Tag: macaque

Wordy Wednesday: Critically Endangered Orangutan Babies

The palm oil and logging industries have killed so many orangutan mothers, there are now more than a dozen major orangutan orphanages in Borneo and Sumatra. The pressure on orangutans, with whom we share 97% of our DNA, shows no signs of abating.

Orangutans are critically endangered, and the biggest threat to their continued existence comes from the agricultural sector, which has razed 55 percent of the species’ habitat in recent decades.

Jarang, a baby orangutan born in 2023. Credit: Blackpool Zoo

Logging companies clearing irreplaceable, old-growth jungle to claim more land for palm oil plantations have no compunction when it comes to flattening jungles despite the presence of orangutans hiding in the trees. The loggers often shoot the large apes on sight, leaving terrified, traumatized babies still clinging to their dead mothers, or taking them to sell as pets.

Of those left to die, the lucky babies are rescued before they starve and are brought to one of the many orangutan orphanages in Borneo and Sumatra, where they attend “school” to learn how to do everything from climb to forage. It takes at least eight years to teach them how to survive on their own, which is about the time it takes orangutan mothers to do the same job in the wild.

The unlucky babies end up as local pets, sold off to entertainment troupes or shipped off to places like Dubai, where wealthy clients will pay a premium for them.

Caretakers must start by teaching rescued orphans the most basic things, like how to climb and move through the jungle Credit: Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation
Logos, an orphaned baby orangutan who was rescued in 2023 by the Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN) Credit: International Animal Welfare Fund (IAWF)
Baby Galaksi (Indonesian for galaxy), was found wandering the jungle without his mother in 2021 by a villager in Borneo. He’s now in a “school” that teaches orphaned orangutans how to do everything from evading predators to discerning edible fruit from harmful and poisonous varieties. Credit: Samboja Lestari Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre

So what is palm oil, and why are countries in Asia bulldozing ancient jungles and forests to clear room and make more plantations?

Per the WWF:

“Palm oil has been and continues to be a major driver of deforestation of some of the world’s most biodiverse forests, destroying the habitat of already endangered species like the Orangutan, pygmy elephant and Sumatran rhino. This forest loss coupled with conversion of carbon rich peat soils are throwing out millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contributing to climate change. There also remains some exploitation of workers and child labour. These are serious issues that the whole palm oil sector needs to step up to address because it doesn’t have to be this way.

…

Palm oil is in nearly everything – it’s in close to 50% of the packaged products we find in supermarkets, everything from pizza, doughnuts and chocolate, to deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste and lipstick.”

Palm oil is in constant demand, and it’s an easy to grow, incredibly efficient crop. Indonesia and Malaysia, the only two countries in the world where orangutans exist, produce 85 percent of the world’s palm oil.

Images of orangutan babies in wheelbarrows are common on social media, but usually stripped of context. Orphanages use the wheelbarrows to bring infants and toddlers to and from “school” every day. Credit: International Animal Rescue
Asoka was found crying in the jungle by a fisherman in Borneo. He was brought to an orphanage in Borneo. Credit: International Animal Rescue’s rehabilitation Centre in Ketapang, West Kalimantan

We share 97 percent of our DNA with orangutans, making the species our second-closest cousins from a genetic standpoint. Some studies claim orangutans are our closest relatives based on our phenotypical similarities.

Orphaned orangutans attending “school” to learn how to survive in the wild. Credit: Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation
A baby at an orangutan orphanage is fed by a caretaker. Credit: Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation

Want to read more and learn how to help?

Here are some links to get you started. PITB is a big fan of the Jakarta Animal Aid Network, which successfully pushed Jakarta’s municipal government to ban the incredibly cruel “topeng monyet” monkey street shows:

World Wildlife Fund: Orangutans
Jakarta Animal Aid Network
Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation
The Orangutan Project
Rainforest Trust

This Parrot Loves Earth, Wind And Fire

The last few decades have revealed birds like crows and parrots possess astonishing intelligence. “Bird brain” might not be much of an insult after all.

Meet Kiki the cockatiel, a bird who loves Earth, Wind and Fire so much that he sings the band’s classic hit, September, regularly — whether he’s just chilling by himself, singing along to the recording or driving his human crazy by whistling the catchy hook at ungodly hours.

“Kiki, it’s seven in the morning!” she tells him in one clip, raising an admonishing finger. “Silence!”

@kiki.tiel

Partying without me 😦 #cockatielsoftiktok #birds #fyp #for you

♬ original sound – ✨ Kiki the cockatiel✨

Kiki regards her for moment as if her request is absurd, then launches right back into September.

Hey, hey, hey
Ba-dee-ya, say, do you remember?
Ba-dee-ya, dancin’ in September
Ba-dee-ya, never was a cloudy day

In another video Kiki’s human sets her phone to record and leaves the room, and Kiki busts out his favorite song again. He’s got great taste in music!

@kiki.tiel

Send help plz wheres the off button on parrot #fyp #foryou #bird #cockatiel #parrotsoftiktok #birdsoftiktok

♬ original sound – ✨ Kiki the cockatiel✨

I’ve always thought parrots are a fascinating example of animal cognition and further proof that we share our planet with billions of other minds who think and feel.

Humans and birds last shared a common ancestor more than 300 million years ago. That means between them there’s been more than 600 million years of divergent evolution resulting in radically different physiology, abilities and minds.

Yet parrots can speak while non-human primates (apes and monkeys) cannot!

For decades scientists thought apes and monkeys, by virtue of their relative similarity to humans, possessed an inmate affinity for language and that the physical limits of their vocal apparatus is what keeps them from speaking.

But a 2016 study by a team from Princeton University found monkeys do possess the vocal “hardware” to speak, meaning their mouths and throats are capable of making the sounds necessary for human language. It’s the lack of associated brain circuitry that prevents them from talking.

If the ability to speak and the ability to dance/appreciate music and rhythm is uniquely human among the primate order, and birds arrived at it at a different point in their evolutionary history, that means language and appreciation for music/rhythm developed separately along two divergent evolutionary lines!

That’s incredible and has intriguing implications for the cognitive abilities of animals.

A common argument is that birds with the ability to form human speech are simply mimicking sounds and don’t understand what they’re saying. That’s a natural assumption given what we think we know about non-human capacity for understanding language, but research suggests it’s wrong.

Take a look at this video of the famous late African grey parrot, Alex:

When Dr. Irene Pepperberg asks Alex how many blue blocks are present on a tray with a random assortment of blocks, balls and triangular toys in different colors, Alex can’t give a rote answer. First he has to understand that a question is a request for information and not part of the strange human ritual called small talk. He can’t simply count or guess at the number of blocks either.

Instead, Alex has to perform two calculations. He must tally the blue objects and count the number of them that are blocks, or he’s got to count the number of blocks and figure out how many of them are blue.

If he was simply repeating information in context — like saying “Hello!” when a person walks into a room — Alex wouldn’t be able to correctly answer the questions, and Pepperberg’s research funding would have dried up. Instead, Alex became a focal point of research that persisted for decades.

There’s no indication Alex could master syntax, which has proven elusive for even the smartest animals. But the African grey, who died in 2007 at 31 years old, was curious, asking questions that were unique and unexpected of an animal. He once asked his caretakers to describe his physical appearance, and the night before he died, he told Pepperberg: “You be good. I love you. See you tomorrow.”

We’ve talked about parrots before on PITB, including Snowball the dancing cockatiel who not only appreciates music and has a great sense of rhythm, but also has an entire repertoire of unique dance moves. Then there’s my personal favorite, Ruby the African grey, who has demonstrated mastery of absolutely vile, uniquely British insults.

Sure, there may not be much research value in hearing Ruby hurl verbal abuse at her very loving human, Nick Chapman, but few things have made me laugh as hard as that extraordinarily foul-mouthed bird. She has to be seen and heard to be believed. (But if you’ve got kids in the room, stick with the wholesome Snowball. He’s got serious moves.)

Snowball the dancing parrot
Scientists credit Snowball with choreographing his own dance routines, with dozens of individual dance moves and combinations, and moves that change depending on the song he’s rocking out to.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to teach a certain feline a few Earth, Wind and Fire songs in the hope that he’ll give up on the screeching meows and use his natural falsetto for a more gentle wake-up experience.

Hey, hey, hey
Ba-dee-ya, hey there my Big Buddy
Ba-dee-ya, Little Buddy’s hungry!
Ba-dee-ya, get your lazy ass up and feeeeeed me!

Bud close up

UPDATED: Monkeys Go Missing From Dallas Zoo Weeks After Clouded Leopard Freed From Habitat

Authorities believe the person or people who stole the monkeys intend to sell them as pets or breeding animals.

UPDATE, 2/1/2023: A tip led police to an empty home in Lancaster, Texas, about 15 miles from the zoo. The missing tamarins were found inside a closet and were unharmed, per CNN. They were returned to the zoo and examined by veterinarians.

Police still want to speak to an unidentified man (see story below) who was seen on zoo grounds, but they haven’t said what the man was doing or how he may be connected to the thefts. The abduction of the tamarins follows two other incidents of breached enclosures at the zoo, and the theft of 12 squirrel monkeys from Zoosiana in Broussard, Louisiana, this weekend.

Original story, 1/31/2023:

Dallas police released a photo of a “person of interest” they’d like to speak to after a pair of emperor tamarin monkeys went missing from their enclosure in the Dallas Zoo, the latest of three incidents in which animal habitats at the zoo were breached by human hands.

The first incident happened on Jan. 13 when zookeepers noticed a three-year-old clouded leopard named Nova was missing from her enclosure. They found a breach in the mesh netting that serves as one of enclosure barriers, and said it was a clean, intentional cut with a blade, not from the animals.

After a frantic search — and multiple appeals to the public informing people the leopard was not dangerous and should not be shot — zookeepers found Nova hiding in a tree on the zoo grounds, not far from her enclosure. Nova’s sister, Luna, lives in the same enclosure and remained there.

That same day, staff at the zoo also found another breach, this time at the langur exhibit. Langurs are old-world, leaf-eating monkeys native to Asia. None of the monkeys were missing, but the discovery strengthened the suspicion that someone had tried to steal Nova and at least one monkey, but were not successful.

Now it appears that same person or a copycat has been successful in another habitat. On Jan. 30, zookeepers found a breach in a habitat that hold’s the zoo’s emperor tamarin monkeys. Two of the monkeys were missing.

Tamarins are tiny arboreal new world monkeys that have become popular pets due to “influencers” popularizing them on sites like Youtube and celebrities purchasing them.

tamarinwithbabies
A tamarin mother with her babies. Primate babies are virtually attached to their mothers for the first years of their lives

There are an estimated 15,000 monkeys living as pets in the US, and some species fetch up to $7,500 as infants, when they’re violently “pulled” from their mothers when they’re just days old and sold. Most are temporary pets, lasting up to two years before docile, adorable infants become destructive, resentful juveniles and the “owners” decide to cut their losses. Buying monkeys as pets and subsequently abandoning them has become so common that sanctuary spots are at a premium, with a handful of sanctuaries taking thousands of monkeys annually.

Some people buy new babies every year or two, shipping the “old” ones off to sanctuaries — or simply dumping them in the woods where they don’t know how to fend for themselves — and repeating the process of infantalizing newly-purchased monkeys. Macaques, capuchins, marmosets and tamarins are the most popular monkeys kept as pets.

Despite the appeal to some people, humans cannot meet the social or environmental needs of monkeys, who naturally live in troops with complex social hierarchies and relationships.

“Monkeys are not surrogate children, and they’re not little people,” the Humane Society’s Debbie Leahy told the New York Post in a 2013 story.

“Pulling” monkeys from their mothers traumatizes infants and the mothers, and there is a wealth of data from primate maternal deprivation studies — going all the way back to the cruel experiments of psychologist Harry Harlow — documenting the psychological damage done to the animals when they’re removed from their mothers and troops.

“If you try to keep them as pets you’re creating a mentally disturbed animal in 99.9 percent of the cases,” Kevin Wright, director of conservation, science and sanctuary at Phoenix Zoo told National Geographic. “The animal will never be able to fit in any other home. Never learn how to get along with other monkeys. And, more often than not, will end up with a lot of behavioral traits that are self-destructive.”

rhesusmonkeybaby
A rhesus monkey baby, already separated from its mother at just a few days old.

Tamarins, which are often called “pocket monkeys” by people who keep them as pets, can fetch up to $5,000 apiece, generally less than larger primates like capuchins or macaques. Demand for macaques has skyrocketed since the pandemic, as laboratories test various drugs on the old world monkeys, and prices for infants have risen as well.

Despite officials at Dallas Zoo installing additional cameras and increasingly patrols on the grounds at night, an intruder or intruders were able to evade detection and successfully remove the animals some time between Sunday night and Monday morning.

Police have released an image of a man who was seen strolling through the zoo and have asked for the public’s help identifying him so detectives can speak with him. Police did not say why they believe the man, who is pictured wearing a hooded jacket and eating Doritos, would have information on the missing animals or what his role might be.

close up photo of a tamarin monkey
An emperor tamarin. Credit: Nathan J Hilton/Pexels

Do You Consider Your Cat Your ‘Child’?

Why do people expend so much time, money and effort on raising the young of other species? An anthropologist weighs in.

The Washington Post has an interesting story from an anthropologist who’s taken an interest in studying the relationships between people and their pets.

Anyone familiar with evolutionary biology has heard the oft-repeated idea that we’re hardwired to propagate our DNA, and every decision we make — from who we date, when we get married, whether we put career goals on the line to take care of children — is ultimately dictated by that goal.

If that’s true, then “parenting” pets doesn’t make sense. They aren’t our biological children. They won’t carry on our family names and history after we’re gone, they won’t go to college and have careers and take care of us when we’re old. In stark terms, we’re “wasting” resources on raising — and often pampering — the offspring of other species.

Yet we do it, so the question is: Why?

Shelly Volsche, an anthropologist at Boise State University, thinks the explanation can be traced back to our roots in pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer societies, when alloparenting — cooperative parenting — was key to raising children.

“If people evolved to alloparent, and our environment is now making caring for children more difficult or less appealing to some, it makes sense for people to alloparent other species entering their homes,” Volsche wrote. “Alloparenting companion animals can offer a way to fulfill the evolved need to nurture while reducing the investment of time, money and emotional energy compared to raising children.”

As readers of this blog know, I don’t refer to my cat as my “child” and I don’t see him as some sort of child replacement. He’s Buddy, my buddy. We’re best buds. Other people choose to “parent” their children, and that’s cool. Whatever works for you.

A female macaque takes care of two babies. Alloparenting is common in macaque troops.

I think Volsche’s ideas are interesting, especially in the context of our primate cousins and the way they raise their young. Orangutans are quasi-solitary, and children stick with their moms for about eight years because it takes that long for them to mature and learn how to survive in the jungle on their own.

But more social primates, like chimpanzees, Capuchin monkeys, macaques and vervet monkeys, live in groups and cooperative parenting is a major part of how they handle raising “kids” when there’s no daycare or schools.

A mother who goes out to forage, for example, might leave her baby with an aunt or a trusted female of the troop, and it’s common to see female monkeys caring for babies that aren’t theirs.

Human and proto-human hunter-gatherer societies were essentially upjumped primate troops, so it’s that ingrained behavior we’re talking about here.

Ultimately, Volsche says we’re driven by a “need to nurture.”

“Although the details may look quite different — attending training classes instead of school functions, or providing smell walks for dogs instead of coloring books for children — both practices fulfill the same evolved function,” she wrote. “Whether child or pet, people are meeting the same evolved need to care for, teach and love a sentient other.”