Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
pain on one another. He tells of a group of females who chewed off the fingers and toes of a male
in captivity, and reports another story of females severely beating a male in the wild.
Though it's true that bonobos will eat meat, their observed prey are few and small compared
to those of chimpanzees, who have been witnessed killing dozens of monkeys each month. And
while bonobo researchers spend years documenting a few isolated cases of violence, chimpanzees
and humans frequently injure and slaughter other members of their species. Furthermore, as Frans
de Waal points out in
The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism among the Primates
,
bonobo aggression seen in captivity, with females attacking males, is almost always the result of
zoo staff misunderstanding bonobo social structure. “For years,” he writes, “zoos had been mov-
ing males around, thus causing disaster upon disaster, because male bonobos get hammered in the
absence of their mom.” Over the centuries, writers have repeatedly documented the rise of violen-
ce with the breakdown of human social structures, and it is no wonder that bonobos also respond
poorly to forced displacement and the destruction of the family unit.
However, that female and male bonobos have varying ranks, and that both can initiate sexual
interaction, resembles our conception of an enlightened society more closely than does the near
dominance of every male over every female among chimpanzees. Male chimpanzees battle for the
alpha position, and male bonobos do not, nor do they gang up on females. Wrangham and Peterson
describe bonobos as “chimpanzees with a threefold path to peace. They have reduced the level of
violence in relations between the sexes, in relations among males, and in relations between com-
munities.” Even recent brain studies of chimps and bonobos confirm that their respective cerebral
structures correspond to their observed behavior: bonobos have higher levels of anxiety, are more
risk-averse, and have increased restraint.
And yet can the motivation for their behavior be reduced to instinct and biology? Or is it pos-
sible that cultures and social relations vary among bonobo groups in ways more closely resembling
humans? Takayoshi Kano writes that bonobos “are rich in individuality, and the personality of in-
dividuals probably exerts a strong influence on the character of social relationships between group
members.” He goes on to explain that field studies at Wamba reveal different group “personalities”
that are likely to be rooted in the way various particular individual personalities compose them. It is
of course the distinct character not just of bonobo groups but of all apes that makes them such rich
subjects for research. For instance, apes communicate often with gestures whose meaning varies
dramatically between groups within each species. The flexible nature of this symbolic communica-
tion gives us a glimpse into how language might have emerged.
The challenges facing great ape conservation lie not in their culture or behavior, but in ours—in
our inability to empathize, our refusal to accord them sentiency. We often fail to see the subtle line
of influence, the way animals and humans are constantly shaping each other's culture. We have a
long history of integrating them into ours. We have domesticated them for food and work, and cre-
ated complex societies around herding or horsemanship. If we killed lions and wolves and made
them into symbols, it was because they were both our predators and competitors in the hunt, and hu-
man respect for them was adaptive, since those who lacked it often got killed and didn't reproduce.
Likewise, humans are still adapting, creating symbols with flagship species to protect the natural re-
sources necessary for our survival. In this way, conservation has promoted the growth of coalitions
between Congolese and Americans, as well as between organizations and governments. President
Joseph Kabila has learned about bonobos, and the Bongandu are increasingly interested in protect-
ing other creatures, so that the flighty salongo monkeys we observed only after much effort—their
