Working for primate welfare and conservation
Do you like primates? The love most people have for them is innate. Their appearance (big eyes and expressive faces) is also typical of human babies so, as it happens with them, when we see a primate we need to take care of it.
“He has hit to the grandmother!” Several people laugh in a video of a chimpanzee throwing his droppings to the public who jelly in a Michigan zoo.
Miquel Llorente, president of the Primatological Association of Spain and responsible of the Research Department at Fundación MONA, recalls that the video may seem funny, but it is not. The chimpanzee “feels invaded”, it does not help that the public is higher than him and also, the animal does not have space to hide from the visitors, that are often “invasive and impolite”, especially when they ” hit the glass and scream to catch the attention of animals “.
The chimpanzee, therefore, is not playing with visitors, if not quite the opposite. Chimpanzees, explains Miquel Llorente, ” are very intelligent animals able to put themselves in the other’s place and to understand that they are laughing at him.” These apes have learned that “throwing stool causes rejection and causes the public to move away”, thereby achieving finally some peace.
Source: http://verne.elpais.com/verne/2017/04/05/articulo/1491382580_727928.html
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