Chimpanzee planned stone attacks on zoo visitors

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 41018.html

Chimpanzee planned stone attacks on zoo visitors

By Chris Green, The Independent
Tuesday, 10 March 2009

For the past 12 years, visitors to Sweden's Furuvik Zoo have boldly approached the chimpanzee enclosure only to beat a hurried retreat after being rudely pelted with stones by one of the apes.

Now scientists have claimed that the culprit, Santino, who collects arsenals of weapons ready to throw at visitors, is living proof that animals are able to plan for the future, a skill previously thought to be restricted to humans.

Since the first recorded stoning in 1997, staff at the zoo, north of Stockholm, have had to step in to protect members of the public, who regularly found themselves caught in a hail of stones and bits of concrete unleashed by the irate ape.

The attacks were initially thought to be spontaneous, but scientists became fascinated in Santino's behaviour after he was observed fishing stones out of the water-filled moat that encircled the Chimpanzee Island attraction, before stockpiling them in carefully selected ammunition dumps with unimpeded views of the crowded viewing areas.

To top up his weapons cache, the ape would also fashion his own missiles by breaking off pieces of concrete from larger blocks in the centre of the enclosure. The ammunition gathering would take place in the early hours of the morning before the zoo opened, so the stones were ready to be rained down on the first unsuspecting tour.

Some visitors have been bombarded by 10 or more missiles hurled over the moat. One keeper described the most intense attacks as "hail storms".

After Santino refused to respond to verbal commands to cease his barrages, staff were eventually forced to remove his ammunition and keep him indoors.

If someone locked me in and people just walked
by staring at me everyday, i would do pretty
much the same thing for sure pretty much
the only thing you can do except lay down and
die.

I can relate to that chimp.

I think it's sad that the zookeepers resorted to imprisonment and force to "solve" the problem. You would think that with their ground-breaking chimp's strategic talents on display, they would at least continue to provide the simian weapons master with the stimulation he invented for himself.

They could have picked up the rocks in the enclosure and piled tennis balls and hackey sacks around. Let him have his gifted-chimp fun in a less harmful way.

Wow, I can't believe the zoo didn't have a better exhibit for the chimpanzees! They should have a glass the chimps can't look thru to shield them from the stress! I don't even want to think of how difficult it would be dealing with all those visitors every morning and the stress. The chimp was obviously very stressed out over it.

Last edited by ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo on 11 Mar 2009, 3:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

wise move.

Hmmm, as someone who studies bio anthropology (hence has a bit of primatologist formation), i am quite interested with that chimp's behavior (mostly the part where he planned piling up ammo for future use).

Scientifically speaking, I'm not really sure why this is a big deal. We already know chimps make their own tools for fishing termites out of mounds, which requires some forethought. And we already know they can remember where they see someone bury something and go and dig it up the next day. How is this different?

Well i'm only a student so i'm still learning

The part that is a big deal is the failure of the facility to keep the chimps free from the stress of dealing with large crowds of daily onlookers. The enclosure was not a proper one and one of the chimps was behaving in a hostile fashion towards humans because of it which could have meant death or injury for the chimp.

I am unsurprised. In fact I am unsure what exactly this demonstrates that we did not already know.

I am confused on this point also.

Poor guy. That's pretty hilarious though. I'd love to visit that zoo someday. I love the zoo.

Well when you get your degree can you get someone to do a study on how the psychology of animals matches our own?

I have no degree but I spend alot of time around animals and I also know a lot about psychology.

I have noticed animals give the exact same psychological response that humans do.

Example*

I did my own test on a squirrel over a period of a few months.

I would walk up to an oak tree where the squirrel was and make eye contact with it then walk away.

I hypothesized that the squirrel would become curious as to why I was not acting like a normal predator would .
Then the squirrel would come up to me to see how I would react.

psychologically speaking this action suggests that the squirrel is doing a test of its own, suggesting a higher level of intelligence then previously thought.


I did this test.

I kept walking up the the squirrel in the oak tree, then I would make eye contact with it. Once I had made eye contact with it I would walk away till the squirrel looked
comfortable with the distance between us.

eventually I saw the squirrel getting bolder. It would verture to the lower branches of the tree tring to get a better look at me.

It looked very curious , like it was trying to figure out why i was acting more like pray rather then a predator.

Then one day I was walking down the sidewalk and I looked down and the same squirrel from the oak tree was at my feet looking up at me.
It had the same curious look on it face.

It was about an inch from the tip of my feet.

I stood there looking at it, and it continued looking up at me.
We sat there like that for about 40 seconds to 1 min.

Then I took a few steps back like I did when I was in front of the oak tree. The squirrel looked at me for about 4 seconds longer then scampered off.

The squirrel did not look scared at all , rather it looked confused and baffled by my abnormal behavior.



WP members, please don't flame me for this post. I know it is probably controversial but I have put alot of time and effort into doing these tests.

thanks!

Well, i have reasons to believe our primordial ancestor (before even monkeys) could have been squirrels or small rodents, as some small primates look oddly like them.

And besides, it's been proven that their more terrestrial cousin, the rat, is a pretty intelligent animal as well.

I didn't mean to embarrass you. I was expecting you to come back with some highly technical point, as so many people on this site do.

It is fascinating how intelligent "unintelligent" animals (and people, for that matter) can be. We keep thinking that if they don't talk like us, they aren't that bright, but then it turns out they still have highly active analytical minds.

Of course, I've read that slime mold can navigate a maze. So maybe we're not as bright as we think we are, either.

That rocks.

ruveyn

you think that is amazing how about a spider capable of forethought:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1640513/posts