[Note to mods: Though there is some of the character of a GQ here, I thought that this is more a debate than anything.
If I’ve misplaced this post, please move as you see fit].
Last night, watching the National Geographic channel, I saw a show about Jane Goodall and the chimps she has spent decades studying in the Gombe Stream Preserve.
There was really nothing new; I’ve read most of the articles that have appeared in the popular press, since 1963, and several books besides. And, as most of us know, it turns out that these chimpanzees not only have exterminated an entire rival group of chimps who lived nearby, but some males have been known to eat their own young. I know I’m anthropomorphizing here, but how can a species survive when they engage in such savagery, unimaginable even by human standards? Especially when the biological investment in a baby chimp is so great? I mean, it’s not as if they breed like rabbits. Female chimpanzees usually go years between one baby and the next. Is their whole culture sick, as it enters its final days? Is the sheer brutality shown among the Gombe Stream culture not something we should look at as “normal”, but a reaction to such adverse factors as loss of habitat? Or is the observer Jane Goodall inadvertently affecting the behavior of the observed chimps?
Although I am in no way qualified to offer an educated opinion on this, I do want to say this: That eliminating rivals, while it may do little to ensure the survuival of the species as a whole, will have a positive effect on ensuring the survuival of your particular genes. When you so invest so much in a baby chimp, it makes sense to go to great (even brutal, savage) lengths to make sure that that investment is worth it. I am sure that there were battles between tribes of primative men over fertile feeding/hunting grounds, and it has been argued elsewhere on these boards that all wars ultimately have a finacial root cause (which is really the same thing as protecting your feeding grounds).
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I cannot comment on these issues - hopefully someone else will do so…
I know that when male lion takes over a pack, he’ll kill all the cubs in the pack. People have practiced infanticide until recently, and actually still do in some places. Not to turn this into an abortion debate, but abortion also limits population growth. There can be good reasons for a population to kill its young. As Grimpixie mentioned, killing off non related children increases the passing on of your genes. If there are food shortages, infants, who don’t contribute to food gathering and are extra mouths to feed, can be a liability. Infants born deformed or with some disability that limits their chance of survival are also targets.
Extermination of rival groups also isn’t solely a chimpanzee trait. Its found in humans too, as Grimpixie also mentioned.
I have heard of infanticide perpetrated by males of other species, e.g. gorillas, but iirc it was always against infants fathered by other. Then further, a lot of lower animals do, like the lions mentioned supra. Speaking of cats, I’ve always heard that kittens need to be protected from tomcats. Cats, however, can produce a couple of litters a year, which is definitely not the case with chimps.
Never hear about them eating their own young. Is there a context for this? ie New male assumes control of troop. Lack of food? Infant is ill? Mother is dead? What?
I would imagine if someone is going to present this information in written or TV documentary format there would normally be some speculation as to the reason for this seemingly abberant behavior. What was this speculation or was it just presented as “Here he is eating the baby.”
Some info from Goodalls site. IIRC there is also evidence that pre-historic peoples consumed infants for food on a fairly regular basis based on teeth marks found on infant bones.
IIRC, the cannibalism incidents were on the parts of two females, a mother and daughter, and appeared to be unusual, practiced only by them on the infants of other females. Because it was so unusual, I don’t think it was regarded as a normal behavior.
Infanticide practiced by adult males is well-documented. It is fairly normal for a male chimp who displaces an established leader to kill the current crop of infants, causing the females in the tribe to go into season, allowing him to replace the genes of the former alpha male with his own.