Gorilla Youngsters Seen Dismantling Poachers’ Traps (2012)

Veterinarian Mike Cranfield, executive director of the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project, also said he wasn't shocked by the news.
"Chimpanzees are always quoted as being the tool users, but I think, when the situation provides itself, gorillas are quite ingenious," he said.
Cranfield speculated that the gorillas may have learned how to destroy traps by watching the Karisoke center's trackers.

Looks like they may have learned it from watching humans.

UltraMagnus• 7 years ago

Poacher: We're setting traps to give you Gorillas new homes.

Gorilla dismantling trap: No. Caesar IS home.

X6S1x6Okd1st• 7 years ago

They are setting traps for bush meat

YeGoblynQueenne• 7 years ago

"No we can't teach them," she said. "We try as much as we can to not interfere with the gorillas. We don't want to affect their natural behavior."

Tsk. Like the Prime Directive but in the real world.

Well, isn't it the natural behaviour of gorillas to learn? If they can learn by observing humans, without the humans specifically intending it, then what's so different, or unethical, if it's done with intent? I think this is just splitting of moral hairs that is missing an opportunity to help the gorillas protect themselves against poachers.

Anyway, if we left the gorillas on their own, without interfering, they'd eventually be wiped out by poachers and others.

P.S. It strikes me that the center's workers could have actually shown the gorillas how to dismantle the snares and are only pretending to be surprised at their "unprecedented" behaviour. But I'm proably just paranoid and jaded.

warent• 7 years ago

Exactly. It's more natural to allow humans to poach them out of existence than it is to potentially equip them to protect themselves from the same?

NikolaeVarius• 7 years ago

Yes, hunting is a thing

xwdv• 7 years ago

I feel that if any human was found to be teaching gorillas how to do human things, they would ultimately suffer punishment like Prometheus who taught humans how to use the fire of the gods.

SketchySeaBeast2• 7 years ago

Do you think the center has a trained eagle?

gridlockd3• 7 years ago

1) Prometheus isn't real

2) The punishment of Prometheus is based on him being immortal. Humans would die after the first round.

You're going to die anyway, being a martyr for the gorilla revolution doesn't seem like the worst way to go.

Someone2• 7 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koko_(gorilla):

”Hanabiko "Koko" (July 4, 1971 – June 19, 2018) was a female western lowland gorilla known for having learned a large number of hand signs from a modified version of American Sign Language (ASL)”

Wikipedia thinks Koko’s teacher still is alive (aged 72), so punishment certainly wasn’t swift.

tsumnia• 7 years ago

If they can learn by observing humans, without the humans specifically intending it, then what's so different, or unethical, if it's done with intent?

I think this might interfere with some research involving the gorillas. You cannot study their natural behaviors if you are assisting them. Not to say there isn't research teams looking to train gorillas, my point is that may not be THEIR focus. While they cannot control for poachers, they can control for them own interactions. Furthermore, not to slippery slope, but to what end do you believe they should be allowed to interfere? If, say, a diseased food source begins to decimate the group that could be prevented through cooking, should the researchers attempt to teach them how to cook the food source to kill the bacteria?

anigbrowl• 7 years ago

It's a lot harder to study them if they're dead. I'm heartily in favor of assisting them to the extent they want to learn, it's possible that the more effort we make to communicate the more we'll learn ourselves.

Also, if they're capable of learning then they're sapient by definition which means we have some moral obligations to them rather than being disinterested observers, because it's our species that is trying to kill them.

Perhaps we should start considering them as different species of people rather than mere livestock.

gridlockd3• 7 years ago

I think this might interfere with some research involving the gorillas. You cannot study their natural behaviors if you are assisting them.

I think this is a very poor argument. First of all, conservation trumps research. Secondly, their environment already isn't "natural" when it has got snare traps in it.

If, say, a diseased food source begins to decimate the group that could be prevented through cooking, should the researchers attempt to teach them how to cook the food source to kill the bacteria?

Seems far-fetched, but in principle: Yes, why the hell not?

NicoJuicy2• 7 years ago

Add giving them goggles for when they don't see well.

Ear devices for when they don't hear well.

A wheelchair for when they can't walk.

I'm afraid when Darwin passes by ( other group of gorillas) and the word of the strongest will be law.

( Just thinking out loud, with controversy :) )

gricardo99• 7 years ago

I'm no wild animal training expert, but surely there's a risk training gorillas could backfire?

humans training gorillas leads to gorillas being more trusting and less suspecting of humans, including poachers, or some other unintended consequences.

Eyes• 7 years ago

Or it triggers a cascading increase in intelligence, and they end up taking up arms and conquering us.

nkrisc• 7 years ago

It's always strange to me when people seem to think humans and the things we do and make aren't "natural." We evolved naturally on the this planet like all other life here did, what we do is natural.

homonculus1• 7 years ago

"Natural" by definition characterizes things that aren't a result of human activity. All you've realized is that it's a synthetic distinction and not a fundamental one, but if you turn around and include humans then its literally meaningless and you just lose a useful concept.

0xFFFE• 7 years ago

I wonder if we should show them how to write software?

viach• 7 years ago

Not software probably, but could be a plan B for Uber's "driverless" cars.

frosted-flakes• 7 years ago

That's probably not as stupid as it sounds. Well, actually it is, but if horses can drive their carriages autonomously, could we teach gorillas to do the same for cars?

Someone2• 7 years ago

Gorillas are way too big for that. They would require larger, more expensive cars and more food than, for example, Bonobos.

You could also try to use pigeons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon)

Haga• 7 years ago

Give them a way to transmit video tutorials to other gorilla's, skip writing.

jacquesm• 7 years ago

Based on the quality of some code bases I suspect that we passed that point long ago.

deepnotderp• 7 years ago

"Kids these days are so rude"

hirundo• 7 years ago

"If we could get more of them doing it, it would be great," he joked. Karisoke's Vecellio, though, said actively instructing the apes would be against the center's ethos. "No we can't teach them," she said. "We try as much as we can to not interfere with the gorillas. We don't want to affect their natural behavior."

I would think that the main danger is in habituating the gorillas to humans, teaching them that we're safe when we're not. It may be better if any human interaction with them is aversive but not damaging, like pepper spray.

darth_skywalker• 7 years ago

Pepper spray is actually quite damaging.

3martron• 7 years ago

It was an example, captain pedantic.

leoc• 7 years ago

I'd also think that there's a good chance that it would be damaging mostly to the human on the other end of the spray cannister.

irjustin• 7 years ago

Definitely this moral grey area where ethics arguments on both sides are completely valid.

- Messing with natural behavior

- Not being able to adequately defend oneself because we're stuck debating an ethics question

While it is a bit of a straw man attack - if this were humans, the answer would be clear.

wildylion• 7 years ago

So,is present time the another Neanderthal moment in our history?

swebs• 7 years ago

Bush-meat hunters set thousands of rope-and-branch snares in Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park, where the mountain gorillas live. The traps are intended for antelope and other species but sometimes capture the apes.
The hunters, Vecellio said, seem to have no interest in the gorillas. Even small apes, which would be relatively easy to carry away for sale, are left to die.

Pretty misleading for the title to blame poachers then, isn't it?

magissima• 7 years ago

Considering it's a national park, hunting antelope is probably also considered poaching.

boblebricoleur• 7 years ago

Yes. That's why setting trap in some countries is a strictly regulated activity and lethal or harmful traps are almost always forbidden. You can't always catch what you intended to, so you have to give a way out to the guy you caught by mistake. Snares without a stop are harmful by design.

ajna91• 7 years ago

If someone breaks into your house to steal your TV, knocks over a candle, doesn't put out the fire and leaves. Are they not to blame for the fire even if they were only interested in the TV?

bwb• 7 years ago

I for one welcome our new overlords, I hope to serve them well.

cwkoss• 7 years ago

When will governments start selling licenses to hunt poachers?

scythe• 7 years ago

I suppose the market for parts of dismembered idealistic Westerners might offset the market for animal parts, if that's what you're thinking.

ekianjo• 7 years ago

Hunt poachers, then sell their organs legally at market price, and then take a cut of the profits. This way the government does not even have to pay for anything.

Of course, highly controversial idea, but if you really want to curb down poaching, it might be a good way to fight back with better incentives.

tempguy99994• 7 years ago

I recall an article on poachers in africa. In that particular case it was down to poverty - I poach or my children go hungry. I've no doubt we'd all do the same.

dang• 7 years ago

Not here, please.

twic• 7 years ago

Few technologies will ever stand up to the will of adolescents trying to do things they’re told they’re not allowed to do -- Scott Berkun [1]

[1] https://scottberkun.com/essays/37-how-to-build-a-better-web-...

disordinary5• 7 years ago

In Aotearoa-New Zealand we set traps for introduced species like stoats, rats, possums, etc. that kill our endangered wildlife that evolved without natural predators.

The Kea which are very smart mountain parrots will go and disarm the traps in order to eat the bait. They're smart enough to have figured out how to do this, and are one of just a handful of animals that habitually use tools, but are unfortunately too smart for their own good because their handiwork means there's more predators for them.

But, some people don't give animals enough credit. Mammals and especially primates are very, very close to Humans genetically. Animals are often very smart.

xu_ituairo• 7 years ago

How does their handiwork make them targets?

disordinary5• 7 years ago

The traps are there to kill the introduced predators that hunt the Kea, their eggs, and chicks.

By disarming the traps there are more predators to hunt them.

dredmorbius• 7 years ago

Stoats, rats, and posums are introduced invasive predator species in New Zealand, which prey on native birds such as parrots.

By disabling traps, the parrots increase their predator population.

A classic case of solving for a net-harmful local optimum.

danaliv• 7 years ago

unfortunately too smart for their own good because their handiwork means [certain doom]

Reminds me of a certain mammalian species.

irq• 7 years ago

Almost like this trait might be inherent in all mammals. Or does it go even higher? All animals? All life? Evolve intelligence, begin building your doom?

jacobush2• 7 years ago

Reminds me about https://www.epsilontheory.com/too-clever-by-half/ which is incidentally very much about the mammalian species you are thinking of, as well as canids.

patagonia2• 7 years ago

introduced species like stoats, rats, possums, etc. that kill our endangered wildlife

Yep. Like. Humans?

duxup• 7 years ago

Clearly the next step is to somehow communicate with the Kea.

philwelch3• 7 years ago

What’s the bait? Interesting that either the Kea or their predators are omnivorous enough that would happen.

disordinary5• 7 years ago

Apparently Eggs. Also the research shows that they enjoy the noise of setting off the trap. They also throw things off cliffs just to hear them hit the bottom.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/09/extraordi...

bredren2• 7 years ago

This smartness and their very consciousness and ability to suffer is what makes industrialized meat production so ruthless.

remcob• 7 years ago

I generally avoid meat for this and other reasons, but the Kea for sure don't seem to care about animal rights:

The video confirmed what many scientists had long suspected: that the kea uses its powerful, curved beak and claws to rip through the layer of wool and eat the fat from the back of the animal. Though the bird does not directly kill the sheep, death can result from infections or accidents suffered by animals when trying to escape.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kea#Sheep

randomsearch• 7 years ago

If you’re hiking in NZ, especially in alpine territory, watch out for Kea. They will figure out how to steal your food, even if it’s in the pocket of your bag!

disordinary5• 7 years ago

And all alpine chalets and cabins in Kea habitated areas have warning signs about leaving windows open with pictures of the share devastation they cause when they get inside. Where I live we have Kaka which are related to Kea. All they do is tear trees to shreds.

ironic_ali• 7 years ago

So, what you're saying is the Keas that stripped the rubber round my windscreen up at Mt Hutt, thought my car was a big metal trap with tasty goodies inside?

disordinary5• 7 years ago

I think they just like to watch our reactions.

LifeLiverTransp• 7 years ago

Could you give such animals tools to hunt predators? Like little spears, suddenly turning the balance of weapons around towards the tool users?

toper-centage• 7 years ago

Well, can a mountain parrot turn a can into a work of art??

TOGoS• 7 years ago

I at first read this as "Guerilla Youngsters Seen Dismantling Poachers' Traps."

Either way I'm all for it.

ChuckMcM• 7 years ago

Kind of makes you wonder if human evolution was driven by predation.

hvmonk• 7 years ago

I just realized that it is a 7 years old article!

patagonia2• 7 years ago

Or how about the video of the orangutan fighting the bulldozer destroying its home? I used to think people just didn’t realize that animals have internal emotional, social, intellectual lives. But I’m now convinced we know and choose to look away. Tragically.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/8896313/david-attenbor...

gerbilly• 7 years ago

"Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds"

You know what bothers me? movies like the lord of the rings trilogy that make us yearn for an imaginary a more magical time.

We are living in the end days of that magical time right now. We don't need fantasies about walking/talking trees when there are 'magical' animals we share the planet with right now that we haven't bothered to get to know.

Some have already been wiped out, and the others, well we are working on it...

Retra2• 7 years ago

Nobody yearns to live in those imaginary places, they yearn to talk about them and think about them. The real world is far more dangerous and scary than the most treacherous fiction.

Bartweiss• 7 years ago

At the beginning of Dune, someone differentiates humans from animals like this:

You've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind.

The idea is recognizable, at least. It's antelope individually scattering from a cheetah, rather than forming a tight group that wouldn't be attacked a second time. But it's sad, and kind of funny, just how wrong it is to draw that line at 'humans'. Gorillas disarm traps instead of avoiding them. Elephants defend their friends, even across species, and bury their dead. Dolphins proactively kill sharks, and hold injured dolphins - or humans - at the surface to breath. Even octopuses, not usually understood as a social species, display clear theory of mind.

It's not just the endless redefinition of "tool use" that feels like hubris anymore. Just about everything we consider deeply meaningful, emotion and intellect and teaching and even ritual, is not a uniquely human experience.

Retra2• 7 years ago

We're very highly tuned for amplifying differences in humans. You get to know some people, and you see them as completely different. People also judge children as different from adults, when from a more objective perspective, the differences are fairly minimal. Animals don't stand a chance.

erikpukinskis• 7 years ago

My pet theory is that most animals know they’re conscious and know they are part of one consciousness.

Humans evolved an illusion that we are alone in an individual consciousness because it was an adaptation: the mistaken belief makes it easier for us to kill, and kill in large numbers. Which happened to work well for us. It let us kill off any humans who thought there was anything wrong with carving out a new world without regard for the cost to other creatures.

Without that adaptation we never would have created civilization.

whearyou• 7 years ago

Beautiful and true

toyg2• 7 years ago

We don’t “look away”, we grant large mammals a huge degree of respect. They are just old foes in a war we resoundingly won. Allowing them a degree of parity without restarting the conflict, is just challenging.

breatheObserve• 7 years ago

This makes me wonder how will the rest of the lifeforms will evolve in future. Will gorillas become more intelligent to survive in a current human dominated environment? Will they evolve to the point, where they become early versions of the homo sapiens?

DoctorOetker2• 7 years ago

Could the gorillas be the poachers? The story seems consistent with the gorrilas warning the tracker by grunt to stay put, then dismantle their nearby traps to protect the humans. This is also consistent with the fact that the tracker hadn't noticed the second trap. I don't really believe my suggestion though, but the coincidence probability does seem rather low for 2 such trap-dismantling events during a single encounter between tracker and gorillas. If they spontaneously dismantled strictly for themselves, I'd expect the traps to already be dismantled, if the gorillas preferred the traps dismantled. Perhaps human poachers set the traps, and the gorillas for some reason benefit or are entertained by the trapped animmals?

On Tuesday tracker John Ndayambaje spotted a trap very close to the Kuryama gorilla clan. He moved in to deactivate the snare, but a silverback named Vubu grunted, cautioning Ndayambaje to stay away, Vecellio said.
Suddenly two juveniles—Rwema, a male; and Dukore, a female; both about four years old—ran toward the trap.
As Ndayambaje and a few tourists watched, Rwema jumped on the bent tree branch and broke it, while Dukore freed the noose.
The pair then spied another snare nearby—one the tracker himself had missed—and raced for it. Joined by a third gorilla, a teenager named Tetero, Rwema and Dukore destroyed that trap as well.

andyidsinga• 7 years ago

From the article:

"If we could get more of them doing it, it would be great," he joked.
Karisoke's Vecellio, though, said actively instructing the apes would be against the center's ethos.
"No we can't teach them," she said. "We try as much as we can to not interfere with the gorillas. We don't want to affect their natural behavior."

I wonder if this "prime-directive" style rule might be something they consider changed - if there was a way to teach the gorillas to disabled various kinds of traps it seems that would be great.

On the other hand, I wonder what the side effects would be.. anyone?

Gorilla Youngsters Seen Dismantling Poachers’ Traps (2012)

Related Stories