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Published online 17 June 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.896
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Playtime kills young chimps
Social contact leads to disease and death for Ivory Coast apes.
For young chimpanzees, play can be fatal. Germs spread by play explain why one African group shows waves of infant mortality that peak every three years, say experts who have studied them.
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OMG, this is so SAD! I saw a special on Animal Planet about the poaching, and wonder wouldn't it be BETTER if the chimps WERE in confinement, and we could ENSURE they could be safe and healthy? Usually, it is best to keep animals in their own habitat. But, if their habitat is DYING, why let the animals also die? I believe that in America, we have a program which does nurse sick animals back to health and then, if at all possible, releases them into the wild. But, in one or two instances, if an animal was shown not to be ABLE to survive if he or she was released, that particular animal had to be kept in human confinement. What would be the alternatives? Let them die on their own and the species die out? Or put them to sleep if they can't survive in their natural habitat? I'm all for taking the few dozen adults back to America and putting them into special places like zoos which will take good care of them and get veterinary care for them. They also can get vaccinated, right? I also believe they can be TAUGHT proper play behavior, and that once they are taught, they will teach their own babies how to play nicely. Positive rewards can go a long way in training.
P.S. I totally disagree with Victoria Horner. In this particular instance, an exception needs to be made, as I stated in my former posting.
By the way, when I was doing my observations of preschool children for my degree in college, I was told also not to interfere. For example, if they were biting, fighting, or doing something that could injure themselves, I was taught to JUST OBSERVE and not interfere. In my mind, and in my opinion, that type of observation is just plain WRONG. I know it is the standard. Sometimes, however, the standard is INSUFFICIENT to better a situation. With all the observation being done, and NO SOLUTION to the situation, it makes all the observation MOOT. It's like observing a group of ants and then stepping on them, without concern for their welfare. Well, maybe that is NOT a good analogy, but you know what I mean. It's also a bit like being a peeping Tom. Kind of gross.
Moving a whole population of chimps would be counterproductive, as would training them to "play nice." We cannot vaccinate even ourselves against the common cold, so we cannot protect chimps against it either. The skills of wrestling and biting, which may seem anti-social to us, but which little chimps learn in play, are ones that they will later use as adults in normal chimp society. We can't interfere with normal development without cost.