ScienceDaily (Sep. 3, 2012) — Tigers aren’t known for being accommodating, but a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that the carnivores in Nepal are taking the night shift to better coexist with humans.
A tiger camera trapped in Chitwan National Forest in Nepal. (Credit: Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Michigan State University)
The revelation that tigers and people are sharing exactly the same space — the same roads and trails — of Chitwan National Park flies in the face of long-held convictions in conservation circles. It also underscores how successful conservation efforts need sciences that takes into account both nature and humans.
“As our planet becomes more crowded, we need to find creative solutions that consider both human and natural systems,” said Jianguo “Jack” Liu, the director of the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability at Michigan State University. “Sustainability can be achieved if we have a good understanding of the complicated connections between both worlds. We’ve found something very interesting is happening in Nepal that holds promise for both humans and nature to thrive.”
Conventional conservation wisdom is that tigers need plenty of people-free space, which often leads to people being relocated or their access to resources compromised to make way for tigers.
Neil Carter, MSU doctoral student and one of the paper’s co-authors, spent two seasons setting motion-detecting camera traps. His analysis of the images shows that people and tigers are walking the same paths, albeit at different times.
Tigers typically move around at all times of the day and night, monitoring their territory, mating and hunting. But in the study area, the tigers had become creatures of the night. People in Nepal generally avoid the forests at night. Essentially, quitting time for people signals starting time for Chitwan’s tigers.
“It’s a very fundamental conflict over resources,” Carter said. “Tigers need resources, people need the same resources. If we operate under the traditional wisdom that tigers only can survive with space dedicated solely for them, there would always be conflict. If your priority is people, tigers lose out. If your priority is tigers, people lose out.”
In Chitwan, tigers seem to be adapting to make it work, he added.
“There appears to be a middle ground where you might actually be able to protect the species at high densities and give people access to forest goods they need to live,” Carter said. “If that’s the case, then this can happen in other places, and the future of tigers is much brighter than it would be otherwise.”
Additional co-authors of the paper include Binoj Shresthaof the Institute for Social and Environmental Research in Nepal, Jhamak Karkiof Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation and Narendra Man Babu Pradhan of the World Wildlife Fund in Nepal.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Rhinoceros and Tiger Conservation Fund and MSU AgBioReseach. It was part of the Partnership for International Research and Education.
ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2012) — Researchers have revealed that chimpanzees are not only capable of learning from one another, but also use this social information to form and maintain local traditions.
Wrist-to-wrist grooming handclasp. (Credit: Mark Bodamer)
A research collaboration between the Gonzaga University and the Max Planck Institute shows that the way in which chimpanzees groom each other depends on the community to which they belong. Specifically, it is the unique handclasp grooming behaviour that reveals this local difference.
The specific behaviour that the researchers focused on was the ‘grooming handclasp’, a behaviour where two chimpanzees clasp onto each other’s arms, raise those arms up in the air, and groom each other with their free arm. This behaviour has only been observed in some chimpanzee populations. The question remained whether chimpanzees are instinctively inclined to engage in grooming handclasp behaviour, or whether they learn this behaviour from each other and pass it on to subsequent generations.
Edwin van Leeuwen and Katherine Cronin of the Comparative Cognitive Anthropology research group of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics led by Daniel Haun conducted their observations between 2007 and 2012 at the Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage Trust in Zambia. At Chimfunshi, a mix of wild- and captive-born chimpanzees live in woodlands in some of the largest enclosures in the world. The Max Planck team collaborated with students from Gonzaga University led by Mark Bodamer, a team of local chimpanzee caretakers, and Roger Mundry of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in order to collect and comprehend the detailed chimpanzee data.
Previous research suggested that the grooming handclasp might be a cultural phenomenon, just like humans across cultures engage in different ways of greeting each other. However, these suggestions were primarily based on observations that some chimpanzee communities handclasp and others don’t — not whether there are differences between communities that engage in handclasping. Moreover, the early observations could have been explained by differences in genetic and/or ecological factors between the chimpanzee communities, which precluded the interpretation that the chimpanzees were exhibiting ‘cultural’ differences.
The present research shows that even between chimpanzee communities that engage in the grooming handclasp, subtle yet stable differences exist in the styles that they prefer: one chimpanzee group highly preferred the style where they would grasp each other’s hands during the grooming, while another group engaged much more in a style where they would fold their wrists around each other’s wrists.
“We don’t know what mechanisms account for these differences,” van Leeuwen says. “But our study at least reveals that these chimpanzee communities formed and maintained their own local grooming traditions over the last 5 years. Our observations may also indicate that chimpanzees can overcome their innate predispositions, potentially allowing them to manipulate their environment based on social constructs rather than on mere instincts.”
Apart from the different style preferences of the chimpanzee communities, the research team also observed that the grooming handclasp behaviour was a long-lasting part of the chimpanzees’ behavioural repertoire: the behaviour was even transmitted to the next generation of potential handclaspers.
“By following the chimpanzees over time, we were able to show that 20 young chimpanzees gradually developed the handclasp behaviour over the course of the five-year study. The first handclasps by young individuals were mostly in partnership with their mothers. These observations support the conclusion that these chimpanzees socially learn their local tradition, and that this might be evidence of social culture,” Bodamer explains.
“Continued monitoring of these groups of chimpanzees will shed light on the question of how these group-traditions are maintained over time and potentially even why the chimpanzees like to raise their arms up in the air during social grooming in the first place,” van Leeuwen adds.
Journal Reference:
Edwin J. C. van Leeuwen, Katherine A. Cronin, Daniel B. M. Haun, Roger Mundry and Mark D. Bodamer. Neighbouring chimpanzee communities show different preferences in social grooming behaviour. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, August 29, 2012
Natasha, who appears in this photo, outperformed other chimps on tests given by researchers to measure intelligence. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology/Esther Herrmann
Certain apes appear to be much smarter than others, with at least one chimpanzee now called “exceptional” when compared to other chimps.
The standout chimp, an adult female in her 20s named Natasha, scored off the charts in a battery of tests. The findings, published in the latest Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, suggest that geniuses exist among non-humans, but that no one attribute constitutes intelligence.
Instead, a perfect storm of abilities seems to come together to create the Einsteins of the animal kingdom. Natasha’s keepers at the Ngamba Island chimpanzee sanctuary in Uganda knew she was special even before the latest study.
“The caretakers named Natasha as the smartest chimpanzee, precisely the same chimpanzee that our tests had revealed to be exceptional,” study authors Esther Herrmann and Josep Call of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology wrote.
“All three of the most experienced caretakers included Natasha in their lists (of the most intelligent chimps),” they added.
Natasha has made headlines over the months for her attention-grabbing antics. For instance, she repeatedly escaped her former enclosure, surrounded by an electric fence. She did this by tossing branches at the fence until she didn’t see a spark, letting her know that the power was off.
She also learned how to tease humans, beckoning them to throw food her way, only to spray the unsuspecting person with water.
Herrmann and Call decided to study this chimp, along with numerous others, to see if there really are chimp prodigies among non-human great apes. To do this, the researchers created a multi-part mental challenge consisting of eight tasks.
For the first task, the chimps had to find hidden food, testing their spatial knowledge. For the second, the chimps wielded a tool — avoiding a trap — to again obtain a food reward. The remaining tasks demonstrated understanding of things like color, size and shape.
“We identified some individuals who consistently scored well across (the) multiple tasks,” wrote the authors, who again made note of Natasha, who aced nearly every task.
The researchers could not identify “a general intelligence factor.” They instead indicate that ape intelligence might be a bundling of skills related to learning, tool usage, understanding of quantities, and an ability to reach conclusions based on evidence and reasoning.
As the saying goes, necessity may be the mother of invention and, at least in some cases, one reason behind chimp cleverness.
Call, for example, told Discovery News about chimps that make tools for extracting termites out of mounds. The process requires several steps.
“They uproot the stem or use their teeth to clip the stem at the base and then remove the large leaf from the distal end by clipping it with their teeth before transporting the stem to the termite nest, where they complete tool manufacture by modifying the end into a ‘paint brush’ tip by pulling the stem through their teeth, splitting the probe lengthwise by pulling off strands of fiber, or separating the fibers by biting them,” he said.
As for why only some chimps go through such an elaborate process, “a lot depends on the ecological constraints and needs,” he said.
In terms of other animals, Herrmann and Call mention the dogs Rico and Chaser, who knew the meaning of hundreds of words.
“Interestingly,” the scientists point out, “all of these dogs (considered to be very smart) are border collies. And many of their owners reported that they did not train the dogs to play the fetching game; it was the dogs who trained them!”
The jury is still out on what exactly constitutes such cleverness. The researchers propose that more studies be conducted, with “tasks that capture cognitive, motivational and temperament dimensions.”
That’s because, in part, a willingness to learn and a positive attitude seem to make as big of a difference in dogs, chimps and other animals as they do in humans.
On this day of July 7, 2012, a prominent international group of cognitive neuroscientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists and computational neuroscientists gathered at The University of Cambridge to reassess the neurobiological substrates of conscious experience and related behaviors in human and non-human animals. While comparative research on this topic is naturally hampered by the inability of non-human animals, and often humans, to clearly and readily communicate about their internal states, the following observations can be stated unequivocally:
The field of Consciousness research is rapidly evolving. Abundant new techniques and strategies for human and non-human animal research have been developed. Consequently, more data is becoming readily available, and this calls for a periodic reevaluation of previously held preconceptions in this field. Studies of non-human animals have shown that homologous brain circuits correlated with conscious experience and perception can be selectively facilitated and disrupted to assess whether they are in fact necessary for those experiences. Moreover, in humans, new non-invasive techniques are readily available to survey the correlates of consciousness.
The neural substrates of emotions do not appear to be confined to cortical structures. In fact, subcortical neural networks aroused during affective states in humans are also critically important for generating emotional behaviors in animals. Artificial arousal of the same brain regions generates corresponding behavior and feeling states in both humans and non-human animals. Wherever in the brain one evokes instinctual emotional behaviors in non-human animals, many of the ensuing behaviors are consistent with experienced feeling states, including those internal states that are rewarding and punishing. Deep brain stimulation of these systems in humans can also generate similar affective states. Systems associated with affect are concentrated in subcortical regions where neural homologies abound. Young human and nonhuman animals without neocortices retain these brain-mind functions. Furthermore, neural circuits supporting behavioral/electrophysiological states of attentiveness, sleep and decision making appear to have arisen in evolution as early as the invertebrate radiation, being evident in insects and cephalopod mollusks (e.g., octopus).
Birds appear to offer, in their behavior, neurophysiology, and neuroanatomy a striking case of parallel evolution of consciousness. Evidence of near human-like levels of consciousness has been most dramatically observed in African grey parrots. Mammalian and avian emotional networks and cognitive microcircuitries appear to be far more homologous than previously thought. Moreover, certain species of birds have been found to exhibit neural sleep patterns similar to those of mammals, including REM sleep and, as was demonstrated in zebra finches, neurophysiological patterns, previously thought to require a mammalian neocortex. Magpies in particular have been shown to exhibit striking similarities to humans, great apes, dolphins, and elephants in studies of mirror self-recognition.
In humans, the effect of certain hallucinogens appears to be associated with a disruption in cortical feedforward and feedback processing. Pharmacological interventions in non-human animals with compounds known to affect conscious behavior in humans can lead to similar perturbations in behavior in non-human animals. In humans, there is evidence to suggest that awareness is correlated with cortical activity, which does not exclude possible contributions by subcortical or early cortical processing, as in visual awareness. Evidence that human and nonhuman animal emotional feelings arise from homologous subcortical brain networks provide compelling evidence for evolutionarily shared primal affective qualia.
We declare the following: “The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.”
* The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness was written by Philip Low and edited by Jaak Panksepp, Diana Reiss, David Edelman, Bruno Van Swinderen, Philip Low and Christof Koch. The Declaration was publicly proclaimed in Cambridge, UK, on July 7, 2012, at the Francis Crick Memorial Conference on Consciousness in Human and non-Human Animals, at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, by Low, Edelman and Koch. The Declaration was signed by the conference participants that very evening, in the presence of Stephen Hawking, in the Balfour Room at the Hotel du Vin in Cambridge, UK. The signing ceremony was memorialized by CBS 60 Minutes.
Neurocientistas publicam manifesto afirmando que mamíferos, aves e até polvos têm consciência e esquentam debate sobre direitos dos animais
Marco Túlio Pires
Chimpanzé alimenta um filhote de tigre dourado, em mini zoológico na cidade de Samutprakan, Tailândia: percepção de sua própria existência e do mundo ao seu redor (Rungroj Yongrit/EFE)
Os seres humanos não são os únicos animais que têm consciência. A afirmação não é de ativistas radicais defensores dos direitos dos animais. Pelo contrário. Um grupo de neurocientistas — doutores de instituições de renome como Caltech, MIT e Instituto Max Planck — publicou um manifesto asseverando que o estudo da neurociência evoluiu de modo tal que não é mais possível excluir mamíferos, aves e até polvos do grupo de seres vivos que possuem consciência. O documento divulgado no último sábado (7), em Cambridge, esquenta uma discussão que divide cientistas, filósofos e legisladores há séculos sobre a natureza da consciência e sua implicação na vida dos humanos e de outros animais.
Apresentado à Nasa nesta quinta-feira, o manifesto não traz novas descobertas da neurociência — é uma compilação das pesquisas da área. Representa, no entanto, um posicionamento inédito sobre a capacidade de outros seres perceberem sua própria existência e o mundo ao seu redor. Em entrevista ao site de VEJA, Philip Low, criador do iBrain, o aparelho que recentemente permitiu a leitura das ondas cerebrais do físico Stephen Hawking, e um dos articuladores do movimento, explica que nos últimos 16 anos a neurociência descobriu que as áreas do cérebro que distinguem seres humanos de outros animais não são as que produzem a consciência. “As estruturas cerebrais responsáveis pelos processos que geram a consciência nos humanos e outros animais são equivalentes”, diz. “Concluímos então que esses animais também possuem consciência.”
O que é consciência?
PARA A FILOSOFIA
Filosoficamente, é o entendimento que uma criatura tem sobre si e seu lugar na natureza. Alguns atributos definem a consciência, como ser senciente, ou seja, sentir o mundo à sua volta e reagir a ele; estar alerta ou acordado ou ter consciência sobre si mesmo (o que, para a filosofia já basta para incluir alguns animais “não-linguísticos” entre os seres com consciência).Fonte: Enciclopédia de Filosofia de Stanford
PARA A CIÊNCIA
A ciência considera como consciência as percepções sobre o mundo e as sensações corporais, junto com os pensamentos, memórias, ações e emoções. Ou seja, tudo o que escapa aos processos cerebrais automáticos e chega à nossa atenção. O conteúdo da consciência geralmente é estudado usando exames de imagens cerebrais para comparar quais estímulos chegam à nossa atenção e quais não. Como resumiu o neurocientista Bernard Baars, em 1987, o cérebro é como um teatro no qual a maioria dos eventos neurais são inconscientes, portanto acontecem “nos bastidores”, enquanto alguns poucos entram no processo consciente, ou seja, chegam ao “palco”.
Estudos recentes, como os da pesquisadora Diana Reiss (uma das cientistas que assinaram o manifesto), da Hunter College, nos Estados Unidos, mostram que golfinhos e elefantes também são capazes de se reconhecer no espelho. Essa capacidade é importante para definir se um ser está consciente. O mesmo vale para chimpanzés e pássaros. Outros tipos de comportamento foram analisados pelos neurocientistas. “Quando seu cachorro está sentindo dor ou feliz em vê-lo, há evidências de que no cérebro deles há estruturas semelhantes às que são ativadas quando exibimos medo e dor e prazer”, diz Low.
Personalidade animal – Dizer que os animais têm consciência pode trazer várias implicações para a sociedade e o modo como os animais são tratados. Steven Wise, advogado e especialista americano em direito dos animais, diz que o manifesto chega em boa hora. “O papel dos advogados e legisladores é transformar conclusões científicas como essa em legislação que ajudará a organizar a sociedade”, diz em entrevista ao site de VEJA. Wise é líder do Projeto dos Direitos de Animais não Humanos. O advogado coordena um grupo de 70 profissionais que organizam informações, casos e jurisprudência para entrar com o primeiro processo em favor de que alguns animais — como grandes primatas, papagaios africanos e golfinhos — tenham seu status equiparado ao dos humanos.
O manifesto de Cambridge dá mais munição ao grupo de Wise para vencer o caso. “Queremos que esses animais recebam direitos fundamentais, que a justiça as enxergue como pessoas, no sentido legal.” Isso, de acordo com o advogado, quer dizer que esses animais teriam direito à integridade física e à liberdade, por exemplo. “Temos que parar de pensar que esses animais existem para servir aos seres humanos”, defende Wise. “Eles têm um valor intrínseco, independente de como os avaliamos.”
Questão moral – O manifesto não decreta o fim dos zoológicos ou das churrascarias, muito menos das pesquisas médicas com animais. Contudo, já foi suficiente para provocar reflexão e mudança de comportamento em cientistas, como o próprio Low. “Estou considerando me tornar vegetariano”, diz. “Temos agora que apelar para nossa engenhosidade, para desenvolver tecnologias que nos permitam criar uma sociedade cada vez menos dependente dos animais.” Low se refere principalmente à pesquisa médica. Para estudar a vida, a ciência ainda precisa tirar muitas. De acordo com o neurocientista, o mundo gasta 20 bilhões por ano para matar 100 milhões de vertebrados. Das moléculas medicinais produzidas por esse amontoado de dinheiro e mortes, apenas 6% chega a ser testada em seres humanos. “É uma péssima contabilidade”, diz Low.
Contudo, a pesquisa com animais ainda é necessária. O endocrinologista americano Michael Conn, autor do livro The Animal Research War, sem edição no Brasil, argumenta que se trata de uma escolha priorizar a espécie humana. “Conceitos como os de consentimento e autonomia só fazem sentido dentro de um código moral que diz respeito aos homens, e não aos animais”, disse em entrevista ao site de VEJA. “Nossa obrigação com os animais é fazer com que eles sejam devidamente cuidados, não sofram nem sintam dor — e não tratá-los como se fossem humanos, o que seria uma ficção”, argumenta. “Se pudéssemos utilizar apenas um computador para fazer pesquisas médicas seria ótimo. Mas a verdade é que não é possível ainda.”
A inteligência dos polvos
O vídeo mostra diversas situações em que o polvo consegue resolver problemas. Desde a captura de presas em diferentes tipos de recipientes até escapar de locais extremamente difíceis. As situações mostram que o animal é capaz de formular soluções para problemas específicos, o que denota, na opinião dos neurocientistas, um estado de consciência inteligente.
* * *
“Não é mais possível dizer que não sabíamos”, diz Philip Low (Veja)
Entrevista
Neurocientista explica por que pesquisadores se uniram para assinar manifesto que admite a existência da consciência em todos os mamíferos, aves e outras criaturas, como o polvo, e como essa descoberta pode impactar a sociedade
Marco Túlio Pires
Estruturas do cérebro responsáveis pela produção da consciência são análogas em humanos e outros animais, dizem neurocientistas (Thinkstock)
O neurocientista canadense Philip Low ganhou destaque no noticiário científico depois deapresentar um projeto em parceria com o físico Stephen Hawking, de 70 anos. Low quer ajudar Hawking, que está completamente paralisado há 40 anos por causa de uma doença degenerativa, a se comunicar com a mente. Os resultados da pesquisa foram revelados no último sábado (7) em uma conferência em Cambridge. Contudo, o principal objetivo do encontro era outro. Nele, neurocientistas de todo o mundo assinaram um manifesto afirmando que todos os mamíferos, aves e outras criaturas, incluindo polvos, têm consciência. Stephen Hawking estava presente no jantar de assinatura do manifesto como convidado de honra.
Philip Low: “Todos os mamíferos e pássaros têm consciência”. Divulgação.
Low é pesquisador da Universidade Stanford e do MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), ambos nos Estados Unidos. Ele e mais 25 pesquisadores entendem que as estruturas cerebrais que produzem a consciência em humanos também existem nos animais. “As áreas do cérebro que nos distinguem de outros animais não são as que produzem a consciência”, diz Low, que concedeu a seguinte entrevista ao site de VEJA:
Estudos sobre o comportamento animal já afirmam que vários animais possuem certo grau de consciência. O que a neurociência diz a respeito?Descobrimos que as estruturas que nos distinguem de outros animais, como o córtex cerebral, não são responsáveis pela manifestação da consciência. Resumidamente, se o restante do cérebro é responsável pela consciência e essas estruturas são semelhantes entre seres humanos e outros animais, como mamíferos e pássaros, concluímos que esses animais também possuem consciência.
Quais animais têm consciência? Sabemos que todos os mamíferos, todos os pássaros e muitas outras criaturas, como o polvo, possuem as estruturas nervosas que produzem a consciência. Isso quer dizer que esses animais sofrem. É uma verdade inconveniente: sempre foi fácil afirmar que animais não têm consciência. Agora, temos um grupo de neurocientistas respeitados que estudam o fenômeno da consciência, o comportamento dos animais, a rede neural, a anatomia e a genética do cérebro. Não é mais possível dizer que não sabíamos.
É possível medir a similaridade entre a consciência de mamíferos e pássaros e a dos seres humanos? Isso foi deixado em aberto pelo manifesto. Não temos uma métrica, dada a natureza da nossa abordagem. Sabemos que há tipos diferentes de consciência. Podemos dizer, contudo, que a habilidade de sentir dor e prazer em mamíferos e seres humanos é muito semelhante.
Que tipo de comportamento animal dá suporte à ideia de que eles têm consciência?Quando um cachorro está com medo, sentindo dor, ou feliz em ver seu dono, são ativadas em seu cérebro estruturas semelhantes às que são ativadas em humanos quando demonstramos medo, dor e prazer. Um comportamento muito importante é o autorreconhecimento no espelho. Dentre os animais que conseguem fazer isso, além dos seres humanos, estão os golfinhos, chimpanzés, bonobos, cães e uma espécie de pássaro chamada pica-pica.
Quais benefícios poderiam surgir a partir do entendimento da consciência em animais? Há um pouco de ironia nisso. Gastamos muito dinheiro tentando encontrar vida inteligente fora do planeta enquanto estamos cercados de inteligência consciente aqui no planeta. Se considerarmos que um polvo — que tem 500 milhões de neurônios (os humanos tem 100 bilhões) — consegue produzir consciência, estamos muito mais próximos de produzir uma consciência sintética do que pensávamos. É muito mais fácil produzir um modelo com 500 milhões de neurônios do que 100 bilhões. Ou seja, fazer esses modelos sintéticos poderá ser mais fácil agora.
Qual é a ambição do manifesto? Os neurocientistas se tornaram militantes do movimento sobre o direito dos animais? É uma questão delicada. Nosso papel como cientistas não é dizer o que a sociedade deve fazer, mas tornar público o que enxergamos. A sociedade agora terá uma discussão sobre o que está acontecendo e poderá decidir formular novas leis, realizar mais pesquisas para entender a consciência dos animais ou protegê-los de alguma forma. Nosso papel é reportar os dados.
As conclusões do manifesto tiveram algum impacto sobre o seu comportamento? Acho que vou virar vegano. É impossível não se sensibilizar com essa nova percepção sobre os animais, em especial sobre sua experiência do sofrimento. Será difícil, adoro queijo.
O que pode mudar com o impacto dessa descoberta? Os dados são perturbadores, mas muito importantes. No longo prazo, penso que a sociedade dependerá menos dos animais. Será melhor para todos. Deixe-me dar um exemplo. O mundo gasta 20 bilhões de dólares por ano matando 100 milhões de vertebrados em pesquisas médicas. A probabilidade de um remédio advindo desses estudos ser testado em humanos (apenas teste, pode ser que nem funcione) é de 6%. É uma péssima contabilidade. Um primeiro passo é desenvolver abordagens não invasivas. Não acho ser necessário tirar vidas para estudar a vida. Penso que precisamos apelar para nossa própria engenhosidade e desenvolver melhores tecnologias para respeitar a vida dos animais. Temos que colocar a tecnologia em uma posição em que ela serve nossos ideais, em vez de competir com eles.
By SETH BORENSTEIN-Associated Press Sunday, June 24, 2012
WASHINGTON (AP) – The more we study animals, the less special we seem.
Baboons can distinguish between written words and gibberish. Monkeys seem to be able to do multiplication. Apes can delay instant gratification longer than a human child can. They plan ahead. They make war and peace. They show empathy. They share.
“It’s not a question of whether they think _ it’s how they think,” says Duke University scientist Brian Hare. Now scientists wonder if apes are capable of thinking about what other apes are thinking.
The evidence that animals are more intelligent and more social than we thought seems to grow each year, especially when it comes to primates. It’s an increasingly hot scientific field with the number of ape and monkey cognition studies doubling in recent years, often with better technology and neuroscience paving the way to unusual discoveries.
This month scientists mapping the DNA of the bonobo ape found that, like the chimp, bonobos are only 1.3 percent different from humans.
Says Josep Call, director of the primate research center at the Max Planck Institute in Germany: “Every year we discover things that we thought they could not do.”
Call says one of his recent more surprising studies showed that apes can set goals and follow through with them.
Orangutans and bonobos in a zoo were offered eight possible tools _ two of which would help them get at some food. At times when they chose the proper tool, researchers moved the apes to a different area before they could get the food, and then kept them waiting as much as 14 hours. In nearly every case, when the apes realized they were being moved, they took their tool with them so they could use it to get food the next day, remembering that even after sleeping. The goal and series of tasks didn’t leave the apes’ minds.
Call says this is similar to a person packing luggage a day before a trip: “For humans it’s such a central ability, it’s so important.”
For a few years, scientists have watched chimpanzees in zoos collect and store rocks as weapons for later use. In May, a study found they even add deception to the mix. They created haystacks to conceal their stash of stones from opponents, just like nations do with bombs.
Hare points to studies where competing chimpanzees enter an arena where one bit of food is hidden from view for only one chimp. The chimp that can see the hidden food, quickly learns that his foe can’t see it and uses that to his advantage, displaying the ability to perceive another ape’s situation. That’s a trait humans develop as toddlers, but something we thought other animals never got, Hare said.
And then there is the amazing monkey memory.
At the National Zoo in Washington, humans who try to match their recall skills with an orangutan’s are humbled. Zoo associate director Don Moore says: “I’ve got a Ph.D., for God’s sake, you would think I could out-think an orang and I can’t.”
In French research, at least two baboons kept memorizing so many pictures _ several thousand _ that after three years researchers ran out of time before the baboons reached their limit. Researcher Joel Fagot at the French National Center for Scientific Research figured they could memorize at least 10,000 and probably more.
And a chimp in Japan named Ayumu who sees strings of numbers flash on a screen for a split-second regularly beats humans at accurately duplicating the lineup. He’s a YouTube sensation, along with orangutans in a Miami zoo that use iPads.
WATCH VIDEO: See how chimp family groups cope with the death of a close relative. (Caution: Images may be disturbing to some viewers.)
Philip Low: “Todos os mamíferos e pássaros têm consciência”. Divulgação.
Uma (in)certa antropologia 