In Aotearoa-New Zealand we set traps for introduced species like stoats, rats, possums, etc. that kill our endangered wildlife that evolved without natural predators.
The Kea which are very smart mountain parrots will go and disarm the traps in order to eat the bait. They're smart enough to have figured out how to do this, and are one of just a handful of animals that habitually use tools, but are unfortunately too smart for their own good because their handiwork means there's more predators for them.
But, some people don't give animals enough credit. Mammals and especially primates are very, very close to Humans genetically. Animals are often very smart.
If you’re hiking in NZ, especially in alpine territory, watch out for Kea. They will figure out how to steal your food, even if it’s in the pocket of your bag!
So, what you're saying is the Keas that stripped the rubber round my windscreen up at Mt Hutt, thought my car was a big metal trap with tasty goodies inside?
> "If we could get more of them doing it, it would be great," he joked. Karisoke's Vecellio, though, said actively instructing the apes would be against the center's ethos. "No we can't teach them," she said. "We try as much as we can to not interfere with the gorillas. We don't want to affect their natural behavior."
I would think that the main danger is in habituating the gorillas to humans, teaching them that we're safe when we're not. It may be better if any human interaction with them is aversive but not damaging, like pepper spray.
Or how about the video of the orangutan fighting the bulldozer destroying its home? I used to think people just didn’t realize that animals have internal emotional, social, intellectual lives. But I’m now convinced we know and choose to look away. Tragically.
You know what bothers me? movies like the lord of the rings trilogy that make us yearn for an imaginary a more magical time.
We are living in the end days of that magical time right now. We don't need fantasies about walking/talking trees when there are 'magical' animals we share the planet with right now that we haven't bothered to get to know.
Some have already been wiped out, and the others, well we are working on it...
At the beginning of Dune, someone differentiates humans from animals like this:
> You've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind.
The idea is recognizable, at least. It's antelope individually scattering from a cheetah, rather than forming a tight group that wouldn't be attacked a second time. But it's sad, and kind of funny, just how wrong it is to draw that line at 'humans'. Gorillas disarm traps instead of avoiding them. Elephants defend their friends, even across species, and bury their dead. Dolphins proactively kill sharks, and hold injured dolphins - or humans - at the surface to breath. Even octopuses, not usually understood as a social species, display clear theory of mind.
It's not just the endless redefinition of "tool use" that feels like hubris anymore. Just about everything we consider deeply meaningful, emotion and intellect and teaching and even ritual, is not a uniquely human experience.
We don’t “look away”, we grant large mammals a huge degree of respect. They are just old foes in a war we resoundingly won. Allowing them a degree of parity without restarting the conflict, is just challenging.
> "No we can't teach them," she said. "We try as much as we can to not interfere with the gorillas. We don't want to affect their natural behavior."
Tsk. Like the Prime Directive but in the real world.
Well, isn't it the natural behaviour of gorillas to learn? If they can learn by observing humans, without the humans specifically intending it, then what's so different, or unethical, if it's done with intent? I think this is just splitting of moral hairs that is missing an opportunity to help the gorillas protect themselves against poachers.
Anyway, if we left the gorillas on their own, without interfering, they'd eventually be wiped out by poachers and others.
P.S. It strikes me that the center's workers could have actually shown the gorillas how to dismantle the snares and are only pretending to be surprised at their "unprecedented" behaviour. But I'm proably just paranoid and jaded.
I'm no wild animal training expert, but surely there's a risk training gorillas could backfire?
humans training gorillas leads to gorillas being more trusting and less suspecting of humans, including poachers, or some other unintended consequences.
> If they can learn by observing humans, without the humans specifically intending it, then what's so different, or unethical, if it's done with intent?
I think this might interfere with some research involving the gorillas. You cannot study their natural behaviors if you are assisting them. Not to say there isn't research teams looking to train gorillas, my point is that may not be THEIR focus. While they cannot control for poachers, they can control for them own interactions. Furthermore, not to slippery slope, but to what end do you believe they should be allowed to interfere? If, say, a diseased food source begins to decimate the group that could be prevented through cooking, should the researchers attempt to teach them how to cook the food source to kill the bacteria?
It's always strange to me when people seem to think humans and the things we do and make aren't "natural." We evolved naturally on the this planet like all other life here did, what we do is natural.
I feel that if any human was found to be teaching gorillas how to do human things, they would ultimately suffer punishment like Prometheus who taught humans how to use the fire of the gods.
Could the gorillas be the poachers? The story seems consistent with the gorrilas warning the tracker by grunt to stay put, then dismantle their nearby traps to protect the humans. This is also consistent with the fact that the tracker hadn't noticed the second trap. I don't really believe my suggestion though, but the coincidence probability does seem rather low for 2 such trap-dismantling events during a single encounter between tracker and gorillas. If they spontaneously dismantled strictly for themselves, I'd expect the traps to already be dismantled, if the gorillas preferred the traps dismantled. Perhaps human poachers set the traps, and the gorillas for some reason benefit or are entertained by the trapped animmals?
>On Tuesday tracker John Ndayambaje spotted a trap very close to the Kuryama gorilla clan. He moved in to deactivate the snare, but a silverback named Vubu grunted, cautioning Ndayambaje to stay away, Vecellio said.
>Suddenly two juveniles—Rwema, a male; and Dukore, a female; both about four years old—ran toward the trap.
>As Ndayambaje and a few tourists watched, Rwema jumped on the bent tree branch and broke it, while Dukore freed the noose.
>The pair then spied another snare nearby—one the tracker himself had missed—and raced for it. Joined by a third gorilla, a teenager named Tetero, Rwema and Dukore destroyed that trap as well.
>"If we could get more of them doing it, it would be great," he joked.
>Karisoke's Vecellio, though, said actively instructing the apes would be against the center's ethos.
>"No we can't teach them," she said. "We try as much as we can to not interfere with the gorillas. We don't want to affect their natural behavior."
I wonder if this "prime-directive" style rule might be something they consider changed - if there was a way to teach the gorillas to disabled various kinds of traps it seems that would be great.
On the other hand, I wonder what the side effects would be.. anyone?
This makes me wonder how will the rest of the lifeforms will evolve in future.
Will gorillas become more intelligent to survive in a current human dominated environment?
Will they evolve to the point, where they become early versions of the homo sapiens?
Hunt poachers, then sell their organs legally at market price, and then take a cut of the profits. This way the government does not even have to pay for anything.
Of course, highly controversial idea, but if you really want to curb down poaching, it might be a good way to fight back with better incentives.
[+] [-] disordinary|6 years ago|reply
The Kea which are very smart mountain parrots will go and disarm the traps in order to eat the bait. They're smart enough to have figured out how to do this, and are one of just a handful of animals that habitually use tools, but are unfortunately too smart for their own good because their handiwork means there's more predators for them.
But, some people don't give animals enough credit. Mammals and especially primates are very, very close to Humans genetically. Animals are often very smart.
[+] [-] danaliv|6 years ago|reply
Reminds me of a certain mammalian species.
[+] [-] randomsearch|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bredren|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ironic_ali|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] duxup|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xu_ituairo|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philwelch|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hirundo|6 years ago|reply
I would think that the main danger is in habituating the gorillas to humans, teaching them that we're safe when we're not. It may be better if any human interaction with them is aversive but not damaging, like pepper spray.
[+] [-] irjustin|6 years ago|reply
- Messing with natural behavior
vs
- Not being able to adequately defend oneself because we're stuck debating an ethics question
While it is a bit of a straw man attack - if this were humans, the answer would be clear.
[+] [-] darth_skywalker|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twic|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://scottberkun.com/essays/37-how-to-build-a-better-web-...
[+] [-] RcouF1uZ4gsC|6 years ago|reply
>"Chimpanzees are always quoted as being the tool users, but I think, when the situation provides itself, gorillas are quite ingenious," he said.
>Cranfield speculated that the gorillas may have learned how to destroy traps by watching the Karisoke center's trackers.
Looks like they may have learned it from watching humans.
[+] [-] Proven|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] patagonia|6 years ago|reply
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/8896313/david-attenbor...
[+] [-] gerbilly|6 years ago|reply
You know what bothers me? movies like the lord of the rings trilogy that make us yearn for an imaginary a more magical time.
We are living in the end days of that magical time right now. We don't need fantasies about walking/talking trees when there are 'magical' animals we share the planet with right now that we haven't bothered to get to know.
Some have already been wiped out, and the others, well we are working on it...
[+] [-] Bartweiss|6 years ago|reply
> You've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind.
The idea is recognizable, at least. It's antelope individually scattering from a cheetah, rather than forming a tight group that wouldn't be attacked a second time. But it's sad, and kind of funny, just how wrong it is to draw that line at 'humans'. Gorillas disarm traps instead of avoiding them. Elephants defend their friends, even across species, and bury their dead. Dolphins proactively kill sharks, and hold injured dolphins - or humans - at the surface to breath. Even octopuses, not usually understood as a social species, display clear theory of mind.
It's not just the endless redefinition of "tool use" that feels like hubris anymore. Just about everything we consider deeply meaningful, emotion and intellect and teaching and even ritual, is not a uniquely human experience.
[+] [-] toyg|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] YeGoblynQueenne|6 years ago|reply
Tsk. Like the Prime Directive but in the real world.
Well, isn't it the natural behaviour of gorillas to learn? If they can learn by observing humans, without the humans specifically intending it, then what's so different, or unethical, if it's done with intent? I think this is just splitting of moral hairs that is missing an opportunity to help the gorillas protect themselves against poachers.
Anyway, if we left the gorillas on their own, without interfering, they'd eventually be wiped out by poachers and others.
P.S. It strikes me that the center's workers could have actually shown the gorillas how to dismantle the snares and are only pretending to be surprised at their "unprecedented" behaviour. But I'm proably just paranoid and jaded.
[+] [-] gricardo99|6 years ago|reply
humans training gorillas leads to gorillas being more trusting and less suspecting of humans, including poachers, or some other unintended consequences.
[+] [-] tsumnia|6 years ago|reply
I think this might interfere with some research involving the gorillas. You cannot study their natural behaviors if you are assisting them. Not to say there isn't research teams looking to train gorillas, my point is that may not be THEIR focus. While they cannot control for poachers, they can control for them own interactions. Furthermore, not to slippery slope, but to what end do you believe they should be allowed to interfere? If, say, a diseased food source begins to decimate the group that could be prevented through cooking, should the researchers attempt to teach them how to cook the food source to kill the bacteria?
[+] [-] warent|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nkrisc|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjdjr0odo7|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] xwdv|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DoctorOetker|6 years ago|reply
>On Tuesday tracker John Ndayambaje spotted a trap very close to the Kuryama gorilla clan. He moved in to deactivate the snare, but a silverback named Vubu grunted, cautioning Ndayambaje to stay away, Vecellio said.
>Suddenly two juveniles—Rwema, a male; and Dukore, a female; both about four years old—ran toward the trap.
>As Ndayambaje and a few tourists watched, Rwema jumped on the bent tree branch and broke it, while Dukore freed the noose.
>The pair then spied another snare nearby—one the tracker himself had missed—and raced for it. Joined by a third gorilla, a teenager named Tetero, Rwema and Dukore destroyed that trap as well.
[+] [-] andyidsinga|6 years ago|reply
>"If we could get more of them doing it, it would be great," he joked.
>Karisoke's Vecellio, though, said actively instructing the apes would be against the center's ethos.
>"No we can't teach them," she said. "We try as much as we can to not interfere with the gorillas. We don't want to affect their natural behavior."
I wonder if this "prime-directive" style rule might be something they consider changed - if there was a way to teach the gorillas to disabled various kinds of traps it seems that would be great.
On the other hand, I wonder what the side effects would be.. anyone?
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hvmonk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] breatheObserve|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wildylion|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xFFFE|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesm|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] viach|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Haga|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitwize|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barbecue_sauce|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TOGoS|6 years ago|reply
Either way I'm all for it.
[+] [-] cwkoss|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ekianjo|6 years ago|reply
Of course, highly controversial idea, but if you really want to curb down poaching, it might be a good way to fight back with better incentives.
[+] [-] scythe|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bwb|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deepnotderp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gridlockd|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidw|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lowdose|6 years ago|reply
The pandas seem to dig it: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/993236...
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] UltraMagnus|6 years ago|reply
Gorilla dismantling trap: No. Caesar IS home.