Xref: utzoo sci.skeptic:7006 sci.bio:4163 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!pyrltd!root44!hrc63!mrcu!paj From: paj@mrcu (Paul Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,sci.bio Subject: Re: Non-human planning and communication Message-ID: <757@puck.mrcu> Date: 14 Dec 90 10:37:34 GMT References: <1505@cluster.cs.su.oz.au> <1990Nov26.061137.27991@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> <1990Dec4.081503.1959@desire.wright.edu> Reply-To: paj@uk.co.gec-mrc (Paul Johnson) Organization: GEC-Marconi Research Centre, Great Baddow, UK Lines: 52 Summary: Expires: Sender: Followup-To: >Please note the cross-posting. Subject line was "Re: we are alien". > >In article , kde@heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov ( Keith >Evans) writes: >> But with communication, one can think and make plans rather than >> just brute force it (i.e., kill an animal for food, "you chase him >> around that way and I'll wait for him"). > >I recently read "Through a Window", by Jane Goodall. I loaned it out, >so I can't check details or give precise references. She describes a >band of chimps hunting a colobus monkey with an infant. The colobus >climbed a tree. Each chimp climbed one of the adjacent trees, one >chimp leaped into the tree with the colobus, the colobus mother leaped >to another tree, and the chimp there easily caught the infant and >killed it. Sounds like good planning and teamwork to me. > >She, and that researcher at the Amsterdam Zoo (?), have also described >chimp power politics: long-range planning, alliances, backstabbing, >brown-nosing, coat-tail riding, et cetera. The BBC series "Trials of Life" by David Attenborough (sp?) ended the program on hunting with film of one of these hunts. The chimps used (as I recall) 3 roles: a group of chasers to herd the colbuses into a tree, blockers who picked strategic points in nearby trees and sat there looking big and prominent, and finaly a hunter who went up the tree and caught a colbus. In this hunt a troop of colbus was chased and one adult caught and shared out. They put grim and threatening music on for this scene, but Zarathustra might have been more appropriate. If you get a chance to see this program (and the rest of the series, but mainly this one) then do so. It had some of the most awesome animal photography I have ever seen, including shots of black-backed gulls hunting puffins out of the air and killer whales deliberately beaching themselves to grab seals. Also of interest is Farley Mowat "Never Cry Wolf", which tells of the year he spent studying wolves in Alaska. He reports local indians (Innuit?) being able to understand wolf howls as messages with specific meanings (e.g. `Moose to north-east' or `Humans coming through here') and one incident where the 3 adults in the pack he was studying spent most of a day setting up an object lesson for the pups in how not to hunt. Can you post a referance to that Jane Goodall book please? I would like to read it. Paul. -- Paul Johnson UUCP: !mcvax!ukc!gec-mrc!paj --------------------------------!-------------------------|------------------- GEC-Marconi Research is not | Telex: 995016 GECRES G | Tel: +44 245 73331 responsible for my opinions. | Inet: paj@uk.co.gec-mrc | Fax: +44 245 75244