over beef, chicken, or goat, (especially given that the consumption of ape meat under economic duress may be a possible factor in the initial outbreak of AIDS, although I would be more quick to blame the squalid conditions of African labor camps) but some may prefer the taste of more traditional bush-meat. (elephants, antelopes, crocodiles, porcupines, bush pigs, hippopotamuses, etc.) In a hypothetical eco-socialist society where populations have rebounded I don't see why this would be a problem.

I agree that the mainstream endangered species movement is anti-working class in this respect. They blame the workers for eating bush meat, instead of the capitalist mode of production.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I don't think it's entirely useful to look at this from a purely utilitarian point of view. I don't think anyone would willingly choose chimp meat over beef, chicken, or goat, (especially given that the consumption of ape meat under economic duress may be a possible factor in the initial outbreak of AIDS, although I would be more quick to blame the squalid conditions of African labor camps) but some may prefer the taste of more traditional bush-meat. (elephants, antelopes, crocodiles, porcupines, bush pigs, hippopotamuses, etc.) In a hypothetical eco-socialist society where populations have rebounded I don't see why this would be a problem.

Sure, but in the meantime we should be thinking about plausible ways of lifting the vast majority of the world's population out of misery without eating all of our environmental seed corn. A locally-produced source of fresh meat and dairy could be one way.

The key thing is to reduce birth rates. This can be done by making people's lives longer, healthier, happier and more comfortable.


I agree that the mainstream endangered species movement is anti-working class in this respect. They blame the workers for eating bush meat, instead of the capitalist mode of production.

Don't multinationals play a variety of dirty tricks that lead to the local market being flooded with their cheap products that local producers simply can't compete with? I think I remember reading that somewhere.