Well, this was in the news today and, as my long term readers may have noticed, I love all stories about apes and how smart they are.
Turning their backs all at once to express dissatisfaction is not just an indicator of intelligence, it is also a sign of a desire to communicate, and a fair bit of social organization.
Baboons at Emmen Dierenpark Zoo
None of this, by itself, is staggering. All apes live in groups and have some level of social organization. Meerkats have social organization. Heck, Honeybees and Ants have social organization. Also, lots of animals who are way less intelligent than apes make the effort to communicate with human beings. When a dog picks up his leash in his mouth and stands by the door and whines, he is communicating.
But this is more. The Baboons at that zoo are trying to say something, trying to tell the humans something that they have been missing, and the humans should listen. First, because there may be something seriously, critically wrong. A snake is in their pen. Someone is sneaking into the zoo at night. There is a structural flaw in their building. They saw someone in the crowd who they know and don’t like.
Or, as some have suggested, maybe they are protesting being held in a zoo or they are striking for better conditions. If so, that puts our whole relationship with them in a new light.
How can we find out, though? Despite many experiments, and the occasional great ape learning a few words of sign language, we don’t really have the ability to communicate with them on a high enough level to say “What’s wrong?” and expect them to give us an answer.
Maybe now is the time, though. All previous experiments in communicating with the great apes has consisted of human beings trying to teach them things. Maybe it’s time we started listening, trying to learn.
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This is our last night in Slovakia. Tomorrow we start the drive home and we will be back in Prague on Sunday. It has been a wonderful and amazing trip. I highly recommend Slovakia as a travel destination.
www.gurukalehuru.com 